Cuban Diaspora From Two Different Female Perspectives in Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

The novel Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia portrays the stories of a Cuban family and mainly focuses on the lives of women from three generations. Part of the family members emigrates to The United States as a result from change the country’s politics. Lourdes Puente moves with her husband and two-year-old daughter Pilar to New York City. Thus, Diaspora – “the voluntary or forcible movement of peoples from their homelands to new regions”(qtd. in Edwards 154) – and its effect on the characters’ lives plays a big role in the novel. Pilar and Lourdes by being from different generations and having varied memories from Cuba, the two female characters represent two different diasporic experiences, which results with the mother affection to America and the daughter struggling with her cultural identity.

Lourdes did not expect to stay in The United States for a long time and did not prepare for the substantial change (Garcia 69). One could think that her life shifting from managing a wealthy estate to being in American working class will make Lourdes miserable. In Cuba she was well respected by the local community. Pilar recalls that people changed their posture and had “attentive faces”(63) as if “their lives depended on the bolt of the fabric she chose”(63). Despite her former high position in the Cuban society, Lourdes is thankful for her immigration and believes it “redefines her”(73). Assimilating to the new situation, she opens bakeries and becomes a successful business woman. Interestingly, the narrator says that she mostly adores winter as the few layers of the seasonal attire “protect her”(73). This notion might be a contrasting allusion to the fact she was ripped of her blouse and pants (only one layer of clothing) and raped by the revolutionary soldiers back in warm Cuba(71), which incident probably persuaded her among others to leave the home country. It also seems, Lourdes wishes to stay at a place that the least reminds her of Cuba considering the weather, by telling her husband to go “colder, colder”(69) when they are traveling through the states and finally calling New York “cold enough”(70) and settling down there. Living for years in New York makes Lourdes strained to the American capitalism (the contrary to the Cuban communism) and patriotism. She has a thriving bakery business, from which she is planning to create a nationwide franchise (171). This idea shows how she truly believes in the American dream and entrepreneurship. It is also mentioned how she “felt link to the American moguls”(170), which illustrates how she easily gets assimilated and fond to the American customs. Nevertheless, Lourdes feels nostalgic to some aspects of Cuba, for instance she misses the birds she used to have there (131).

Nonetheless, the exile to The United States had different course and effect on Pilar. Lourdes’ daughter had no chance to decide whether to stay in Cuba or emigrate, as she was too young. She remembers perfectly the last time she saw her grandmother while her mother announced the family moving to other country. Pilar recounts: “I was sitting in my grandmother’s lap, playing with her drop pearl earrings” (26). Having this good memory in her head when trying to run away from her home in Brooklyn back to Cuba, she pictures Pilar envisions the warm image of herself and her grandmother sitting together having a sea view and listening to her singing voice (26). Celia, the grandmother, is the main and joyful memory of Cuba, which makes Pilar idolize Cuba. At one point, the young character starts to believe man in power destroy her dream to see her grandmother and make the two separated between each other (199-200). This belief shows, that although she misses her Abuela and wishes to see her, she is not necessarily pro-Revolution, as the current regime makes more difficult for her to see the loved family member. After some years she senses to be less attached to Celia: “Every day Cuba fades a little more inside me, my grandmother fades a little more inside me” (138). Living in The United States but still feeling connected to Cuba by Celia, Pilar struggles with her cultural identity. When as a 17-year-old, she goes to a club and an artist shouts: “I’m from Brooklyn, man!” (134), she does not cheer with the rest of the crowd and states she would not if the artist asked to cheer to Cuba (134). As Sunetra Gupta explains “for one’s cultural identity does not necessarily come from ‘home’ but it is located wherever an individual is rooted” (Edwards 154), the teenager might rather identify with the American than the Cuban culture. It is at the end of the novel, when Pilar is finally in Cuba, she admits to herself the country is “much tougher”(Garcia 235) than she expected to be and realizes she actually feels better connected with New York than Cuba: “I know now it’s [New York] where I belong – not instead of here, but more than here [in Cuba]”(236).

Through analyzing both female characters in context of diaspora, it is achievable to notice the difference of their diasporic experience as a consequence of a diverse cause and  experiencing the exile from different perspectives. Pilar as being a second generation immigrant and Lourdes – first, along with having varying image of Cuba. The daughter has problems with identifying with certain culture and finally decided she in fact feels more connected to the customs of the United Stated, the place she emigrated to as a child. She learns the image she had of Cuba was romanticized. Where, her mother, Lourdes, assimilates in the new country and starts a new, different life, in which she finds her place and feels connected to.