![\"Tania](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/TFL-L-Tania-Lopez-01.jpg\")
Tania Cepero L\u00f3pez is a professor of writing and rhetoric in the Department of English at Florida International University. (courtesy, Tania Cepero L\u00f3pez)<\/p>\nI grew up in a Cuban version of George Orwell\u2019s \u201c1984,\u201d in elementary schools controlled by the state, learning from state-approved textbooks in which Fidel Castro was a benevolent father figure as caring as he was infallible.<\/p>\n
I came to Miami in 1998 at 19 years old after a two-year stint at La Universidad de La Habana as an English literature and language major, where we were reminded often that the university was only for revolutariones; where we learned to debate the answers to questions like, \u201cShould gay people be allowed to marry?\u201d in American English but never \u201cShould we have more than one political party?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tania Cepero L\u00f3pez is a professor of writing and rhetoric in the Department of English at Florida International University. (courtesy, Tania Cepero L\u00f3pez)<\/p>\n
Until then, I had hoped to make an honest living \u2014 in my homeland, with my friends, my mother, my grandparents \u2014 as a college professor, but seeing my college mentors self-censoring during our required discussions of Marxism-Leninism, and my classmates condemning one of our friends who had been caught trying to leave the country on a raft, broke me.<\/p>\n
In September 1998, I arrived at Miami International Airport, and after some questioning, I was taken to Krome Detention Center. A few days later, I was released as a parolee. Did that mean I was lawfully present in the country? It seemed so. I got my first job in America a few days after my release from detention and started paying taxes.<\/p>\n
We weren\u2019t here to take advantage of this great country, we said proudly and often. Next, I looked into going to college, but it became painfully clear I would not be getting any sort of higher education for at least a year because out-of-state tuition was out of my reach. I threw myself at work that first year in different office jobs, where I was often praised for my accentless English. When I became a Florida resident, I enrolled at Miami Dade College (MDC), paying for my night classes with money I made working as a legal assistant.<\/p>\n
It was in MDC that my real education began. It was at MDC that I was selected to travel to Washington D.C. to attend a conference on the First 100 Days of the Presidency. I remember being in that plane and thinking how tired I was from working full time and going to school at night. But I stuck with it, earned my associate degree at MDC, my bachelor\u2019s at FAU, and my master\u2019s in literature at FIU. Twenty years later, I\u2019m still teaching freshmen how to write, to discover and persuade, to bear witness and create change, and to love every minute of it.<\/p>\n
When I heard that the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees our state university system, would consider passing a new rule to prevent undocumented students from attending, I could not help but think of how my education would have been held hostage for at least four years. Would I have even pursued it? Could I have become a college professor?<\/p>\n