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Growing up in a communist country where not only certain words but even certain thoughts were discouraged has shaped Lang into a voracious reader, thinker and researcher. It informs her work as a research fellow with ��ɫ��Ƶ’s��Center for Leadership Studies and Organizational Research��as well as her research for the��Center for Educational and Instructional Technology Research. It inspires her as a��K–12 educator. It defines who she is as a person.��

None of Lang’s achievements were handed to her. Not her education, not her research, not even her U.S. citizenship.

Lang was part of the��, or rafters. The official narrative goes something like this: Then-leader Fidel Castro capitulated to riots and the repeated theft of government boats and temporarily allowed the exit of Cubans who wanted to leave.

This hadn’t been the case previously: In fact,����for Cubans to leave or help others trying to leave their country.

Lang’s own story carries some of these undertones. “I didn’t have a lot of information,” she says, “so I had a lot of questions.”

As a child, she thought the icon of Christ she found in her mother’s closet was a picture of a relative. (“I always say I’m going to write a story about ‘The Man Behind the Clothes in the Closet,’” Lang jokes.) In college, she wondered why they only studied Lenin and Marx and never Socrates or Plato.

“I was so��angry in my teens��and early 20s,” Lang recalls. “I thought, ‘Why can’t I do that? What can’t I say this? Why can’t I go here? Why can’t I travel? Why do I work and earn $4 a month?’”

Lang channeled that fury into her studies. She��became a teacher, something she’d always wanted to be, and she got married. But things were growing increasingly dangerous for Lang, who was vocal about her curiosity and her insatiable desire to learn.

“I said, ‘There is something else out there. It’s not possible that I can only read this book and I can only swear allegiance to this [political] party or organization,’” Lang recalls.

Lang, for the record, refused to join those organizations, a fact that made it increasingly difficult for her to attend conferences, travel or work. “I was viewed as��somebody who was not loyal to the system,” Lang reflects. “That’s one of the reasons why my mother wanted me to leave.”

Case in point is Lang’s��article on school violence��in which she draws on a range of research to highlight the interconnectedness of the issue’s multiple causes. Or the piece she wrote on how to��make teacher feedback a productive experience.

Today, Lang can look back on her journey with some equanimity. Her children are grown; her daughter is pursuing a doctoral degree herself. (Lang marvels at how American her children are, taking things for granted that Lang still appreciates.)

She loves Tolstoy, Plato and Socrates. “I have read so much [since coming to the U.S.],” she quips, “and definitely not a single book about Marx and Lenin.”

Now in Florida, Lang continues to work as a teacher and conduct research for UOPX. Most importantly, she continues to study, reflect and think.

“Dr. Lang is a well-rounded, positive individual who is very supportive and an excellent communicator,” Hines adds. “These qualities, as well as many others, make her an invaluable friend and colleague.”

They also made her uniquely positioned to thrive in her new country.

“What I have done with my life, I don’t think I would ever have done it if I had stayed in Cuba,” Lang says. “[Some] people say, ‘I love my motherland,’ [but] I love the people I left behind. This is my motherland��and��my fatherland. It gave me everything I could accomplish. The only thing I regret is I wish I had been born here.”

As for that angry teenager she used to be? Well, she’s gone. As Lang says, “She became a researcher.”