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| Armando
A. Piña |
For Armando A. Piña, the road
from Pinar del Rio, Cuba, to Havana is paved with memories.
The FIU psychology graduate student
vividly recalls the excitement and hope associated with the three-hour
car trip, which he made
with his father roughly a dozen times as a child in the 1980s.
Wanting to secure permission to emigrate to the United States,
the Piñas left their home before the crack of dawn to
ensure a good spot in a long line at a government office.
Today pursuing a Ph.D. amid great
research and publishing success—an
impressive nine studies will have appeared in top psychology
journals by the end of the calendar year—Piña, 29,
acknowledges the continuing impact of what he calls his former “double
life” in Cuba.
“My parents always trained me
to say, when people ask you questions, ‘I
don’t know,’” Piña explains of the secretive
atmosphere in which he was raised. (His father lost a job for
political reasons.) Warned not to discuss religion or politics
or let slip that the family had purchased food on the black market,
lest a neighbor inform authorities, he quickly learned to think
twice before speaking.
“I still do that,” says
Piña, who often refers to
published research and other sources of hard facts before responding
to even casual professional queries. “I realize now I’m
very cautious.”
Ironically, Piña’s early
education in mistrust has taught him the importance of gaining
the confidence of those
he helps at FIU’s Child Anxiety and Phobia Program. A research
clinic where trained doctoral students work under the direction
of experienced faculty, the highly respected program develops
and implements state-of the-art treatments for children whose
psychosocial development is stunted by anxiety and related problems.
Remembering the pains taken by his
own family to show one face while covering up a deeper reality,
Piña says that he
wants to provide his clients with an important service while
putting them at ease during the process. “[I’m] basically
trying to . . . give them the freedom to be,” he says. “They’re
here inhibited by their fear, just as we were inhibited [in Cuba].”
Among those Piña has helped: a teenager who for five years
stopped talking following “a stressful family event.” (Client-therapist
confidentially precludes Piña’s revealing more-specific
information.) After previous therapy elsewhere and doctor-prescribed
medications failed to help, Piña spent four months working
with the youngster, who eventually progressed enough to comfortably
speak lines for a TV commercial.
This year awarded a prestigious minority
fellowship from the National Institutes of Health and the American
Psychological
Association, Piña gives much of the credit for his accomplishments
to Wendy K. Silverman, who runs the anxiety program. Piña’s
major professor, Silverman has advised him how to juggle research
and teaching commitments and has suggested approaches for strengthening
his writing and theoretical skills.
“I’ve learned all of that from her and more, ” says
Piña, who praises Silverman’s openness and the great
consideration she shows graduate students. “She is a mentor
with a capital ‘m.’ Dr. Silverman listens to our
ideas and elevates them to a first-class scientific level while
reminding us that we are here first and foremost to provide a
service to both families and the scientific community.”
Roughly a year away from earning
his doctorate, Piña plans
to devote his professional life to advocating for the needs of
Latinos. While Piña believes that basic developmental
principles remain the same across populations, he wants to explore
through sound scientific research how issues such as immigration,
discrimination and acculturation impact the effectiveness of
intervention.
Married to an FIU alumna, Piña displays a captivating
charm that belies his early, “close-lipped ” years.
He recounts his stay as a child in a Cuban hospital where the
midnight cries of young patients prompted him to wonder how he
might one day develop treatments to help people without the benefit
of physically invasive procedures.
“That kind of thinking got me
here,” says Piña, who
is already making a difference.
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