Colombian Odyssey

Oddly, I cannot say when or how I learned about Humberto. I think he called my parents' house one day when I was a teenager, and my brother Daniel said that it was our father's eldest son. My father had never told us about him. By then, he seemed to have decided that he had his former Colombian life and he had his American life, and the two were not to mix.

I find myself thinking these days about the fact that had my dad not left Colombia and his other family, he would not have met my mother, and I would not have been born at all, let alone born an American. I have this nagging feeling that my gain was probably a source of sorrow for the family my dad left behind.

I recently sat down with my dad to ask him about his other family. He is 78 and retired now. Instead of a fedora, he wears a baseball cap, usually one I bought for him in Washington. His quick temper has been replaced with an aging man's desire to be loved by his family. When I visit him in New York every couple of months, he'll make sure all of my favorite foods are in the kitchen, and he'll buy the New York Times for me each morning, even though he thinks it's overpriced. If I want to watch TV, he'll give me the remote control, which he would never, ever have done when I was a child.

He seems less scary to me than he used to, more frail. So I was willing to ask him several questions I never would have asked as a child.

Do you think I had a better life than Humberto? I began.

"Of course," he said. "You were born here. This is where the opportunities are. If you had been born in Colombia, you would have been like Humberto."

He paused and then said what we were both thinking: "Thank God you were born here."

IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG FOR ME TO SPOT HUMBERTO AFTER WALKING OFF THE PLANE IN PEREIRA. He looks exactly like a younger version of my father. He has latte-colored skin, dark hair and dark, brooding eyes. He wore khakis and a short-sleeved button-down yellow plaid shirt. I watched as he mouthed my name from the other side of the security checkpoint.

I smiled but quickly looked away because I didn't want him to see how sweaty and flushed I was from the nerves and heat. It was much warmer in Pereira than it had been in Bogota. I moved past the checkpoint, and Humberto walked up to me.

I said hello. "Que gusto," he said, which means "What a pleasure." He hugged me, and I kissed his left cheek.

He took my bags, and we walked outside and got into a line of people waiting for cabs. Once we had climbed into the back seat of one, Humberto pulled out a photo of me, taken years ago, that my father had sent him.

"You have photos of me?" I asked.

"My father sends me photos of all of you," he explained, to my surprise. There was an awkward pause as he studied my face.

"You're very Trejos," he said. "Only white."

I was not surprised to hear that. How many times have I been told by relatives and friends that I don't seem very Latina because my skin is so pale?

"I guess I look like my mother," I said, because I do in that sense.

The cab started moving. I told Humberto what hotel I was staying at.

"Why don't you stay with me?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper. He looked straight into my eyes, smiled and held my hand. We were not alone in the cab, but it felt like we were. "It's humble, but it would be lovely if you could stay."

He told the cabdriver to take us to the nearby mountain town of Santa Rosa. Along the way, I did what I, as a reporter, knew how to do best to fill time. How is your mother doing? I asked. How are your children? You have two, right? What do you do for a living?

We were interrupted by Humberto's cellphone, which he answered.

"Hola, Pap¿," he said.

Pap¿? I was not used to anyone but Daniel, Lucy and me calling my father Pap¿ or Papi. My father -- our father -- was calling to check up on me. She's fine, he said. We're in a cab. I am taking her to my place, he said.

The cab rolled through the city, and I was struck by how large Pereira was. Its population is more than half a million, and the sidewalks were filled with people and street vendors selling watches, purses or edible treats. There were tall buildings, shopping malls and beautiful churches sprinkled throughout. In the distance were the Andes.

The closer we got to Santa Rosa, the more packed with tiny mom-and-pop businesses the streets became. There were bakeries and restaurants on every block, signs advertising aguardiente, Colombia's most popular liquor. Once we started our ascent, there were more shacks selling artisanry and furniture.

We finally arrived at Humberto's small two-story house. It had a red tin door and was very spare inside. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms, but only one was furnished. There was a Bible on the nightstand and pictures of Jesus Christ and Pope John Paul II taped to the walls. I had been baptized Catholic, but I no longer consider myself one. Humberto saw me staring. "I'm very religious," he said. I smiled and said nothing.

The bathroom was unfinished, and there was no hot water. Humberto seemed embarrassed. "It's not much," he said. "And there are insects. Don't be alarmed."

I assured him it was fine.

We decided to go into the city for lunch. We took the bus, then walked to the government center just a few blocks away. Humberto wanted me to meet his ex-girlfriend, who was still one of his closest friends. We entered a building and walked up a flight of stairs to the second floor, where we ran into a co-worker of hers instead.

"This is my sister," he said as he introduced me. It sounded just as odd to me as his calling my father Pap¿.

THAT NIGHT HUMBERTO AND I WENT TO SEE OUR UNCLE ARTURO. He lived in a dangerous neighborhood. Humberto wanted to keep the visit short.

We walked into a house with concrete floors. The living room was tiny and had tattered furniture. There were two small rooms, and my uncle, his wife and younger son, Mauricio, were crowded into one of them. There was a full-size bed for my uncle and his wife and a twin bed for their son, with no space between. There was no closet, so they hung their clothing on ropes above the beds. It was hot and musty. They shared one bathroom with another family.

I realized then how much my father's family relied on him, an impression later confirmed by my Aunt Aracely in Colombia and a conversation with Papi upon my return.

My father, born in 1929, was the eldest of nine siblings. My grandfather worked odd jobs here and there -- at a bakery, selling merchandise and guns. My grandmother made hundreds of empanadas each week, and, at age 6, my father began hawking them for a penny each in one of the main plazas. He went to school until he was 12, and he relished reading and math, but he couldn't afford not to work.

Like his father, he did what he could to make money. He carried bags for passengers at a train station, and sold popcorn, ice cream and newspapers, anything he could get his hands on. At 17, he decided to move to Cali, a larger city, and managed a billiards hall. It was there that he perfected his pool-playing abilities, entering tournaments and even playing against Ecuador's national pool champion. He was also briefly in the military, before marrying Humberto's mother in 1954. The next year, Luz Marina was born and then, in 1956, Humberto. My father separated from his first wife just three years into the marriage and was struggling to eke out a living at a bar when he decided to move to America. "He saw no future here. Too much unemployment," Aunt Aracely said.

He arrived in New York on July 3, 1964, with $135 to his name. He was 35 years old. He paid $50 a month to sleep on the living room floor of an acquaintance's apartment in Manhattan and worked in the cafeteria of a nursing home. His original plan, he said, was to send for his two children once he got a job and a home. But it was more difficult than he thought it would be. "It's so hard. You think one thing, and everything changes," he would tell me later.

In 1968, he was walking out of a movie in Manhattan when he spotted my mother, Maria Cabrera, walking in, and he decided to watch the film again. He took the seat next to her. When the movie was over, he offered to take her and her two friends to dinner. She declined at first, because she was in her early 20s at the time and thought he was too old. But her friends persuaded her to go.

My dad spent many months courting my mother, bringing her flowers and food. Eventually, she warmed to him. They dated and got married in 1969, and my brother, Daniel, was born the following year. My father helped support Humberto, Luz Marina, his parents and some of his siblings from afar. The youngest, Arturo, is now frail and slowed down by an enlarged heart.

So here I was, Jose Trejos's American-born daughter showing up for an unexpected visit, wearing a pair of jeans that cost more than the family's monthly rent. Everyone stared at me. "What a miracle. We never thought we would see one of Jose Trejos's children here," said Arturo's older son, Martin, a security guard at a KFC-like chain restaurant.

I felt like I was on display and tried to chat with them about my work and my family back in New York. My uncle did not say much. He just stared. "You came here alone?" he asked. Yes, I said. He was shocked that a young woman would travel so far alone.

We sat a little while longer, drinking coffee. Before we left, I asked Humberto for a private moment with my uncle, who was in his room looking for some photos of my dad. I joined him and gave him a hug. Then I pulled out my wallet and handed him almost everything I had in it, which was 250,000 Colombian pesos, about $125. At the time, I wasn't sure how many U.S. dollars that was, nor did I care. Uncle Arturo hugged and kissed me and thanked me profusely.

The next day, I told Aunt Aracely that I had visited her brother. I showed her the pictures I had taken. "Will you show those to your father?" she asked.

Of course, I said.

"Ask your father to send him some clothes. Please take care of him," she asked.

"Don't worry," I said. "We will take care of him."

PERHAPS BECAUSE WE ARE 20 YEARS APART, Humberto treated me in a fatherly way. Every morning, he made me coffee and brought me arepas or bu¿uelos. He held my hand when we crossed the street and called me his ni¿a. He worried about me when I told him I was feeling very tired and lightheaded because of the change in altitude. "Rest your head on my shoulder," he said during one long bus ride back to his house.

On my second night in Santa Rosa, Humberto and I sat on the green leather couch in his living room drinking beer. It was about 9 o'clock and almost completely dark outside because there was not much outdoor lighting. There were none of the city nighttime sounds I am used to. It felt eerily quiet and secluded. He went upstairs to his room and came back down with a stack of items my father had sent him over the years: Christmas cards, postcards of New York, photos of Lucy, Daniel and me, including one of me at my Georgetown graduation.

Humberto told me that he does not remember much about living with my father because he was too young. When my father and his mother broke up, he and Luz Marina moved into my dad's parents' house while my dad worked and slept at the bar. Humberto's mother was living with her parents while trying to regroup, he said.

My father would visit his son and daughter regularly, but the visits stopped when Humberto was about 8. Unbeknownst to him, my dad had left for America. He vaguely remembers seeing my father for the last time. My father stopped by to give him a gift or money. He does not recall what it was. Then my father walked out, stopped at the street corner and waved goodbye. "I didn't understand what was happening," Humberto said. "I always ask myself, 'What would I have wanted to tell him?'"

My father recently said he does not remember how he bade his children farewell.

Humberto eventually moved back in with his mother, who had a boyfriend. The boyfriend took Humberto to soccer games and movies and gave him dating advice. "He educated me, he gave me everything, he made me who I am . . . I wish my father had taught me everything, but he didn't," Humberto said.

Over the years, my father regularly sent money to his Colombian children. In phone calls every month or so, he would ask about Pereira, who Humberto's friends were, what he was doing for work. I was startled by the extent to which my father had been living a secret life. Not only had he not told us about his other children, but he was actually involved in their lives, albeit on a limited basis.

Humberto said he often wished our father had been around for the turning points in his life. "What would I tell him about my childhood?" he said. He looked into the distance, as if he were trying to picture something. "When I had my first girlfriend? How nice would it have been had he given me advice after my first heartbreak."

In 1978, Humberto married a woman named Gloria, and they had two daughters, now in their 20s. He worked as a manager at a supermarket chain. According to Humberto, when he and Gloria were on the verge of ending their 18-year marriage, his wife called my father and asked him to intervene. My father phoned Humberto at the hotel he was staying at and scolded him for giving up. What are you going to do with your daughters? Humberto recalls my father asking. The irony of the situation was not lost on Humberto, but he said he just let our father talk.

Humberto then fell in love with a woman named Ana, and they lived together before breaking up several years later. Two years ago, Humberto was laid off. He has yet to find new work, because opportunities are limited for older people in Colombia. He has been living off the proceeds from the sale of the apartment he owned with Gloria: He has about $2,000 left. Humberto acknowledges that he gets lonely and wishes he had a job. "I get depressed sometimes," he said.

Would his life have been better had he come to America?

When he was in his 20s, our father called him and told him to get a passport because he was going to try to get Humberto a U.S. visa.

The visa never materialized. On one of the nights I was staying at his house, he pulled the passport from where he kept it, tucked into a Bible in his bedroom. There was a picture of him, with longer hair and a thick tie. He thumbed through the pages. There were no visas, no stamps, nothing. "It's empty," Humberto said.

At one point, I asked Humberto if he resented my father for not sending for him.

"No," Humberto replied. "He had his reasons for doing what he did. I don't blame him for anything."

Perhaps it was a heart attack he suffered four years ago that made him so forgiving. During the month he spent in the hospital, my father called repeatedly to check on him, Humberto told me. He remembers thinking that he wanted to see my father again. My father had visited him just once, traveling alone to Colombia in the early 1980s, when Humberto's first daughter was a newborn.

"I don't want to die without seeing him again," he said. "When I had a heart attack, I told Ana, 'I'm never going to see him.' It made me so sad."

Listening to him, my eyes felt hot and wet. Humberto was such a sweet man. Why, I wondered, did my father never follow through and bring him to America?

At times, I would ask Humberto if he wanted to know anything about my father. Sometimes he would say no. "I'd like to remember him the way I saw him as a child, wearing a tie all the time," he said. "It was a nice memory."

Then the curiosity would clearly get to him, and he would ask me questions such as these: Does my father like to read? What does he read? Does he have good eyesight? What kind of music does he like?

In many ways, I realize, Humberto and I were trying to accomplish the same thing in our four days together. We were trying to get to know the man he calls Pap¿ and I call Papi better. It united us.

On my final night in Santa Rosa, Humberto also helped me understand something about our father.

"You have to look at your dad's life in two parts," Humberto said. "There's what he did here and what he did with you in America. They are different lives."

I RETURNED TO NEW YORK WITH A BOOK HUMBERTO HAD ASKED ME TO GIVE OUR FATHER. It was called Pereira, Antolog¿a Gr¿fica by the photographer Alvaro Camacho Andrade, a history of the city in photos. My father sat at the head of his dining room table, where he usually sits to read his newspapers or scratch off his lottery tickets. He grew teary as he eyed the photos of old Pereira. He asked me to show him snapshots of Humberto, and I pulled out my laptop. "His eyes look sad," my father said.

Like Humberto, he, too, had questions. Does he dress well? What is his house like? Is he still dating that woman? Could you tell if he had enough money to support himself?

"I should have brought him up here," he said finally, after looking at all the photos. "Why did I bring his sister and not him?"

I would try to get the answer to that question over the course of three visits. My dad is the hardest interview subject I have ever encountered. Perhaps it was because I did not want to upset him too much, but I found it difficult to get satisfying answers.

I asked him why he had not told Lucy, Daniel and me about our half siblings. "I didn't think it would be important to you," he said.

I gave him a bewildered look. We had not grown up with them, he pointed out. It was a different relationship than the one we had with one another.

Why did he not bring them to America when they were children? I asked.

He said he knew he would have to work all the time and could not take care of them. Back then, too, single fathers were an anomaly. He thought they needed their mother. It took several years for him to become financially stable in America. Then he met my mother and had us, and it didn't seem like a good idea to have a blended family, he said. We had seen another relative try to bring a daughter from a previous relationship into his home with his wife and three children. It was a disaster.

Luz Marina eventually asked to come to America, he said, so he got her a visa. I asked him why he did not do the same for Humberto.

"He had a good job," my father said, rare in Colombia. He was married and had children. He would have had to become a busboy or a janitor. He would have gone through what my father had gone through, but my father said he had been willing because he had no good employment prospects in Colombia. In my father's view, Humberto did.

"When you come here, you have to start washing dishes," he said. "You don't know the language. He was earning good money. How could I dislocate him? How did I know they would force him to retire?"

What had happened with Luz Marina?

I asked.

My father wouldn't say much about it. My half sister told me that she does not know why he cut her off. "I will never understand why he doesn't love me," said Luz Marina, who still lives in Queens. My father says he did love his first daughter. What about now? I asked. "I'm disappointed in her," he said without elaborating.

At one point, I asked my mother: Is it possible not to love your own child?

"When you don't live with them, if they're not raised with you, it's not the same even if they're your children," she said.

In the end, I'm not sure I was able to answer all the questions I went to Colombia with.

Am I really living out my parents' American dream? I'd like to think so, but I realize now that, in my selfishness and preoccupation with my life in Washington, I had failed to appreciate how much they had struggled to give us better lives. I asked my best friend, Irene Haggarty Stroud, whose parents emigrated from Scotland, for her thoughts on being a first-generation American. Irene grew up in my neighborhood in Queens and, by coincidence, now lives in my neighborhood in the District. Like my parents, hers worked blue-collar jobs and managed to put her through school.

"Most immigrants envision the American dream for themselves, but the reality is that dream is for the next generation," said Irene, a nurse practitioner. "Immigrants often take unattractive jobs to support their families and help their children obtain college educations. It's their children who, inspired by their parents' hard work, ultimately inherit the opportunities here, who adapt to American culture and live out that American dream."

She's right. There's nothing wrong with me being America n. Even so, I still wonder if I am Hispanic enough. I can't say that one trip to Colombia has cleared that up.

But I do know this: I feel a lot closer to my father than I ever have before. Somehow, we have developed a more mature, loving relationship because I took the time to see where he came from. My father also has decided to reach out more to Humberto and is working on getting Humberto a visa to visit New York. Perhaps my father has realized that his two families don't have to be kept apart. So now I have a half brother and a half sister in my life. We don't talk every day, but the lines are open. When I turned 31 last November, Lucy and Daniel forgot my birthday. I don't fault them for that. I often forget birthdays.

Humberto, however, sent me an e-mail.

"Hola, mi ni¿a," he wrote.

"With all my heart, I hope this was the best day of your life. I hope you have many more birthdays. Soon, I hope, we will see each other again. God willing."

Nancy Trejos is a reporter for The Post's Business section. She can be reached at trejosn@washpost.com.