Immigrating Pen Pal Arrives to Applause

Someone yelled “Welcome to America!” in Spanish as Luis and Miriam Abreu shyly stepped Wednesday through the gate at John Wayne Airport, where they were greeted by flashing cameras, applause and hugs.

“We feel like you are our family,” Luis Abreu said in halting English to a crowd of friends, strangers and reporters.

The couple recently won a lottery for visas to emigrate from Cuba after years of trying, and Wednesday was the first time they met Orange County elementary school teacher Judy d’Albert and her students, who over Christmas raised $1,800 to cover most of their travel costs.

Luis Abreu, 52, reached in his pocket and pulled out the letter he found sealed in a bottle off the coast of his native town in Cuba five years ago. It read “Hello Stranger! . . . you have found a message . . . “ The paper was signed by d’Albert on behalf of her classes that for a decade have been casting bottles in the ocean as part of their studies on early explorers.

The message would later come to symbolize a winning streak that Abreu and friends have called miracles: The Abreus were on the last charter flight out of Cuba to Miami on Feb. 24, the day two unarmed Cessnas being flown by Cuban Americans were shot down off Cuba’s coast. That act caused the Clinton administration to stop the charter flights.

“For me, he has won three lotteries: finding the bottle, getting the visa, and leaving on the last flight from Cuba,” said Hilda Alvarez, a Newport Beach resident and Cuban native who went to the airport to show support for the couple.

The couple stood in amazement as the fifth-grade students from Harbor Day--a private school in Corona del Mar--sang “This Land Is Your Land.” The kids ended the song by raising lettered placards that spelled “WELCOME TO USA” near the bronze statue of John Wayne.

Abreu told the gathering of 50 people that several of his friends said that they had also found bottles, some of which contained money. The friends would take the money out, he said, and throw away the message.

“Not me,” he said. “I’d tell my friends that a friendship is much more valuable than money.”

The class presented the Sparklettes water bottle used to collect travel money (and containing at least $75), a scrapbook with pictures and letters, and an Angels baseball cap--in recognition of Luis Abreu’s passion for baseball.

“I’m a first-generation American and my mother knows how hard it is to start a new life,” 11-year-old Stephanie Wai, a Harbor Day student whose mother emigrated from Malaysia, said during the presentation.

D’Albert and the school’s headmaster, Sid Dupont, recruited the Abreus as honorary grandparents for the school’s Grandparents Day.

“You are officially part of the Harbor Day School family,” Dupont said.

The couple had expressed a desire to settle in Orange County, but they didn’t know where they were going to stay--until Wednesday.

After reading in The Times a story about the couple from Caibarien, a town on the north-central Cuban coast, Jose and Nora Cueto of Santa Ana offered to host them until they are able to get their own housing.

“We come from the same province, and I went to school in Caibarien,” said Jose Cueto, who emigrated from Cuba in 1952.

Francisco F. Firmat, an Orange County Superior Court judge and Cuban immigrant who has served as interpreter for the Harbor Day School students, has been trying to find work for Abreu. He brought with him to the airport Oscar Nunez, a Los Alamitos accountant, who announced, “Luis Abreu has a job,” through his client, Victor M. Gonzalez, vice president of Northgate Supermarket.

“Because he was a bus driver, maybe he could work on our delivery trucks,” Nunez said.

The Abreus continued to receive gifts throughout the early afternoon.

Cuban-native Jorge Avila of Laguna Beach gave Luis Abreu a Super Lotto ticket.

“You won the lottery three times,” he told Abreu. “You are bound to win again.”

The couple left behind in Cuba two grown sons and a daughter from Luis Abreu’s previous marriage. During their stay in Miami, Luis Abreu looked for a son from that earlier marriage who had left Cuba for Miami four years ago. The family hasn’t heard from him since.

“I hope that if some day I have grandchildren that they are born here,” Miriam Abreu, 46, said in Spanish in an interview. “I would tell them of this beautiful story. But for that to happen, I will wait for my sons to come.”