Teri Arvesu González is a 15-time Emmy Award winner, a bilingual and bicultural journalist, author, storyteller and strategist. Her latest work, The Stories We Inherit, is a personal exploration of family history, migration, and change. This story follows nine generations of her Cuban American family,  where she examines the stories, expectations, and unwritten rules passed down from generation to generation.

What began as a letter to her son Santino grew into a reflection on her identity, her family’s individuality, and a better understanding on how to choose one’s own path. We spoke with Gonzalez about the inspiration behind her book, her family’s history in Miami, and the conversations she hopes this story will inspire.

What inspired you to write The Stories We Inherit, and when did you realize this family story needed to be told?

It began as a letter to my son Santino when he graduated from Belen Jesuit High School. He was the sixth generation of our family shaped by a Jesuit education. That day almost didn’t happen for him, which made watching him graduate all the more meaningful. I wanted him to know the history that had brought our family to that moment—and to have something he could carry into whatever came next.

As I wrote, I began noticing the unwritten rules our family had passed down about safety, success, and taking risks. I recognized some of them in myself. What began as a gift for Santino became a gift for me, too.

As a Latina journalist who has covered Hispanic communities in the United States for nearly 30 years, I’ve seen this in the families whose stories I’ve told and in my own: our history can give us strength, but fear can travel alongside it. I wanted my son to inherit that history and feel free to write his own.

Why is Miami the right place to tell a story about migration, reinvention, and generational change?

Miami is where my family rebuilt after exile, and it is where I returned after 10 years in Chicago. Coming back let me see familiar places through a different lens. The story of beginning again is everywhere here. So is the question of what that new beginning means for the children and grandchildren who grow up after it. They inherit opportunities their families fought for, along with expectations about how to use them.

My family’s experience is Cuban American, but that tension reaches well beyond Miami. I think younger Hispanic readers across the country will recognize the moment when their own ambitions meet a family’s idea of what a good, secure life should look like.

How did tracing nine generations change your understanding of your own identity?

Nine generations sound like a family tree. For me, they became a way to see a cycle. In chapters three and four, I follow periods of achievement and loss, exile and return, followed by another exile, more loss, and another effort to build.

Once I saw that pattern, I understood why people in the same family might say “success” or “security” and mean very different things. If you have lost what you built, security may mean protecting it at all costs. Someone born later might see that same security as the foundation from which to try something new. Tracing the history helped me hear the experience underneath those words. It made me more compassionate toward my family’s choices and more aware that I can make choices of my own.

The book asks whether the stories that repeat in families can become something more than fate. What do you hope readers take away from that question?

I hope readers pause when they hear a family rule they have always taken for granted and ask: Who needed this rule first? What were they trying to protect? Are those circumstances still ours?

Some lessons deserve to be carried forward. Others may have kept a previous generation safe while keeping this one from growing. We can honor our families’ sacrifices and still make that distinction. That is the discernment I wanted to give Santino: the ability to be grateful for where he comes from and choose where he goes next.

How did your experience as a journalist shape the way you approached writing this deeply personal family narrative?

Journalism taught me to ask questions, look for context, and pay attention to what is missing from a story. I brought those habits to my family history. I listened to what relatives remembered, followed the historical threads I could, and tried to distinguish what I could document from what had been passed down through memory. The harder part was recognizing that I was in the story, too. I had to bring the same curiosity to my own assumptions and be honest when I didn’t have a complete answer.

Who did you have in mind when writing The Stories We Inherit, and what conversations do you hope the book inspires among families and readers?

I wrote it first for my son Santino. I wanted him to know where he comes from without feeling that his future had already been written for him. As the book grew, I began thinking about other parents and children, young adults, and people who have inherited a strong sense of family obligation but may not know the stories behind it.

I hope it prompts families to preserve their history especially in a very noisy world. To ask: What did we live through? What did we learn from it? What are we grateful for? And what might we choose to do differently? You don’t need a complete family tree to begin that conversation.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about the book that we haven’t touched on?

This was the first time I began writing without publication or an end result in mind. I wrote it for my son, and somewhere along the way, I realized I was writing it for myself, too. Only later did I begin to think about sharing it with other readers.

I hope the book gives people room to reflect on their own families, even when the stories are messy or incomplete. We’re all more than one thing. At a time when so much gets simplified to hold our attention, I wanted to make space for that complexity. I love books and films that stay with you because they raise questions without telling you what to think. That’s what I hope this book can do.

And as soon as I finished the English edition, I hurried to make it available in Spanish. My maternal grandmother is a big part of the story, and I wanted her to be able to read it.

How did your experience as a journalist shape the way you approached writing this deeply personal family narrative?

Journalism taught me to ask questions, look for context, and pay attention to what is missing from a story. I brought those habits to my family history. I listened to what relatives remembered, followed the historical threads I could, and tried to distinguish what I could document from what had been passed down through memory. The harder part was recognizing that I was in the story, too. I had to bring the same curiosity to my own assumptions and be honest when I didn’t have a complete answer.

Who did you have in mind when writing The Stories We Inherit, and what conversations do you hope the book inspires among families and readers?

I wrote it first for Santino. I wanted him to know where he comes from without feeling that his future had already been written for him. As the book grew, I began thinking about other parents and children, young adults, and people who have inherited a strong sense of family obligation but may not know the stories behind it. I hope it prompts questions like: What did our family live through? What did we learn from it? What are we grateful for? And what might we choose to do differently? You don’t need a complete family tree to begin that conversation.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about the book that we haven’t touched on?

The book is available in English and Spanish, which matters deeply to me. These conversations belong across generations, and language can be part of how we reach one another. I also hope readers know they don’t have to come away with a neat answer about their family. Sometimes the most meaningful thing we can do is ask a question that no one thought to ask before, and make room for a more honest story to begin.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK.