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home with four bedrooms and a big back yard. He barely has time to enjoy it. Tree days a week, he teaches at Bellarmine University. Two days a week, he takes classes at the University of Louisville. On top of that, he works a 12-hour shift at Frazier Rehabilitation Institute on Tursdays and every other weekend. Almost a decade of living in this country hasn't dimmed the cul- ture shock of the family's initial all-American experience. "Te first few days we were here we went to Disney World and it was just too much for us," says middle child Yoel Castillo Botello, 29. (Tere's also Andria Cas- tillo Botello, 30, and Roberto Castillo Botello, 25. Teir mother now works as a bilingual assistant at Kenwood Montessori School.) "When they took us to the first supermarket . . . I don't even remember what it was, Walmart? It was just too much. When we got here we were on welfare, but at the same time we had all this other stuff that we never had before, and things you don't even know what to do with. It is really hard. Te first few days, the first few times you have to throw away food because it was going bad. Tings we don't get to do anywhere else. Te change was very, I don't want to say dramatic, but it was there." Living on welfare, Castillo-Diaz, with two college degrees and three de- cades in the classroom, started working as a janitor at Kentucky Fried Chick- en, cleaning floors and kitchens every night. "Te job change was radical in every way, plus the difficulty with the language," he says. He received a letter of recommendation from KFC and went to Altenheim nursing home on Barret Avenue to become a full- time nursing assistant. With another letter of recommendation, he moved on to the job at the Frazier Rehab, also as a nursing assistant. "It is hard to see someone who is very well placed in society and his profession and who really liked what he did regress in so many ways," Yoel says. "It is still hard to see, even with the progress and accomplishments of both of my parents, that they are not doing, and may never get to do, what they did in Cuba." A few years ago, Castillo-Diaz sent his transcripts to the National Association of Credential Evalua- tion Services, which issued him two bachelor's degrees in Spanish. He sent those results to the Kentucky Board of Education in Frankfort, and they sent back his certification as a Span- ish instructor for all levels in the commonwealth. In 2009 Nelson Lopez, the chairman of the Department of Global Languages and Cultures at Bellarmine, met Castillo-Diaz at the Iro- quois library branch and called him to see if he was interested in teach- ing Spanish at Bellarmine. Soon after his interview, the school approved his position as an adjunct instructor. [48] LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.12 "When I met him I thought, 'Tis is someone I should consider,'" Lopez says. "I had to confess that I threw him to the sharks, because students are like sharks. Tey are like, 'Sniff, sniff, new one!' But he had stories to tell and that was the good thing in a Spanish basic 100 level. You want someone who can tell stories and just talk the language. He is a resource to be found and used to his fullest." Castillo-Diaz is now a little more than a year away from completing his master's degree in Spanish at the University of Louisville. "He is a force of nature in the classroom," says Greg Hutcheson, the director of graduate studies in Spanish at U of L. "He lis- tens to everybody, he takes into con- sideration everyone else's ideas and engages everyone in discussion. He is someone who needs to be in the class- room. He needs to be teaching at the college level. It is just a matter of get- ting the degree at this point so he can move into the classroom full time." "My dream is to at least obtain my M.A. degree here," Castillo-Diaz says. "Sincerely, I don't think I will follow toward a doctorate degree. I hope to obtain my M.A. at 61. How many years does a doctorate take? A doctor- ate program is for my children now." striped shirt and a mischievous smile beneath his trim white mustache, begins class by asking his students about their weekend. Intro to Span- ish Language and Culture I is a small class (just 12 of the 19 registered stu- dents are in attendance today), but that doesn't dampen the professor's enthusiasm. ¿Qué hiciste este fin de semana? he O asks. Some students played soccer over the weekend. Others hung out with friends. One student studied organic chemistry. Castillo-Diaz grimaces. "¿Te gusta la ciencia [Do you like science]?" he asks. "No," the student replies. Laughing, Castillo-Diaz nods his head in understanding and says, "Yo tampoco [Me neither]." As he launches into a lesson about the irregular verbs tener and venir, he circles the room, traveling up and down the aisle that divides the class and covering the board in his large, loopy handwriting. His explana- tion that in Spanish one is not "hungry" but "has hunger" wouldn't be nearly as understandable without his demonstrative hand motions. He reminds students that if they are hungry, they should tell their madres, "Tengo mucha hambre," because then she will actually take them seri- ously. While the day's lecture is centered on irregular verbs, Castillo-Diaz throws vocabulary and Spanish-speaking technique into the mix. Te n a recent Monday morning in October, Castillo-Diaz, wearing a bright purple