Free An American Son: A Memoir by Marco Rubio Page A

teasing was disrespectful, and would scold him for it.
    My father probably shared my grandfather’s political views, but he rarely discussed politics with my grandfather or with me when I was young, or with anyone as far as I know. He was consumed by the business of making a living and raising his children, and showed little interest in much else. He shared the family’s antipathy to communism and visceral dislike for talk about redistributing wealth. Like my grandfather, he believed such schemes led only to entrenching the power of the regime at the expense ofthe powerless, who lost jobs and opportunities because their employers had fled the regime that had confiscated their property.
    My father and grandfather were different in many respects. They had different personalities, and neither was given to effusive expressions of affection. But they loved each other. My grandfather admired how committed my father was to our family, how hard he worked to give us a decent home, how carefully he protected us. To my father, the young refugee from an unhappy home, my grandfather and grandmother were his first experience with two loving parents since his mother had died.
    My father regarded Papá as his father. Papá lived with or near us for most of his life in the United States. My father never complained about having to support him. Every house he owned had a room for my grandfather. My father never considered buying a house that couldn’t accommodate his father in law. The second and last time I saw my father cry was when Papá died.
    My grandfather was my mentor and my closest boyhood friend. I learned at his feet, relied on his counsel and craved his respect. I still do. He constantly urged me to study hard and go to college. He wanted Veronica and me to live accomplished lives when we grew up. He wanted us to have not just jobs, but distinguished careers that would give our lives purpose and the social status he had always wanted for himself. He would scold me for performing poorly in school, but he never let me believe I was incapable of being successful. He knew I could be, and he helped me prepare for it. His dreams for us were his legacy.
    He taught me many things, but none more important than the conviction that I must not waste the opportunities my parents had sacrificed to give us and our country made available to us. I’ve always believed, even when I was an inattentive and undisciplined student, that the time would arrive for me to become serious and do something important with my life, and I would be ready for it. I believed it because Papá taught me to believe it. And that, more than the wealth of knowledge he shared with me, more than the epics of history he evoked so powerfully for me, more than his opinions and passions and eccentricities, has made all the difference in the world to me.

CHAPTER 7

Growing Up Vegas
    B Y THE TIME I ENTERED THE SIXTH GRADE, I WAS ACCUStomed to living in an ethnically diverse community, unlike the Cuban enclave where we had lived in Miami. Las Vegas was no longer a peculiar-looking desert town. It was my home. I was comfortable and happy there. I had no reason to feel otherwise.
    Our neighborhood was predominantly white. Along with our neighbors from Mexico, we were one of the few Hispanic families who lived there. But I went to school, played football and became friends with African American and Mexican American kids. I had felt part of a majority in Miami; I was a minority of a minority in Vegas. Yet I rarely felt out of place in the community that had, for the most part, welcomed us warmly. I was a Vegas kid, and content to be one, even after my first exposure to racial prejudice.
    In the summer of 1981 an older kid in the neighborhood became upset with me for reasons I no longer recall. His name was Bruce. One day he came by and started kicking and breaking the wooden fence in our backyard. My mother heard the ruckus, and came outside to confront him. Bruce told her we were