Dreaming In Cuban

Cristina Garcia is a Cuban-born American writer. Her voice is important in Latin American literature because she writes about the experiences of identity fragmentation for immigrants who are born in a different country and move to the United States�a situation faced by millions of Latin American immigrants living in America. Her novel, Dreaming In Cuban, is similar to the novels of other immigrants of other cultures, like Amy Tan, whose novels often deal with similar themes of displacement, personal and cultural identity, and generation differences among young and old immigrants. Dreaming In Cuban spans a half a century of adventures and experiences of the del Pino family, a family whose members have suffered irrevocable changes as a result of the Cuban revolution. Chief among those changes is fractured identity, and the success and failure of various family members to create an American identity without sacrificing the core values of their Cuban culture. Colors are a significant metaphor throughout the novel for the psychological experiences endured by the del Pino's, especially blue. Blue represents peace, acceptance of life's struggles, beauty, nature.

The first chapter is entitled Ocean Blue, and the ocean represents all hues of blue, hues of nature that represent peace, chaos, love, hate, mystery, fear, the unknown and as a reminder of man's insignificance in the face of nature yet his deep connection to it. When Celia's husband

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Castro is, of course, what has broken up the rest of the family. Some handle the breakup well and most do not. For example, Lourdes is Celia's daughter. She ends up living in Brooklyn and opening a business called the Yankee Doodle Bakery. She dives into American life and culture happily, from loving the cold New York weather, capitalism and she even adopts some less admirable facets of American life, prejudice. Pilar is artistic and she escapes into her art and painting as the primary method of dealing with her displacement and fractured identity. She eventually becomes herself and finds her identity, because American as she becomes she now dreams in Cuban. Her heritage will never be taken from her no matter how American she becomes in other aspects. She has recognized that the bond between different generations of family members is as strong and flowing as the blue ocean. We see this illustrated by the author when she writes Pilar's experience painting her Abuela, Celia. Celia, Lourdes and Pilar all feel differently about the revolution and they argue about it with Lourdes being the most vehement that someone owes Cubans who were stripped of their every possession by the revolution. In other words, Lourdes' identity

Category: Literature - D