When Hubs and I were first married, we became friends with another young couple in our neighborhood. The husband, Tom, worked with Hubs and his wife, Hildie, worked at an insurance company in town. I was a young mom with a toddler, JM. We just clicked.

As our friendship grew, we were also fortunate enough to meet Hildie's extended family.

When she was about six, she and her family evacuated from Cuba. Her father was a political exile who left everything behind when Castro took power. Her parents settled in Little Havana in Miami, but would often visit her in Tennessee.

Hildie's Dad spoke English very well, but still held on to his thick Latin accent. Her mother never mastered the language, but if you were patient, she could communicate with you quite well.

During a few of these family visits, Hubs and I would be invited to dinner. On these occasions I thought I had died and gone to heaven... or Havana. The food this woman - who insisted we call her 'abuela' - would prepare was incredible.

Pork roasts, scored and primed with whole garlic cloves, that melted when you touch a fork to it, and black beans like you have never eaten in your life. Even though I was never much of a coffee drinker, when Abuela came for visits I could only hope she would make me a cup of her Cafe' con lache. I have never found anything to equal these tiny cups of golden sweetness.

When I was pregnant with WK, Hildie was expecting her first child, a girl.

It was amazing to me the preparation Hildie's family went to for this special event, the arrival of a grandchild. The traditions, rich in their Latin culture, that they continued here. It was a beautiful thing to witness.

There were many times I would say to Hubs how I wished for that kind of culture, that family dynamic that Hildie was a part of.

It wasn't just her family. It was other friends of ours that came from other ethnic backgrounds. I loved these traditions, these special ceremonies and rites of passage that as a multi-generational American I didn't have, wasn't a part of.

We have our own family traditions, but as a culture, I just didn't see that. We have lost something that was precious. Lost a part of who we are as a people. By trying so hard to become something else, all those many generations ago, we are no longer who we should have remained.

I know that when many of my ancestors arrived from Ireland and England in the late 1700s, their only choice for survival was to assimilate and to do it quickly. Names were changed, traditions were abandoned, cultures were lost. That makes me overwhelmingly sad.

This is not going to be a treatise on illegal immigration, or a plea for amnesty. This is not the place for that. What this is, is a personal longing for a part of my heritage that is gone, and a smile and nod to all the new American's who continue to hold on to their family traditions even in the face of great opposition.