I can’t remember exactly when I met Sotero Fuentevilla and his family. It was in the early 1970s when I was in high school.
The Fuentevilla family and the Portillo family had entered each other’s cultural circles. They were our Cubano friends. We were their Mexican-American friends. We enjoyed their lechón asado, pit roasted pork, with white rice and black beans. They savored our grilled tripas, beef intestines, with flour tortillas, frijoles and fresh salsa.
The family connections went further than food, however. We embraced the Fuentevillas, welcomed them to their adopted home, and learned from them. In turn they absorbed their new surroundings, incorporated the best that Tucson could offer and shared their lives with us.
Memories whirled in my mind at Fuentevilla’s funeral Mass, Saturday, Jan. 23, at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church on North Campbell Avenue. He was 86 years old.
His widow, Arminda, and their children, Elena, Ana, Marta and Miguel, and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren were joined by other family members, and longtime friends and colleagues. While our two families had drifted apart over the years, the bonds were still present and we mourned the passing of a family friend.
The Fuentevilla family story is similar to that of many, many immigrant families in Tucson and Southern Arizona. It’s one of loss, rebirth, sadness and success.
He and his pregnant wife, with their two eldest daughters, fled their native Cuba in 1961, two years after the revolution. Fuentevilla chafed under Fidel Castro’s Communist rule. They arrived in the United States with no money and no possessions but with ganas and strength.
Fuentevilla, a college educated accountant, worked at odd, low-level jobs. After several years living in other U.S. cities, the Fuentevilla family arrived in Tucson in 1970, the same year he became a U.S. citizen.
Pima Community College, which had recently opened its classrooms, recruited Fuentevilla to teach accounting. He remained on the college staff for 30 years.
Not long after the family settled in Tucson, the Tucson Unified School District hired Arminda Fuentevilla to teach in its newly created bilingual education program. She joined the staff at Mission View Elementary School on South Eighth Avenue in South Tucson, a largely Mexican-American community. Years later, she became a professor of bilingual education at the University of Arizona’s Department of Language, Reading and Culture in the College of Education.
Their arrival in Tucson, where they knew no one, was a new beginning. The Fuentevillas immersed themselves in Tucson culture, civics and community, all the while lamenting and loving their Cuba.
The Fuentevillas opened up the world of Latin America to me. I had grown up wrapped within a Mexican-American cultural cocoon and knew little of other Spanish-speaking countries and communities. The Fuentevilla family initiated me into the larger world of Latin America, as I listened to their sentimental and humorous stories about Cuban life and customs, all in their charming, rapid-fire Spanish, even if I couldn’t always follow the conversations.
In return, la familia Fuentevilla joined our family for a long weekend trip to Huásabas, a small Sonoran sierra town from where many Tucson families originated. The family understood that while Cuba was a distant dream, they found cultural connections in Tucson and Mexico that lessened the loss of their beloved Cuba.
To the end of his life, Fuentevilla, a loyal UA Wildcat basketball fan, was deeply appreciative of the opportunities that the U.S. and Tucson offered him and his family. His children found success in their professional careers: as an educator, physician, accountant and architect.
His biggest loss, however, was the death of his eldest son, Soterito, who died when he was 33 years old. That tragedy never left him.
But in death, father and son are reunited.
