Carmen Goiricelaya

Carmen Goiricelaya left Cuba as a teenager in 1964 and moved with her family to Venezuela. In 2003, she brought her husband and three children with her to the United States, settling in Bridgeport where her aunt was a dentist. Since 2004 she has worked with new immigrants at the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants, helping them with immigration and visa issues.  

On leaving Cuba: 

It’s part of this eagerness to give the best to our family, you don’t stay and decide, "whatever happens I’m going to stay here." No, you see a better opportunity, and … you have this on your genes. You don’t be like, "OK, it’s my life, I need to suffer this way." No, there is another thing that can be done, give it a try.  

We left Cuba with only a little bag of clothes. No money, with, you left the ring of your marriage, the thing that they put you at your baptism, everything, they don’t let you take any of your belongings. If you want to leave the country as a traitor, you left everything behind...Just to be able to leave the country, in one piece. That’s the, then I think let you know that you are more than your belongings...I don’t get attached of those things. I have the things I learn in my life, the degrees I got at the university, the experience I got when I worked, and the eagerness to start a new life, I don’t need anything else.  

On becoming American: 

I was born in Cuba, I know that I have the possibility to emigrate to the United States and take my family with me, and that was the first thing that made me think, OK, I am the mother of three, I can help my family. Leaving behind a life, but starting a new one here. And we, we are really grateful of that decision, because now all our children are here, all our children are, you know, growing, and they are all of them American citizens now. 

I’m very proud of the way this country is organized. And I’m very proud that here you can fight for your things, you cannot be, "this people are doing things wrong," no, you can say, "stop it. It’s not fair," I can go and, I feel, I have been a fighter all my life, it’s perfect, I’m in the right place.