We Carry Our Homes With Us: A Cuban American Memoir

Amazon.com Price: $14.49 (as of 10/11/2019 13:04 PST- Details)

Description

On December 30, 1960, Marisella Veiga with her mother and two brothers boarded a plane from Havana to Miami. Her father fled a couple of months later, joining his circle of relatives with a total of fourteen U.S. cents in his pocket and an understanding that he would never see his homeland again. Seeking a less competitive job market and thanks in large part to the sponsorship of a host circle of relatives in St. Paul, the Veigas resettled in Minnesota, miles away from the Caribbean subtropics, where the climate used to be very similar to home, Spanish used to be spoken, and thousands of exiles arrived every month.

Veiga’s stories are rich with detail and character as she describes her integration into a northern midwestern landscape she grew to love, from adapting to the cold—learning to ice-skate before learning to speak English—to her obsession with Davy Jones. Yet, the weight of her biculturalism—being of two worlds but an outsider to both—has been central to her quest for identity: “Every so often, I dream that if I will get in touch with the essence of that monolingual child with one set of customs, I would be satisfied. I would be complete, whole.” In this honest memoir, readers will find a resonant story of an exile’s journey, one that in the long run embraces those two worlds: a lifetime of conflict and limbo but also one of richness and understanding.

Home » Shop » Books » Subjects » Politics and Social Sciences » Social Sciences » Specific Demographics » Hispanic American Studies » We Carry Our Homes With Us: A Cuban American Memoir

Recent Products