UH graduate found steady support in Big Sister

She knew something was going on, but she didn’t know what and it wasn’t within the bounds of their hard-earned relationship to press.

And so, as instructed, Big Brothers Big Sisters Hawaii volunteer Margaret Takahashi headed to the neighborhood Longs Drugs, rather than the blue building within the tangle of Waipahu streets known as the Pupus, to pick up her “little,” Victoria Cuba, for their weekly day out together.

In the weeks and months to come, the pickup spot would change; so, too, Cuba’s phone number. Sometimes Cuba didn’t show up.

“It was obvious that things were going on,” Takahashi said.

Takahashi started volunteering at BBBS Hawaii after the death of her first husband. She had to do something worthwhile, something that might benefit others, to keep from turning inward in her grief.

Her first meeting with Cuba, who was 10 years old at the time, was a tentative start. They went bowling, then shared a meal at Denny’s; Cuba admitted that she was worried about how they’d get along.

She needn’t have. In the years to follow, the two tightly bonded during weekly get-togethers that Takahashi kept religiously consistent.

Cuba, Takahashi found, was earnest and bright and ever open to new experiences.

“She was like a sponge,” Takahashi said.

And so the weekly meetings became opportunities for the two to explore whatever new interest — art, music, science — that Cuba held at the moment.

None of that changed, even when it became obvious that Cuba’s situation at home was in some kind of flux. They continued to visit museums, bake cookies and talk about what the future could hold for Cuba.

It would be years before Cuba would tell Takahashi that for nearly a full year she, her mother and younger brother were homeless, that after each of their cherished outings together, she would walk from whatever drop-off spot they designated to a shipping container at a junkyard.

“I didn’t tell her at first because it was super important to me that when we were together it was about learning new things and looking ahead,” said Cuba, now 21.

Cuba was in the sixth grade when she experienced homelessness for the first time. Her mother, she said, kept the family together with relentless faith and worked long hours at three jobs so that they could afford to rent a new apartment when a flood finally washed away what little they had stored in the shipping container.

But the family’s situation was anything but stable. Cuba’s mother’s health suffered as a result of her labors, and her absences from work eventually led to termination, missed rent and eviction from their apartment. Cuba was a junior in high school when she and her family were once again left to fend for themselves on the street.

This time the family took shelter in a van parked outside a friend’s house; Cuba would later move to the back of a truck that a sympathetic neighbor covered with a tarp. The Cubas would spend some four years there.

“The first time we were homeless, my mother worked us out of it,” Cuba said. “The second time it just broke her heart.”

Rather than dwell on her misfortunes, Cuba started working at her school cafeteria and did whatever she could to ease the family’s financial burdens. Heeding her mother’s pleas to concentrate on her education, she also worked closely with counselors at Waipahu High School to navigate a pathway to college.

Through it all, the weekly visits with Takahashi continued. Takahashi was well apprised of Cuba’s situation this time around, but her approach to their time together remained the same.

“She was the one constant thing in my life that kept me looking ahead,” Cuba said.

After graduating from Waipahu, Cuba attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she dual-majored in journalism and film. She took advice from her counselors and lived in the dormitories to ensure that she would properly focus on her studies and not get distracted by the day-to-day issues of living in the truck bed.

And in an ongoing act of self-definition that started with a high school video project and continued with appearances on Hawaii News Now and PBS, Cuba went public with her story, rejecting the notion of being defined by homelessness by talking openly about the topic in a way that has revealed how much more there is to her narrative.

Two years ago Cuba’s mother and brother were able to leave the van and move into a new apartment. Earlier this month Cuba graduated from UH. Takahashi, who has since remarried, was there, as always, to celebrate with her.

“I will always have a relationship with her,” Takahashi said.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.