The Power of Latino Leadership

CHAPTER 12Fe y Esperanza: Sustained by Faith and Hope

IN MY FAMILY “ESTÁ en las manos de Dios” (It’s in God’s hands) was never far from my mother’s lips. My brother Chris needed a baseball outfit; a stray dog wandered in, and David couldn’t bear to part with him; my class needed costumes for the school play. And where were the cookies for the church social? “What are kookees?” my mother would ask. No matter what the need or challenge, somehow she always managed to get what was needed for her eight children and to help others in the community as well.

God looked after her. How else could Celia María Bordas have ended up in the three-bedroom house at 3713 West Platt Street in Tampa, Florida—not far from the same ocean waters that lapped up onto ...