Dreaming in Cuban and the Cuban Revolution

¶ … Dreaming in Cuban" and the Cuban Revolution

Cristina Garcia's, "Dreaming in Cuban" is a novel that tells the story of three generations of women and their triumphs and tribulations while the Cuban Revolution is used as the novel's context. The structure of Garcia's novel is unique as well and helps provide great insight into the characters, setting and events. In each chapter, several characters have a chance to speak which allows the audience to gain perspective from each character. The four main characters in the novel are Celia, Lourdes, Felicia and Pilar, all of whom have very different reactions to the Cuban revolution, mainly due to the wide spectrum of personalities. The themes of the book include exile, primarily due to the events of the Cuban Revolution, family relationships, the power of political control and memory. These themes, along with Cuban history and culture, are illuminated through the different characters and the events that transpire.

Celia del Pino is best described as the matriarch of her family. Celia, who married Jorge and had three children, is an avid supporter of the Cuban Revolution as well as socialism and El Lider. Her preference for El Lider is evident through many of her actions including that Celia still "dresses up for these all-night vigils, putting on red lipstick and darkening the mole on her cheek, and imagines that El Lider is watching her" (Garcia, 112). Apart from her personal idolization and support of El Lider and the Revolution, Celia also takes an active role in the Revolution as seen when she joined the micro-brigade, "setting tiles and operating a construction lift" when volunteers were needed to build nurseries on behalf of El Lider as well as becomes a judge of the People's Court (Garcia, 111). Celia works in the sugar cane fields to support the Revolution as well as to keep herself busy with tasks (Garcia, 44). As a character in Garcia's novel, Celia effectively captures the individual who is a staunch and avid supporter of the Cuban Revolution. Through her actions and reactions to certain situations and the choices that she makes, Celia provides a background into who the types of people were that did support the Revolution and the things that they did to keep the Revolution actively going by support and working for it. Celia is a representation of the larger faction of individuals that did in fact support the Cuban Revolution.

Lourdes, the daughter of Celia and Jorge, married a wealthy man named Rufino, after they had met in college. Contrary to Celia, Lourdes is not a supporter of the Revolution as certain events in her life occurred that have contributed to great disdain for the Revolutionary government. Foremost, the property of her husband and her was forcefully seized by soldiers in the name of revolutionary government, it also included Lourdes at knifepoint (Garcia, 70). Lourdes and her husband escape to Miami, and eventually make it up to New York where Lourdes purchases a bakery (Garcia, 18). Lourdes supports her family, including Rufino, with the success of the Yankee Doodle Bakery. Lourdes and her family represent the victims of the Cuban Revolution- the wealthy individuals that were private land owners. Left with nothing after the seizing of their property, Lourdes and her family were forced to flee Cuba. Lourdes's successful ownership of the bakery represents everything that was not possible in Cuba during the revolution- financial freedom, independence, capitalism, and freedom from the government.

The bakery is something that Celia, Lourdes's mother does not agree with because it does represent the financial excess and unfair practices that she does not support. The extent of which the Cuban revolution infiltrated individual families and the impact that it had on relationships is most definitely evident between Celia and Lourdes.

Furthermore, Pilar, the daughter of Lourdes and Rufino, represents the product of a family that was entrenched in the Cuban Revolution. When Pilar eventually returns to Cuba with her mother to make amends with Celia on behalf of an ailing Jorge, Pilar and Celia talk and communicate openly. Though Celia is a Cuban Revolution supporter and Pilar is very much a product of the United States culture and freedom as a punk artist, they share a certain connection. Pilar paints Celia "just the way she wants, as a dancing flamenco artist" while Celia tells stories of her life in Cuba (Garcia, 233). Despite their communication and relationship, Pilar is rather apathetic about the entire situation in Cuba- as she did truly experience the Revolution in the same manner that her mother and grandmother did. To that end, Pilar seems to represent the memory or legacy of the Cuban revolution and the effects of it on the family. It seems that the memory of it is slowly fading away as generations go on as it is not as important to established lives in the states. The root of Pilar's existence is in New York as an artist and does find it important to explore her grandmother stories any more than her storytelling them.