The los Abuelos Program is specifically designed for low-income, mostly Latino seniors. The program offers weekly activities for seniors and with its coffee parties and field trips, almost recreates the distant homelands these seniors left behind. Anne Hoffman went to their yearly Christmas party.
[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Losabuelosfeature.mp3|titles= Delaware Public Media's Anne Hoffman visits the Los Jardines annual Christmas party.]
At the annual Christmas party at Los Jardines, a senior center which offers low-income housing in Wilmington, the smell of Cuban roast pork and sweet potatoes fills the air. Inside a big event room, senior citizens trade jokes in Caribbean Spanish and occasionally break into salsa moves.
Christina Reynoso and Euterio Pegero are a married couple who take it all in from their seats at a table with other seniors.
“We’ve been together for 37 years! That’s a little bit of time together, isn’t it?” says Pegero with a laugh.
But these Dominican abuelos are in a long distance relationship. Pegero has his US residency and lives here at Los Jardines, but Christina doesn’t, so she’s just visiting him from Santo Domingo.
Pegero says coming to the social events like this one at the senior center help him to feel less alone when Christina is back in the DR.
“If it weren’t for this program, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
Pegero says he’s not used to being alone, which is why coming to the US without his wife was so hard. But, now, with all the social life he’s getting from the program at Los Jardines, that’s starting to change.
“I feel much better! And Ana treats us well,” he says.
Ana Figueras runs the senior program here, which is part of the Latin American Community Center. She’s a former math professor from Cuba with a lot of chispa, or spark. In her long career, she’s worked in factories, been a maid for the Dupont family, and finally a case manager for the growing Latino community here in Wilmington. Today, she leads the seniors in a version of the song Feliz Navidad.
Figueras says that up to 45 abuelos come to the weekly activities at Los Jardines. 27 live in the building, which offers affordable housing. All of the seniors who come to the festivities, like bingo games and excursions to the Family Dollar, are low-income. A big part of her job is giving out food supplies every week.
But an even bigger responsibility is recreating some of the rich social life these seniors left behind in Latin America. Back home, they would be living with their kids, but that’s not as easy to do here in the States, even if family is nearby.
“A lot of the elders have family in the area, but life here is complicated. Their families work a lot, so the seniors feel a big support in the program,” she says.
It’s a common complaint among immigrants that the United States is a cold and lonely place.
“That even happens to me,” says Figueras. “I work all day and when I get home, it’s the same thing. I stop and look out the window and all I see are cars. With my neighbors it’s all hi hi hey hello hello. And nothing else. We Latinos are not used to that! We’re used to all of the neighbors being together and hanging out. If someone stops by, we give them a cup of coffee. So it’s the product of the system here, which is all about work. And that happens to the seniors as well, even though they don’t go to a job every day.”
Today the basement of Los Jardines feels much closer to a popping holiday party in Havana than a lonely place for old folks to play bingo. One senior is still dressed like he might on the island, and claps the clave, or traditional rhythm of salsa before he takes a break to expound on why Christmas is his favorite holiday of all.
Christmas, he says, is the most beautiful holiday that could possibly exist. And he adds, the fact that it comes at the end of the year makes it even more special.
Outside the activity room, Joanna Polanco sits with her boyfriend and her cousin. She respectfully waits until her grandma, who everyone calls Cuca, is done with the party before she formally begins her visit.
“I think it’s pretty good, because they’re watching her and they care for her, and I think it’s pretty awesome,” says Polanco.
Back inside, the seniors are getting ready to open their Christmas gifts, which are donated every year by a different organization.
I check in with Pegero and Christina, the long-distance Dominican couple to see how they’re liking their presents: two fuzzy blankets.
“In this season we’ll use these a lot, it’s very important! A very good gift,” Pegero tells me.
Before things wind down completely, the seniors have a surprise for their program coordinator, Ana Figueras.
Ana shows off a Christmas card with signatures from all of the seniors in the Los Abuelos program. She tells the seniors that they are terrible to have surprised her like this, and an abuela responds, “Ana, they’re just happy with you.”
