Hispanic Heritage Month :: Coach Jonneshia Pineda
Women's Basketball
10/7/2022
However, as I got older, it became more and more essential for me to ask those super important questions, like 'why did my family move here in the first place?'
When I was little, my father Johnny and I were, as my mother Antoinette would say, "closer than close." We had a very special bond.
But, tragically my father was taken away from me just four years into my life. He had been murdered.
And me, even at just four years old, I knew something was wrong that day as I had to be checked out of preschool because I couldn't stop being visibly upset.
My intuition told me something was wrong and unfortunately, my life would forever be altered that day.
I knew that my father and his family had moved here from Bogota, Colombia when he was young, and because of that my Colombian heritage had always been important to me.
However, as I got older, it became more and more essential for me to ask those super important questions, like 'why did my family move here in the first place?'
My father, along with his mother Rosalba, sisters Rosa, Tammy and Rosarito and brother Jamie made the dangerous journey to the United States in 1980 when my father was in high school. Bogota had become more and more riddled with crime, violence and poverty and they made the trip north seeking a better life.
So they moved to Miami. Then my father met my mother Antoinette, who is from the Bahamas, at Coral Gables High School. They were each other's first love!
Even after my father's death, because I was closely surrounded by the rest of my family, we celebrated many Colombian holidays and traditions. We opened Christmas presents at midnight on Christmas Eve. We ate rice, beans, steak, platinos and arepas at Thanksgiving dinner. We celebrated several Quinceañeras, which marks a woman's passage into womanhood on her 15th birthday.
In addition to those holidays, the food that I grew up with because of my family is something that is very important to me. One way for me to tap into my heritage now is through my cooking.
I love to cook Colombian food and my specialty is Sancocho. Sancocho is a stew that is made of large pieces of beef, yucca potatoes, mixed veggies and a little cilantro, onion and cumin. Give me some sancocho, along with a Colombiana la nuetra kola flavored soda, and sometimes that is all I need to immediately transport myself back home with my family.
But, it's funny, not everything Colombian is for me. All of my family, as do most Colombians, loves café con leche. I do not. I'm just not a coffee drinker. But, my abuela Rosalba is always quick to remind me that because of my distaste for café con leche that, "you are not Colombian, you are American."
I know I am proud. I'm proud of my father.
I'm proud of my family.
And you know what…she is right. I am American. And that is a blessing. I'm blessed that my father, along with the rest of my family, made that epic voyage to the United States. Because now, I realize that not only were they seeking a better life for themselves, but they were seeking a better life for those of us that came after them. For that, I am forever grateful.
Because of their sacrifice, it makes it even more important for me to be successful with the opportunities they provided me. I hope I am making them proud with what I have done with my career. I also hope that I am making them proud as I strive for my Colombian citizenship and work to improve my Spanish speaking.
I know I am proud. I'm proud of my father. I'm proud of my family.
