As the only child from my Cuban parents' marriage, born when my mother, Magaly, was 40 and my father, Armando, was 54, I grew up in a sheltered home in working-class Union City, New Jersey. I wasn't allowed to sleep over at friends' houses for years. And even when I had a newly minted driver's license at 17, I was prohibited from driving solo until age 20, and only then because I had a summer internship at a newspaper. Despite how overprotective my parents were, my mom and I were very close. I