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<\/p>\nTAMPA, Fla. \u2014 A Cuban woman\u2019s journey from childhood servitude to becoming a successful entrepreneur is at the center of a new book featured by the Tampa Bay History Center during Hispanic Heritage Month.<\/p>\n
The history center kicked off its 2026-27 book club season with Tampa author Sylvia A. Alvarez\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Hard to Kill a Bougainvillea: From Slavery to the American Dream.\u201d The book chronicles her mother\u2019s remarkable life, while highlighting the generations of Cuban immigrants whose stories helped shape Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized her story was big and it needed to be told. It needed to give people hope,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The History Center kicked off its 2026-27 book club season with Tampa author Sylvia A. Alvarez’s “It’s Hard to Kill a Bougainvillea: From Slavery to the American Dream.” (Spectrum News)<\/p>\n
From hardship in Havana to freedom in America<\/p>\n
Alvarez\u2019s book recounts the life of her mother, known as \u201cChelo,\u201d whose childhood in 1930s Havana was marked by poverty and tragedy.<\/p>\n
According to Alvarez, Chelo was just 4 years old when she witnessed her mother\u2019s suicide. Her father subsequently abandoned her and her sister, leaving the girls to endure years of hunger while sleeping on a mattress beneath a staircase.<\/p>\n
When their father eventually returned, Alvarez said, he sold Chelo into servitude to a wealthy sugar cane plantation owner, where she worked as a nanny and maid.<\/p>\n
Her opportunity for freedom came when the family traveled to New York City.<\/p>\n
Alvarez recalled her mother describing the moment she entered New York Harbor and saw the Statue of Liberty. After learning what the monument represented, Chelo wondered whether it was a sign that she could finally escape.<\/p>\n
One night, she filled a pillowcase with fruit and fled into the streets of New York, unable to speak English and without money.<\/p>\n
Chelo eventually became a successful business owner, real estate developer and entrepreneur who owned a sportswear factory. Alvarez said her mother also advocated for social justice and marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n
Alvarez named her book after the bougainvillea, a flowering plant known for its resilience and ability to survive difficult conditions. For the author, it symbolizes her mother\u2019s determination to overcome hardship and build a new life.<\/p>\n
A family history intertwined with Tampa\u2019s cigar industry<\/p>\n
Alvarez\u2019s Cuban heritage is closely connected to Tampa\u2019s history. Her father was born in Tampa to a family involved in the cigar industry, which brought generations of immigrants between Havana, Key West and Tampa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe family would travel from Key West to Havana to Tampa, always following the cigar trade,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n
Rodney Kite-Powell, a historian at the Tampa Bay History Center, said Cuban, Spanish and Sicilian immigrants arriving in the late 1800s helped establish Tampa\u2019s cigar industry and transformed the city\u2019s cultural identity.<\/p>\n
The industry helped fuel the growth of Ybor City in the 1880s and West Tampa in the 1890s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose immigrants who came here beginning in the 1880s to find a new life. They really helped create a whole new culture,\u201d Kite-Powell said.<\/p>\n
The History Center\u2019s Cigar City gallery documents that transformation, illustrating how immigration and industry shaped modern Tampa.<\/p>\n
Cuba\u2019s past and present<\/p>\n
The historical connection between Tampa and Cuba remains relevant as families on both sides of the Florida Straits confront the island\u2019s ongoing economic difficulties.<\/p>\n
Kite-Powell said relations between the United States and Cuba changed dramatically following the Cuban Revolution, but the connections between families have endured.<\/p>\n
For Alvarez, those changes carry personal memories.<\/p>\n
She recalled spending childhood summers in Havana, when her grandmother would pick her up and take her to Cuba. Those visits became more difficult as relations between the two countries deteriorated.<\/p>\n
Today, Cuba continues to experience economic hardship, including shortages of food, medicine and fuel, along with widespread power outages.<\/p>\n
For Alvarez, preserving her mother\u2019s story is also a way of preserving the experiences of generations whose lives have been shaped by migration and family separation.<\/p>\n
A mother\u2019s legacy inspires a career in housing<\/p>\n
Alvarez said her mother\u2019s achievements helped inspire her own work helping families achieve homeownership.<\/p>\n
She remembers being nine years old and translating for her parents as they built their first home in America.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the joy that it brought them to be able to say not just that they owned a home, but they owned a home in America,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Nine-year-old Sylvia Alvarez (right) with her mother at their first home in Tampa. (Photo Courtesy: Sylvia A. Alvarez)<\/p>\n
That experience helped shape her career in affordable housing and her work with Tampa\u2019s Housing & Education Alliance.<\/p>\n
Her mother\u2019s story now reaches another generation through the history center\u2019s book club, which opened its season Sept. 17 with Alvarez leading the discussion. The free monthly program features books exploring Florida\u2019s history, literature and culture.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay History Center<\/p>\n
For Alvarez, sharing the story during Hispanic Heritage Month is an opportunity to celebrate both her Cuban roots and her family\u2019s contributions to American life.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica is a tapestry of souls,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m just very proud of her, very proud of my Cuban heritage, very proud to be an American.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 A Cuban woman\u2019s journey from childhood servitude to becoming a successful entrepreneur is at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1011,1013,274,2375,276,1925,771,1190,2200,115,135,137,136,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-413520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-latest-human-interest-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-fadia-patterson","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-hispanic-heritage","tag-hispanic-month","tag-human-interest","tag-instagram-bn9","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}