MIAMI – José Trinidad Torres Casas is among the many fathers who have arrived at Miami International Airport with plans of no return to his war-ravaged Colombia.
Torres had fled from violence before. Conservatives and Liberals in his native Boyacá were killing each other when he stumbled upon a massacre.
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After boarding school, Torres found refuge in Bogotá and made his way to becoming the dean of a computer engineering program. He was fearless during lectures.
Narcoterrorists’s kidnappings and killings -- including the Supreme Court of Colombia’s siege in downtown Bogotá that killed over 100 people and hit too close to home -- scared him.
Torres knew he didn’t want his son and daughter to grow up like he did, so after tragedies, threats, and an attempt on his life, he had enough and sought refuge in the United States.
In Miami, his cashmere sweaters, silk ties, and wool suits were useless, but he felt safe and he said that was priceless. Security came at a cost.
The former academic with experience in banking joined the working class in Miami while away from his family and in hiding.
Torres cleaned floors for men who were less educated than him, and he met the South Florida mosquito after begging for work he wished he had never gotten.
Eventually, Torres asked for help. He started his own business. He had seen the lunch cars that distributed food to undocumented workers in remote areas of Miami-Dade County and became one of their providers.
In a little corner of Hialeah, the business owner who started his 12-hour work days at 4 a.m. was known as “El Colombiano.” He didn’t know it then, but as many migrant fathers have, he was teaching his kids about the value of a good work ethic.
Torres focused on fruit-based products. He had many juice flavors but none made him as proud as the vitamin-C-rich carrot and orange juice that he said kept workers healthy and the creamy Mamey juices that he said helped to cure Cubans’ nostalgia.
Torres missed many breakfasts and school mornings with his kids. He consumed so much Cuban colada that he had to have emergency surgery at Mount Sinai in Miami Beach and get a pacemaker.
By the time his son was an executive with a master’s degree in business administration and his daughter was a local journalist, Torres retired to a haven near the Grey Smokey Mountains because the area reminds him of the Andean mountains of Colombia in the spring.
As a retiree, the Colombian migrant had turned into a confident dual U.S. citizen who used his free time to learn how to speak English and got a job with the federal government that he said “was just for fun.”
On Father’s Day, Torres was proud of his kids and they were proud of him and the sacrifices that he had made to get them away from a war that most recently had a Colombian 14-year-old boy with an absent father shoot a pre-presidential candidate in the head in Bogotá.