Next Year in Cuba: A Cubano's Coming of AgeGustavo P?rez Firmat arrived in America with his family at the age of eleven. Victims of CastroÍs revolution, the P?rez family put their life on hold, waiting for CastroÍs fall. Each Christmas, along with other Cuban families in the neighborhood, they celebrated with the cry, ñNext year in Cuba.î Growing up in the Dade County school system, and graduating from college in Florida, P?rez Firmat was insulated from America by the nurturing sights and sounds of Little Havana. It wasnÍt until he left home to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan that he realized, as the Cuba of his birth receded farther into the past, he had become no longer wholly Cubano, but increasingly a man of two heritages and two countries. In a searing memoir of a family torn apart by exile, P?rez Firmat chronicles the painful search for roots that has come to dominate his adult life. With one brother beset by personal problems and another embracing the very revolution that drove their family out of Cuba, Gustavo realized that the words ñNext Year in Cuba,î had, for him, taken on a hollow ring. Now, married to an American woman, and father to two children who are Cuban in name only, P?rez Firmat has finally come to acknowledge his need to celebrate his love of Cuba, while embracing the America he has come to love. |
Contents
| xi | |
| 3 | |
A Crash Course in Americana | 27 |
Mooning over Miami | 39 |
On the Corner of Paula and San Ignacio | 65 |
Domino Theory Canasta Klatch | 91 |
The Ghosts of Nochebuenas Past | 115 |
Billita Who Am I? | 129 |
The Gusano as Bookworm | 145 |
Love in a Foreign Language | 161 |
Ricky Ricardo with a PhD | 175 |
Earth to Papi Earth to Papi | 187 |
This Must Be the Place | 207 |
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Abuelo Alabau almacén American became brother Pepe Calle Ocho canasta cards Carlitos Carlos carrel Castro Cedar Key Chapel Hill Christmas Chucho cigar coño Constantina Coral Gables couple Cuban boy Cuban exiles Cuban Revolution culture Dade Dade County dance David and Miriam dominoes English father feel felt Fidel Firmat friends go back grandmother Gustavito Gustavo happened hear Hispanic immigrants inside kids knew language later Latino leave Little Havana lived look Love Lucy Lucy machismo macho married Mary Anne Miami Mike months morning mother Nena never night Nochebuena Old Havana once Papi Paquito parents Pedro Pérez perhaps professor remember Revolution Ricardo Ricky Rosa Salle sitting someone sometimes Spanish spend spent stay street talk tell things thought took turn uncle walk weeks wife Willie Chirino word
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Page xix - Havana — they are as Cuban today as they were when they got off the ferry in October 1960. My children, who were born in this country of Cuban parents and in whom I have tried to inculcate some sort of cubania, are American through and through. They can be "saved" from their Americanness no more than my parents can be "saved
Page xviii - ... sustained us for over thirty years. Exile is disconcerting, but after three decades the possibility of return may be more disconcerting still. What happens to the exile who can go back but who decides not to? What does he become then, a post-exile? An ex-exile? After the demise of the Cuban Revolution, the question of what it means to be Cuban in America will become more rather than less urgent. I write out of the need to puzzle out what it means to be a Cuban man living in the United States...