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"Cuban Americans Biography."
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Thoughts without cigarettes : a memoir
In his first work of nonfiction, the author writes about the people and places that inspired his previous novels. Born in Manhattan's Morningside Heights to Cuban immigrants in 1951, he introduces readers to the colorful circumstances of his upbringing. The son of a Cuban hotel worker and exuberant poetry-writing mother, his story, played out against the backdrop of an often-prejudiced working class neighborhood, takes on an even richer dimension when his relationship to his family and culture changes forever. During a sojourn in pre-Castro Cuba with his mother, he catches a disease that sends him into a Dickensian home for terminally ill children. The yearlong stay estranges him from the very language and people he had so loved. With a cast of characters whose stories are both funny and tragic, this work follows the author's subsequent quest for his true identity into adulthood, through college and beyond, a mystery whose resolution he eventually discovers hidden away in the trappings of his fiction.--From publisher description.
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An Island Called Home
Yiddish-speaking Jews thought Cuba was supposed to be a mere layover on the journey to the United States when they arrived in the island country in the 1920s. They even called it \"Hotel Cuba.\" But then the years passed, and the many Jews who came there from Turkey, Poland, and war-torn Europe stayed in Cuba. The beloved island ceased to be a hotel, and Cuba eventually became \"home.\" But after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, the majority of the Jews opposed his communist regime and left in a mass exodus. Though they remade their lives in the United States, they mourned the loss of the Jewish community they had built on the island.As a child of five, Ruth Behar was caught up in the Jewish exodus from Cuba. Growing up in the United States, she wondered about the Jews who stayed behind. Who were they and why had they stayed? What traces were left of the Jewish presence, of the cemeteries, synagogues, and Torahs? Who was taking care of this legacy? What Jewish memories had managed to survive the years of revolutionary atheism?An Island Called Homeis the story of Behar's journey back to the island to find answers to these questions. Unlike the exotic image projected by the American media, Behar uncovers a side of Cuban Jews that is poignant and personal. Her moving vignettes of the individuals she meets are coupled with the sensitive photographs of Havana-based photographer Humberto Mayol, who traveled with her.Together, Behar's poetic and compassionate prose and Mayol's shadowy and riveting photographs create an unforgettable portrait of a community that many have seen though few have understood. This book is the first to show both the vitality and the heartbreak that lie behind the project of keeping alive the flame of Jewish memory in Cuba.
eBook
Soaring earth : a companion memoir to Enchanted air
\"In this follow-up to her award-winning memoir Enchanted Air, Margarita Engle details her teenage years in Los Angeles against the turbulent backdrop of the Vietnam War. In vulnerable verse, she addresses the notions of peace, civil rights, freedom of expression, and environmental protection that are once again under threat. Despite these circumstances, young Margarita was able to find solace and empowerment through her education\"-- Provided by publisher.
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The Latin hit maker : my journey from Cuban refugee to world-renowned record producer and songwriter
The prodigious record producer and composer shares his rags-to-riches story filled with inspiration, little-known accounts of working with celebrity artists, and reminders of God's grace.
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Miami Transformed
Six-year-old Manuel Diaz and his mother first arrived at Miami's airport in 1961 with little more than a dime for a phone call to their relatives in the Little Havana neighborhood. Forty years after his flight from Castro's Cuba, attorney Manny Diaz became mayor of the City of Miami. Toward the end of the twentieth century, the one-time citrus and tourism hub was more closely associated with vice than sunshine. When Diaz took office in 2001, the city was paralyzed by a notoriously corrupt police department, unresponsive government, a dying business district, and heated ethnic and racial divisions. During Diaz's two terms as mayor, Miami was transformed into a vibrant, progressive, and economically resurgent world-class metropolis.In Miami Transformed: Rebuilding America One Neighborhood, One City at a Time, award-winning former mayor Manny Diaz shares lessons learned from governing one of the most diverse and dynamic urban communities in the United States. This firsthand account begins with Diaz's memories as an immigrant child in a foreign land, his education, and his political development as part of a new generation of Cuban Americans. Diaz also discusses his role in the controversial Elián González case. Later he details how he managed two successful mayoral campaigns, navigated the maze of municipal politics, oversaw the revitalization of downtown Miami, and rooted out police corruption to regain the trust of businesses and Miami citizens.Part memoir, part political primer, Miami Transformed offers a straightforward look at Diaz's brand of holistic, pragmatic urban leadership that combines public investment in education and infrastructure with private sector partnerships. The story of Manny Diaz's efforts to renew Miami will interest anyone seeking to foster safer, greener, and more prosperous cities.
eBook
The rise of Marco Rubio
Profiles the Senator and rising star in the Republican Party, from his humble roots as the son of immigrants to his becoming the youngest Speaker in the history of the Florida Statehouse.
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The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas
Focusing on the didactic nature of the work of Reinaldo Arenas,
this book demonstrates the Cuban writer's influence as public
pedagogue, mentor, and social activist whose teaching on resistance
to normative ideologies resonates in societies past, present, and
future.
Through a multidisciplinary approach bridging educational,
historiographic, and literary perspectives, The Dissidence of
Reinaldo Arenas illuminates how Arenas's work remains a
cutting-edge source of inspiration for today's audiences,
particularly LGBTQI readers. It shows how Arenas's aesthetics
contain powerful insights for exploring dissensus whether in the
context of Cuba, broader Pan-American and Latinx-U.S. queer
movements of social justice, or transnational citizenship
politics.
Carefully dissecting Arenas's themes against the backdrop of his
political activity, this book presents the writer's poetry, novels,
and plays as a curriculum of dissidence that provides models for
socially engaged intellectual activism.
Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the
Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities.
eBook