By Rocio Granados - La Voz Catolica
Photographer: ROCIO GRANADOS | LVC
Celia Cabrera, better known as �Celita� to everyone at Msgr. Edward Pace High School in Miami Gardens. She is a Spanish teacher and a counselor to all who require it.
Photographer: ROCIO GRANADOS | LVC
Celia Cabrera, better known as �Celita,� makes Cuban coffee for her ninth-grade class at Msgr. Edward Pace High School.
�When he refused to pay, I said,
�I�ll pay�,� Cabrera recalled, and she began ferrying neighborhood kids to
school in her station wagon. She charged $5 a week.
One day, a friend of hers who
owned one of the private school buses �
known as �guag�itas� in South Florida �
that took students to Msgr. Edward Pace High School told her, �Buy the guag�ita
from me, Celita.�
�I don�t have money,� she
replied.
To which her friend answered,
�Pay me when you can.�
�And that�s how I began my life
as a guag�era,� recalled Cabrera, better known as �Celita� to everyone at Pace
High School in Miami Gardens, where she now heads the foreign language
department and teaches Spanish.
�Imagine me,� she recalled
recently, �driving the bus, teaching at Pace, dropping off kids, going to
Immaculate (Conception School in Hialeah), picking up my daughters and the
other kids, dropping them off, coming home, cooking and then going to St.
Thomas (University), where I would fall asleep (in class).�
At age 68, her kids grown and a Ph.D.
under her belt, Cabrera�s life is much less stressful but she still says, �I
loved being a guag�era.�
Catholic Schools Week: Jan. 26-Feb. 1, 2014
�No one has graduated from Pace
without knowing who Celita is and without knowing about her Cuban coffee, or
Coffee 101,� said Elvita Reigosa, Pace�s public relations and special events
coordinator.
Hearing Cabrera say, �You want
coffee?� during her classes is routine. She uses the Cuban brew to teach her
students to use phrases such as �Claro que s� (yes, by all means), �Por favor�
(please) and �Por supuesto� (of course).
��S�, c�mo no!, a former student
told me the other day in the hallway,� said Cabrera, adding that it�s an
educational technique that encourages students to talk, learn and share.
Serving coffee also breaks the
stereotype that a teacher must be strict. She is not offended when some of her
students call her �Celita� rather than Mrs. Cabrera. �Why, that�s my name,� she
says smiling.
Cabrera began teaching Spanish
more than 40 years ago when she saw the phrase �Time, Talent and Treasure� at
her daughters� school, Immaculate Conception in Hialeah.
Photographer: ROCIO GRANADOS | LVC
Celita in her closet, which in addition to uniforms, has everything children may need at school.
�I have time, I have talent and I
don�t have treasure, but that inspired me and that�s how I started,� she said,
recalling how she taught Spanish at Immaculate for 13 years as a volunteer,
charging �not one cent.�
Then one day, Pace High called
looking for a substitute Spanish teacher.
�They lent me!� she said,
referring to Immaculate. �It was their biggest mistake: 28 years ago I came
here for two weeks and I never left.�
Pace�s principal offered her the
job fulltime. When told she did not have a degree, the principal said she was
an �innate teacher� and arranged for Cabrera to receive a scholarship from St.
Thomas University.
Cabrera strived to finish as
quickly as possible, taking more than 24 credits a semester while keeping up
the �guag�ita� business �
which by then included three buses �
and taking care of her household.
�I finally graduated number one
in my class, with degrees in Spanish and secondary education,� she said.
Feeling more secure about her
work as a teacher, she stopped being a �guag�era�; one bus she sold, the others
she gave away.
�Celita has many virtues,� said Ana Garcia, Pace�s principal.
Among them is her ability to make
students feel welcome enough to ask for advice on any topic. Anyone who comes
to see her is greeted with an enormous smile and a hug. All of her classes start
with a prayer.
�Anybody can teach them math or
languages. Celita teaches them how to overcome difficult moments. Her prayers
turn into moral lessons,� said Garcia.
�I have always been very
fortunate,� said Cabrera, which is why she likes to help others.
She recalled when she left Cuba
at age 15 and arrived in Costa Rica with her brothers. They had no money but
she obtained a scholarship for one of them to attend a Catholic school.
�He was very intelligent but I
had to buy the uniform and I had nothing with which to do it,� Cabrera said. �I
went store by store, asking and begging, until they gave me two pants and a
shirt.�
That�s where she got the idea for
what is known around Pace as Celita�s Closet.
�The students who graduate bring
back their uniforms. She spends all summer mending them, washing and ironing,
in order to give them away to kids who can�t afford them,� said Reigosa.
In Celita�s Closet, the uniforms
are organized by size and sell for $5 or less, depending on the student�s
ability to pay.
�One of Celita�s most beautiful
traits is her energy. She has a passion for everything she does and that
passion is transmitted with love to everything she touches,� said Garcia.
�She�s like a charger, a battery, always doing many things.�
That energy is what led her to
pursue more than a bachelor�s degree. She went on to get a master�s in English
as a Second Language from Nova Southeastern University.
Then she noticed how much the
school was spending on textbooks, so she wrote her own, on Spanish grammar and
spelling for secondary schools, called �Nuestros Primeros Pasos� (First Steps).
When she finished the book she
realized �it�s not the same to put Celita Cabrera from Hialeah as Celita
Cabrera, Ph.D.,� so she pursued an online doctorate in literature from the
Universidad Mayor de San Marcos in Peru.
She has since written other
books: �Nuestras Ra�ces� (Our Roots) and �Nuestras Huellas� (Our Footprints).
Her first book she dedicated to her father, the others to her daughters and
grandchildren, and the third to her current husband.
She recently completed � and sold � a series of Spanish textbooks for grades two to six. She also has
received many honors for achievements as a teacher, but the greatest, for her,
is the recognition she gets from her own students.
�She is my rock. She is always
there to give me energy when I need it,� said Cristina Cruz, a former student
and now a colleague in the language arts department.
Photographer: ROCIO GRANADOS | LVC
Celita Cabrera, right, is shown with Anaika Alezi, a 10th-grader at Msgr. Edward Pace High School.
�I feel completely fulfilled when
I teach,� said Cabrera. �When the students ask questions; when they want to
know more; when I know they�re interested, I am completely happy.�
Not that her own family doesn�t
make her happy as well: Three daughters, six grandchildren and her husband, who was her boyfriend in Cuba. They
reconnected 20 years after she left and have now been married for 33.
�I could have retired two years
ago but every time I think about it I say, really, I don�t want to go,� Cabrera
said. �Thank God, I love what I do.�
Comments from readers
Anthony Loperfido
Class of 1997
Alex
c/o 1994
I am sure I speak for my classmates and all of Celita's students when I say that we are forever grateful for her commitment to teach and to live the charity found in the Gospels.
�Bendiciones Celita!
-Matthew
c/o 2009
It is not mentioned in the article that she has also served as a sponsor to many activities, including "Dance Line", to which she dedicated very long hours, days and years!!!
Truly a VERY UNIQUE woman!!!
God Bless you!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY... You are truly one of a kind! Miss you and your Cuban coffee! Many blessings and love!
Christina Lopez c/o 2012