Florida 19

Listen to Florida 19, a 62-year-old man from Winter Haven, Florida, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 62

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/03/1956

PLACE OF BIRTH: Havana, Cuba

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Cuban American

OCCUPATION: business owner

EDUCATION: master’s degree in business administration, with a major in marketing and a minor in macroeconomics

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was born in Cuba three years before Fidel Castro came to power. He lived there (mostly in Matanzas) until the age of 6 (in 1962), when his family moved to Florida. He provided the following breakdown of places he has lived since moving to the United States. All but about four years of that time has been spent in Florida.

Age 6-11: Hialeah, Florida
Age 11-28: Winter Haven, Florida (the latter few years in Tampa, where the subject completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees)
Age 28-35: Tallahassee, Florida
Age 35-51: Orlando, Florida
Age 51-53: Hong Kong, China
Age 53-54: Dana Point, California
Age 54-Present: Orlando, Florida

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Throughout his lifetime, the subject has traveled to 77 countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. The woman he married, whom he met in Tallahassee, Florida, is originally from Texas. It is because of her career that the two of them and their son briefly lived in Hong Kong and California. Even though the subject is fluent in and comfortable with English, he still frequently speaks Spanish with family members and friends.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Sarah Maria Nichols

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/04/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So we came from Cuba on Mother’s Day, May 13, 1962. Um, on that trip, it was my mom, dad, and the three of us. Uh, so we came to Miami. Um, we moved to, um, Hialeah. When we first arrived, we didn’t have any money. So the first place we went to was the Freedom Tower. The Freedom Tower is this place near, uh, downtown Miami. It’s still there; it’s a very tall, old, Art Deco tower, which has been renovated; prob’ly in the last twenty or thirty years it was renovated. [tsk] Uh, but when we got there, that’s where we were first taken. We were met there by government officials and, um, the Red Cross. We were given, you know, some personal items, um, like toothbrush and stuff like that, some food, and so on. [tsk] And then, um, we went to our first place where we stayed — was like a duplex. It was a one-room duplex. The only door in the duplex was the door goin’ outside and then the door into the bathroom. So all five of us were in this tiny little duplex. We were there for quite a while.

Um, when you first came from Cuba to the United States, the U.S. Government would give you a hundred dollars a month. But as soon as you got a job, that hundred dollars would go away. But that’s how we started. Um, my dad, uh, you know, started looking for job, a — he found, I be-, I believe the very first job he got was, uh, cleaning, uh, pizza machines at a pizzeria. During that time, the Red Cross would give us some food; it was government-surplus food, and it was a can of ham — like SPAM — a brick of cheese, um, white rice, and, uh, corn meal, like “Harina.” And my mother became very creative in making meals based on those items. It might have been a couple other things, like maybe some sugar or somethin’. So, uh, yeah, I mean it was a hard time for, for my parents. We were kids, so we kinda made the best of it, um, not realizing how difficult things really were, but, uh, that was our start in the United States back in 1962.

[Subject speaks Spanish]: Nosotros nos mudamos de Miami en el mil noveciento sesenta y siete. Cuando mi papá, uh, cuando el trabajo de mi papá nos mudaron, uh, para Winter Haven. La compañia que – con quién el trabajaba, era una compañia que hacía liquores, que se llamaba “Old Florida Rum.” Y cuando mudaron la factoría el decidió venir a Winter Haven para seguir trabajando con esa compania.

[Partial English translation: We moved from Miami in 1967 when my dad, uh, when my dad’s work moved us to Winter Haven. The company that – with whom he worked was a company that sold liquors, that was called “Old Florida Rum.”]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Sarah Maria Nichols

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 25/04/2018

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

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