Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban Essay

My cultural ancestry comes from a Cuban and Mexican decent. I have chosen to write about my Cuban side because I can relate to them more than I could with my Mexican side. I was raised around my Cuban family and would occasionally see my Mexican side due to them living so far away. I have spent a lot more time associating with Cubans and have adapted to more of their habits.

Further, the narrator describes deceit and exposure to infidelity at a young age while his father has an affair on his mother; “…we both knew Papi had been with that Puerto Rican woman he was seeing and wanted to wash off the evidence quick (Diaz, 23). I met the Puerto Rican woman right after Papi had gotten the van (Diaz, 34). I don’t remember being out of sorts after I met the Puerto Rican woman, but I must have been because Mami only asked me questions when she thought something was wrong in my life (Diaz, 42). I didn’t say anything to Mami either…Later I would think, maybe if I had told her, she would have confronted him, would have done something, but who can know these things” (Diaz, 43).

In the novel, Bless me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, a boy goes through many more experiences than any child in the hot summer days in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. He witnesses the deaths of his close friends and family. This boy expresses his emotions and grief through his dreams, only to wake up with fear and confusion in his mind. Antonio’s life is filled with dreams that foreshadow future incidents, as well as influences Antonio’s beliefs of religion and ideas of innocence.

Anthony Eaton’s a new Kind of Dreaming helps the reader to recognise the various challenges and conflicts that cause the characters to change and grow. Anthony Eaton best expresses Jamie as an outsider that is trying to find his place in the world, while uncovering the secrets of Port Barren’s shady past. This changes Jamie from an adolescent delinquent to a responsible and admirable person. Jaime develops friendships that lead him to trusting and sympathetic qualities that are unusual for him in his past of crime. Jamie faces a challenge to build a stronger relationship with Cameron, but this is an obstacle for Cameron as he tries to understand Jamie and

3Cristina Gracia book Dreaming in Cuban focus on many women and their families. In the book, there are three women I will be focusing on called Pilar, Celia and Lourdes. The character Pilar, when compared to her mother Lourdes, shows why she is a good character with a likable personality for a younger audience.

Have you ever had a dream that you have been really committed to? Has something or someone ever stopped you short of that or any dream of yours? These questions are quite relevant to the main characters in the selections Of Mice and Men and “Only Daughter”. Of Mice and Men is a well-known story by John Steinbeck that tells the tale of two travel companions, George Milton and Lennie Small, as they dream and work hard to gain a small piece of land for themselves during The Great Depression, a harsh financial time. “Only Daughter” is an autobiographical essay by Sandra Cisneros about her struggles on trying to bond with her father while being impeded by her six brothers. The two selections’ main dreams are both corresponding and distinct in various ways. The dreams are also very substantial to the one who holds it. George and Lennie’s dream, in Of Mice and Men, influenced their lifestyle, behavior, and relationship between them. Sandra Cisneros’s dream, from “Only Daughter”, had an impact on the topic of her writing, her writing style, and her relationship with her father, who she has been trying to gain the approval for her writing career for many years.

One of those spirit babies, alela, as the country people say. My mind, my heart, my soul in the clouds. It took some doing and undoing to bring me down to earth.” Here, Patria was an adolescent. She was spiritual and this helps her effortlessly love others in the future.“I’d see those boys and think, Ah yes, they will come to Sor Mercedes in times of trouble and lay their heads in my lap so I can comfort them,” Patria pictured herself being connected with boys in a saintly way to assist them through tough

Even though the acts of the Mirabal sisters are based on true events, Julia Alvarez gives a fictional voice to capture and remember the spirit of their memory and carry out their legacy. Alvarez argues “a novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart” (Alvarez 324). Alvarez successfully does this in her historical fiction novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, by enticing her readers and transporting them as if they were a part of the Mirabal family.

Every individual relationship mentioned in the book consists of at least one direct family member of Celia del Pino. Celia

Isolation plays a significant role in Pi's story, and both Martel and Lee have their differences in conveying this theme. Martel does not write Pi's journey in chronological order. Despite this, the author manages to effectively express the protagonist's emotions to the audience. Throughout the first chapter, the reader learns about Pondicherry Zoo, which was ran by his father and was considered his home. Martel makes Pi describe his life at the zoo, stating that "it was a paradise on earth. I have nothing but the fondest memories growing up in a zoo. I had the life of a prince," (page 14). Martel writes is past tense here, thus indicating to the reader that Pi no longer has a life at the zoo. This is soon confirmed a couple of pages later, with Pi stating that "the Pondicherry Zoo doesn't exist anymore. It's pits are filled in, the cages torn down. I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory," (page 19).

Fidel Castro and the M-26-7 successfully seized power of Cuba’s government in 1959, after years of fighting. The M-26-7’s nationalist movement was able to knock the corrupt leader, Fulgencio Batista, out of power, and in 1961 Castro deemed the revolution to be officially of a Marxist nature. Throughout his 40-year stay as president, Castro has not allowed his revolution to stall, but rather he has allowed it to progress and adapt as he has seen fit. In relation with Castro’s revolution in Cuba has been another revolution, that of the Cuban women. Castro himself described the changes in women’s public and private lives as "a revolution within a revolution". In a true system of equality, as in the one Castro holds as his ideal, equality

After Constancia ignores Abuela when she needed her help most at church which resulted in her grandmother in tears, Constancia thinks she “understand how [she] made Abuela feel” (Ortiz 4). Due to the conflict that Constancia caused, she is forced to rethink her actions that were bestowed upon her grandmother, making her fight to realize the importance of her grandmother. She learns that the worst thing a person can do to a family member is to completely outcast them, as which Constancia did to Abuela. Throughout this incident, Constancia learns to respect her family members as they all have a major impact in her life. Likewise, after Constancia's mother discovers what had happened during the church service, Constancia was sent to her “room to consider a number [she] hadn’t thought much about” (Oritz 4).

Cuba is an island nation that was adopted in 1902. One third of it consists of mountains and rolling hills. It lies in the West Indies, and is said to be a beautiful island. Havana is Cuba’s capital, and the center of government for Cuba. Some important cities are Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. Santiago de Cuba is near the south-eastern area of Cuba, and has a population of about half a million people. It’s considered the second most important city in Cuba, probably because it’s an important sea port. Camagüey is the fourth largest city in Cuba, according to Wikipedia. The symbol of Camagüey is a clay pot, mainly because there are clay pots everywhere. They can be very small, or very big. They’re used to capture rainwater to be

Who the narrator is and where he stands in the social environment of their community allows the author to create magical realism as well. The genre of magical realism is what enriches the sense of time and helps the narrator tell the story after his return to unfold the truth of it all. This is shown through Santiago’s dreams, “He’d dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling,...”(pg. 3) the narrator states that Santiago’s mother's interpretations of dreams had earned her a reputation, “but she hadn't noticed any ominous augury in those two dreams of her son’s, or in the other dreams of trees he’d described to her on the morning preceding his death.” (pg. 4) Reminiscing on the past events and the misinterpretation of the dreams led the narrator to later say “Nor did Santiago Nasar recognize the omen.” (pg. 4) as if he wished that Santiago could’ve noticed the foreshadowing created by the dream.

I jolted awake in fear. I had a dream. A weird dream. A vivid dream. It was full of people shouting and bright flashes of light. It was confusing yet clear, like some part of me understood it. I didn’t know it would be important then but now I know. How? Well, it happened like this…