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Raeyonn Starghill
Instructor Harrison
HON 1000-516
23 October 2015
Essay #1: Who Are We?
The Spanish American War was a short-lived war that the United States conducted
against Spain in 1898. On February 15, 1898, a mysterious explosion sank the battleship USS
Maine in Havana Harbor. This started the war between the United States and Spain. The USS
Maine had come to Cuba to protect American citizens while Cuban revolutionaries were fighting
to win independence from Spain. A lot of the fighting happened in and near the Spanish colonial
properties of Cuba and the Philippines. This war was the complete destruction of a Spanish
naval squadron by a massively, superior U.S. fleet. The defeat struck the end of Spains colonial
domain yet the rise of the United States as an international military power. The only good that
came out of the war was Cubas eventual independence from Spain. The war cost the United
States 3,000 lives, ninety percent of whom perished from yellow fever, typhoid fever and other
infectious diseases. This is the story of a former sister nurse of the Spanish American war, Elena
George, and her experiences that she came across as she adapted to life in Detroit, Michigan.
Hello my name is Elena George, and I am now an official citizen of the United States. I
was born and raised in Havana, Cuba, where I was a nun. In my country, I served as a sister
nurse during the Spanish American war. Shortly after the war, I chose to leave my country
because of the severe, infectious diseases (yellow fever, typhoid fever, etc.) flowing throughout
it. When it came to deciding where to go, I had to put my future in perspective. I knew that I had

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to go somewhere with upcoming opportunities for myself, as well as my career. I soon packed
my belongings and headed for the one place that I knew had something for me, Detroit.
When I first arrived to the US, I had to make a trip through the buildings on Ellis Island.
There had to undergo immigrant examination and inspection. This was one of the most stressful
processes that I have ever had to go through. The inspector gave me a health inspection,
background check, and they asked an enormous amount of questions. They even made me pay
fifty cents in order to enter the country. Once I was done with the overall investigation, I then
boarded a train headed straight for Detroit. Arriving to Detroit was, in a way, the start of a new
beginning for me.
During my first year in the United States, I was constantly moving from shelter to shelter.
I did this not only to have somewhere to stay, but to remain in the US for at least a year to be
allowed to pursue residency. During this year, I also was fortunate enough to get a job at a local
packaging factory doing janitorial services. The pay was not a lot, but just enough for me to save
up for a new home. Adapting to the city life was a little rough at first, because of the constant
moving and low salary. Once I spent whole year in the US, I got my approval for residency. I
moved into a small one bedroom house. Just when I thought that my life was going good, I was
blessed enough to get hired by Henry Ford to work at the new Ford Motor Company that next
year (1903), making five dollars a day, working five to six days a week. I worked in the cut-andsew department, where I cut and sewed fabric together to make car seat covers. A typical day at
work included nine hours of work and, a thirty minute to an hour lunch break in between. This
job was everything I hoped for in Detroit.
Living in Detroit was a huge transformation from living in Cuba. Being in the city really
helped me out in being a US citizen. Since I was a legal US citizen, I could do everything by

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myself if I wanted to. I became more independent in Detroit. I had a great job that paid great
money for someone of my kind (minority female). Actually, I made more money than I ever
made in Cuba. Living in the city also helped me network and meet new people. I know people of
all different nationalities that came to Detroit for the same reason that I did. The reason was to
create a future for ourselves in the land of the free.
Before I moved to the city, I did not really have a sense of what I wanted to do with my
life after the war, let alone where I wanted to go. Most of the people who were leaving my
country went to Florida (closest to Cuba) to start their new lives. I chose to go deeper inside of
the US, not knowing what Detroit had in store for me. I came into the city as a former sister
nurse, with barely any experience in anything besides caring for people. Back in Cuba, you did
not have to have any qualifications in nursing in order to be a sister nurse. As a nun, it was my
Godly duty to take care of others whenever and however I could. Now I am making my own
money, I am an independent home owner and I am still getting better as the day go by. Moving to
the city not only helped me, it also helped the city itself in a way. With the help of high
immigration rates, the city was able to raise production in the automotive industry. In a way, us
former immigrants helped Detroit earned its glorious nick name, The Motor City.
I came into the city as a non-experienced, dependent Cuban woman. I am now an
independent Cuban American woman with a good job, my own home, and, in a month, a proud
automobile owner. Living in the city has benefitted me tremendously. Throughout my years of
residing in Detroit, I have had nothing but opportunities that have helped build my future, what is
now my present, into something that I could not have imagined, plus more.

References

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1.) "Cuban Americans." Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life. Ed. Timothy L.
Gall and Jeneen Hobby. 2nd ed. Vol. 2: Americas. Detroit: Gale, 2009. 166-169. Gale
Virtual Reference Library. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.
2.) Arias, Elizabeth. "Change in Nuptiality Patterns Among Cuban Americans: Evidence of
Cultural and Structural Assimilation? [1]." International Migration Review 35.2 (2001):
525. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Oct. 2015. (Peer reviewed)
3.) Prez, Lisandro. "Cubans In The United States." Annals Of The American Academy Of
Political & Social Science 487.(1986): 126-137. America: History & Life. Web. 23 Oct.
2015.
4.) Graf, Mercedes. "Band Of Angels: Sister Nurses In The Spanish-American
War." Prologue 34.3 (2002): 196-209. America: History & Life. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.
5.) Martelle, Scott. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review, 2012. Print.
6.) Tocqueville, Alexis. Fortnight in the Wilderness. Tocqueville in America. Ed. George
W. Pierson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1938. 229-259.
7.) Fisher, Phillip. Democratic social Space. Still the New World: American Literature in
a Culture of Creative Destruction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 33-55.