A BOUQUET OF MEMORIES FOR AN AMERICAN DAUGHTER

Book excerpt: In this memoir, childhood recollections become the springboard for depicting the challenges of a Latina, an immigrant, and a bicultural mother in the United States. The vignettes of life under communist rule in her native Cuba help readers glean a harsh contrast with the civil liberties Americans enjoy. Infused with humor and candid introspection, the writing tackles the pitfalls, the contradictions, and the cultural scrimmages that emerge after marriage to an Anglo man and during the upbringing of their bicultural daughter. When her enthusiasm for Spanish language immersion at home meets with the child's resistance, the author is forced to question the visceral attachment she feels for her birth language. Stumbling through motherhood, she ponders how to live an authentic sense of self while mothering in English. She resolves not to push the daughter to speak Spanish and risk damaging their mother-daughter bond. Instead, the author begins to write and crafts this family legacy as an invitation for her daughter to embrace her Cuban-Spanish lineage. This Latina mother's journey of self-reflection dredges memories of her birthplace, family, exile, cultural adaptation, and social integration. Through the narrative lens of a child, refugee, daughter, wife, mother, professor, and an acculturated Cuban American, the author depicts the culture-clashing complexities of her biculturalism. It is while examining the precariousness of family relationships that the author arrives at a deeper understanding of the nuances of ethnic identity. Through this writing, she achieves a genuine embrace of the extraordinary adoptive country that irrevocably ties her to her beloved American daughter. May you, reader, be inspired to collect and stitch for posterity your tapestry of family stories.