Yamila Castellanos: “I know that I will recover my daughter.”

Cosas.com

By Catalina Plaza

April 15, 2005

Source: http://www.cosas.cl/Index.aspx?fecha=2005/04/15

Note: This is a machine translation of the original.  Corrections will be gratefully accepted.

Trusted that soon she will be able to return to see his Emeri daughter, this Cuban relates how she has been to live one on the experiences more painful than a mother can support: the kidnapping of a son by its own father.

In short whiles their eyes are reddened and crystallines are put, their tone of low voice and its glance becomes aloof, seemed that Yamila Castilian does not want to show weakness, but only the inner force that has allowed him to fight to recover its small daughter. But there is no case: when she remembers it, this woman of 32 years inevitably vanishes. It is that she does not have, perhaps, comparable sadness to the one of a mother who loses a son less and if this one has been snatched by the man who sometimes was his husband. That is the history of Yamila and its Emeri daughter, who was removed illegally from Cuba by her father Tsugunari Yamada and taken to Japan. Today, besides to be far from her mother, the girl of 4 years appears in the registries like daughter of Yukiko Ogane, the present pair of the father. Even so and in spite of the year and means that have passed from the last encounter between mother and daughter, Yamila is sure that soon they could be together again.

THE JAPANESE TSUGANARI YAMADA, THE CUBAN CASTILIAN YAMILA AND THE SMALL EMERI, THE THREE PROTAGONISTS OF THIS INCREDIBLE DRAMA.

“It is difficult to bear this. It is a fight of every day, but it is thing to learn to control the sadness. All the mornings I rise with spirit, but there are days in which it is more difficult to me to confront than I am so far from Emeri. Not even I have been able to speak on the telephone with her, because Tsugunari me does not allow it”, begins relating Yamila that, in spite of being living a painful situation, maintains the optimism and says to be trusted that the managements of the Chilean Chancellery and the Sename, that a criminal complaint against Tsugunari Yamada interposed, will give fruits. “Me entrevisté with the chancellor and is a group of lawyers seeing the case. It is not necessary to leave the diplomatic channels, because all the rights of my daughter are being harmed, who is a minor Chilean citizen”, explains Yamila, that in the next days will travel to Cuba to find out in what conditions left Emeri of the island, how it happened and which were the irregularities that were committed. “Tsugunari Yamada had an ample power to travel, but it was revoked and of that it had knowledge the Chilean consulate and the Japanese. The Sename is preparing exhortos for Cuba and Japan. These processes are taking all simultaneously. For that reason I say that there are many resources to still exhaust and that there are lost no the hopes”, maintains. In addition to the diplomatic aid, Yamila counts on the legal endorsement of Or' Melveny & Myers, a Japanese North American company/signature that took the case pro bond after finding out the situation by interval of a woman who had read it in Internet.

Marriage via diplomat

When Yamila Castilian knew Tsugunari Yamada, it seemed to him “a charming and attractive man”. She worked in the Hyatt Hotel and his head presented/displayed them. “He saw myself very serious, responsible and extremely kind”, explains Yamila, that got to live to Chile to the 21 years.

“We became friends and we began to leave. We went to walk or it took it to places like the Central Market. After a time we began to pololear and, at the outset, the subject of the cultural interchange was very rich. Of all ways, I had myself to mold to his form to be and, for example, I was accustomed to that he did not demonstrate much his feelings, even though the Cubans we are all the opposite”, counts.

After a time of relation, Yamila and “Yoyo” - as the friends nickname to Tsugunari Yamada- decided to go away to live together.

“The things began to complicate when he was wanted to marry. It made an effort to me to make the things as to `Yoyo' it liked, but never was sufficient, did not have limits in his exigencies. The first months always it insisted on which it was left pregnant woman, but when it happened, the situation began to complicate. It said to me that for him it was going to be difficult to explain that it had a son with a Cuban woman. That part was hard. It cost several months that it assumed that Emeri was going to be born; in fact, it wanted that I aborted”, explains Yamila, that at those moments already had left its work in the Hyatt and studied in the Manpower institute.

“He assumed the pregnancy like a the five months, but always making me notice that everything what did, did by the baby. For example, if he did massages to me, he said to me that he was so that guagua was well. It was a type of relation where he said very terrible things, but later arrived with gifts. He always maintained to me in that pendulum. Memory that a morning, when it was on the verge of having to Emeri, `Yoyo' said to me: `So that it do not give the baby me. It is going to have Asian characteristics and it is better than it is in Japan to that it is here in Latin America'”. Yamila counts that at those moments never imagined that his husband could clear his daughter to him. Thus, in March of 2002, when Emeri had little more of a year, Yamila and “Yoyo” decided to marry. There was a touching ceremony nor no a dress of fiancèe, only a pair of remote companies, interchanged through consulate.

“Era everything very rare. He raised that we had to marry to us because was our responsibility, but at the same time I realized of which the marriage not cuadraba with the pair relation which we took because, when Emeri was born, we began to sleep in separated beds”, explains Yamila. Also he relates that once signed the papers of the marriage and, in spite of the distance, he began to notice the disinterestedness of his husband.

By that reason, she decided to remain in Chile and not to accompany to her husband Japan. Soon after and thinking about his daughter, she began to shuffle several possibilities so that Emeri did not grow far from its father. “I thought about traveling to Japan to live with him, but to `Yoyo' it did not seem to him a good alternative, because she said to me that I was not a woman to live there. It either did not want to come to Chile, reason why it arose the idea that we settled down in the United States, because he traveled constantly to that country and, in addition, was a good opportunity for me, because it was going to have the possibility of working and of surpassing to me”.

“All the mornings I rise with spirit, but there are days in which it is more difficult to me to confront than I am so far from Emeri. Not even I have been able to speak on the telephone with her, because Tsuganari me does not allow it”, says Yamila.

Clear that “Yoyo” did not want that Emeri traveled with Yamila and it advised that they left to the girl in Cuba, to the care of his maternal grandparents. To Yamila it did not like much the idea, but finally it acceded and thinking about the security of the girl, it signed a document granting to the father of Emeri or the grandparents the possibility of leaving Cuba with Emeri in case of necessity. This document was revoked while it was in the United States and Emeri still remained in Cuba.

After a time established in the house of relatives, Yamila decided that it was the moment on which Emeri went to Miami to live with her. “I called to `Yoyo' and I said to him that already it was hour on which Emeri lived with me. It did not agree”, it comments Yamila, that explains that to him it continued consulting on its decisions “because did not want to do nothing in his against and, in addition, because it felt that he as papa had right on Emeri”.

“I come to take it to me”

Days after these conversations, Yamila had a prefeeling badly and called to its family. ” They told Me that `Yoyo' was in Cuba and that lodged in the house of my mother. The affection of Emeri had arrived with gifts to gain, because she did not recognize it. At the outset, he did not want to speak with me, but when I obtained it, he said to me: `Vengo to take it to me'. To my mother it did not say anything to him, but me to me it continued saying that it was going away to take. It was terrified. I began to speak with the Chilean consulate in Miami and also with the office of Cuban interests, because then he was very troublesome Cuban to enter them the island and the permission was delayed long time. In the end, I risked and travels to the 19 Cuba of January of 2003, but I was stopped and retained by three days in the airport of Havana. Once released, I found out that my husband had left Cuba with Emeri, the day previous to my arrival. I always arrived behind schedule”, reflects Yamila, arguing that in addition the girl was hospitalized at the moment at which “Yoyo” removed it from the island to Mexico.

“A relative mine had taken advantage of who `Yoyo' was not in the house to take to Emeri to the hospital, because it was beginning myself to resfriar. When `Yoyo' found out, it accused my family of kidnapping and soon it transferred to the girl to a deprived hospital from where it removed to take it it to Japan”.

After being deported to Chile, after his frustrated attempt to enter Cuba to prevent that `Yoyo' removed to the girl, Yamila decided to follow its daughter to Japan. “Of church in church, I was with a priest whom is called Pepe Lopez and I said to him: `I am not baptized, I was born in a communist country and I never entered a church. I must have done something very bad in the life so that this is passing me'. It helped me to contact to me with another father in Japan and was as well as they obtained lodging to me in a convent of mercedarias by 15 days. I ended up myself being left a year and baptizing”, Yamila tells to me. During the time that only remained in Japan it could make specific two encounter with Emeri. “There it is almost impossible to see a boy in these conditions. I could only see it in August, when I arrived. It was in one cut of mediation, during one hour. There already he was madrastra. The second time I saw in December, by half an hour. After those encounter I had to leave Japan because the visa was overcome to me. I went to Korea to be able to return to enter and, when I obtained it, in emigrations they asked to me so that it wanted to enter. `Tengo a daughter here', I said to them. Pero Emeri already appeared in the registries like daughter of Yukiko Ogane. They had to look for much in the registries, because I only appear like natural mother. It is very sad, but I am trusted that soon I will be able to be eeted again with Emeri. I know that I will recover my daughter”, concludes.