Michael A

CUBAN VICTIMS of the Sept 11^th 2001 Massacre

	Michael A. Diaz-Piedra III
	Playing Soldier He called his basement the war room and filled it with an array of military uniforms from around the world. He kept about 30 on mannequins; there were another 100 on racks, but they didn't just sit there. Michael A. Diaz-Piedra III loved to wear them, whether at an elaborate Halloween masquerade party or birthday parties for his son Michael, now 6. "The uniforms called attention to him, and he liked that," said his wife, Kelly. The plumes and swords also gave Mr. Diaz- Piedra an opening to talk about the historic periods that so fascinated him.
In fact, he was crazy about all kinds of vintage things, Mrs. Diaz-Piedra said, including old cars. This gave him a kind of Old World romanticism that fit his background as son of a wealthy Cuban plantation owner exiled after the Castro revolution. "Once for my birthday, Mike rented a vintage Jaguar and picked me up at work," Mrs. Diaz-Piedra said. "He hired some violinists to play while we had dinner. Then he asked me to marry him." Although he came to the United States from Cuba when he was 8, Mr. Diaz-Piedra maintained strong ties with the food and culture of his homeland. "Mike was not a ravenous, anti-Castro Cuban," said his brother, George, but he said he had prepared a claim to recover the family's property in Cuba when Castro's regime ended. Mr. Diaz-Piedra, 49, was a vice president with the Bank of New York in charge of disaster recovery planning. But he was happiest when the planning he did was for a mock battle of the soldiers in his collection. "Some people may have thought of Mike as eccentric," Mrs. Diaz-Piedra said. "But he was just a big kid at heart."

	Carlos Dominguez
	Deeply Shared Values There was always enough room for a Christmas tree and a menorah in the Dominguez living room in December. The holidays reflected a commitment that Carlos Dominguez and his wife, Maureen, made to each other in 1991 — a wedding ceremony presided over by both a priest and a rabbi, and with the blessings of both families. "When you got down to it," Mrs. Dominguez said, "our values were the same." Mr. Dominguez, 34, was born in Little Italy, the second son of Cuban immigrants. He was the first in his family to go to college, attending New York University. "He was just a very kind, caring person,"
Mrs. Dominguez said. During their courtship, the two volunteered in soup kitchens on the Bowery. After marrying, they converted their public service commitment into parenthood, with three daughters: Maria, 10, Amanda, 6, and Michelle, 20 months. He was an independent contractor for Marsh & McLennan for three years, setting up firewalls for their computers. In 2000, the family moved from Brooklyn to a house in East Meadow, N.Y., and bought a second car. Things were looking up: Marsh made him a permanent employee on Sept. 10.

	Juan Lafuente
	Simple Needs Juan Lafuente, 61, was a vice president at Citibank, near the World Trade Center. Here is his wife, Colette, the mayor of Poughkeepsie: "He loved his family, his work, his home. He constantly strove to improve himself professionally, and never considered retirement after leaving I.B.M. in 1993. . . . "Juan did not need things — he had the same jackets, shirts and slacks for years and years. He lived a simple life —
good food and a night out with family or friends. After his morning paper and coffee at the deli, his weekends were spent mowing or raking or painting, bill paying, watching the Mets (his love for baseball he brought from Cuba), storming out of the room when they really screwed up. . . . "He had great joy in his daughters' accomplishments and supported them through all of their struggles."

	Nancy E. Perez
	Many Things for Children A classic Nancy Perez story is about how she started taking karate in the late '90's and one day met a class of deaf children at her karate school. Intrigued, Ms. Perez, left, began learning American Sign Language and ended up teaching karate to the children she had befriended. She would do anything for anyone," said Marie Roman, one of her best friends. "I don't remember what level she got to in karate but she learned sign language in six months." "She was an upbeat person," Ms. Roman said. "We did country line-dancing, we went to Graceland, we took boxing lessons."
Ms. Perez, 36, was a Port Authority supervisor at One World Trade Center. Single and childless, she doted on children. She even wrote a book about a little boy afraid to go to school for her 8-year-old cousin, Kyle McCann. It was printed by a friend who was a graphic artist. Ms. Perez was always learning something new, said Maritza Conti, her older sister. She enjoyed traveling and also got a kick out of taking their parents around New York, especially the Broadway shows. The family of three girls came to New York from Cuba in 1970. "Nancy was a wonderful person, sister, aunt, godmother and daughter," Ms. Conti said. "She just lived life to the fullest."

	George C. Merino
	Cuba on His Mind The smell of Little Neck Bay reminded George Merino of Cuba. He lived in Bayside, Queens, but the town of Matanzas, east of Havana, on the Straits of Florida, was his real home. Mr. Merino fled his homeland in 1968, and he came to New York City with his family to begin a new life. He was a securities analyst for Fiduciary Trust in 2 World Trade Center and would have been 40 on Dec. 18.
As he approached his 40th birthday, his mind had started to turn once more toward Cuba, said Olga, his wife. "He was thinking of getting into politics," she said. "He always kept abreast of the Castro regime and wanted nothing more than a free Cuba and to go back." Ms. Merino, too, is Cuban. She's a city-slicker from Havana. She came to America in 1970, two years after her husband came. They met at a party in New York when she was 19 and he was 20. They were married for 15 years. Mr. Merino used to teach their daughter, Tania, 11, all about their island country, reading her Spanish news articles he found on the Internet. They also went biking together at the Bayside Marina, where the salt air reminded him of a homeland he would never see again.