Dreaming in Cuban

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of mental illness, sexual assault, and death by suicide. The source text referenced also contains racist language.

Celia del Pino (née Almeida) looks out over the ocean from the wicker swing outside of her house in Santa Teresa del Mar on Cuba’s northern coast. On the radio, there have recently been warnings about a possible attack from the United States, and from her vantage point, she watches for approaching ships. Through her binoculars, she sees the form of her husband Jorge come into view on the distant horizon. He makes his way toward her but disappears before reaching the shore. In her pocket is a letter from Jorge. He has been in the United States for a long time. She recalls his sick, “shriveled” form as he boarded the plane, but although she misses him, she still does not approve of his anti-communist politics. A former salesman for an American firm, Jorge had not supported the revolution as she has. She has a premonition of his death and thinks to herself that he will be buried in a foreign land, in the United States where her granddaughter