Gustavo P?rez Firmat arrived in America with his family at the age of eleven. Victims of CastroÍs revolution, the P?rez family put their life on hold, waiting for CastroÍs fall. Each Christmas, along with other Cuban families in the neighborhood, they celebrated with the cry, ñNext year in Cuba.î Growing up in the Dade County school system, and graduating from college in Florida, P?rez Firmat was insulated from America by the nurturing sights and sounds of Little Havana. It wasnÍt until he left home to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan that he realized, as the Cuba of his birth receded farther into the past, he had become no longer wholly Cubano, but increasingly a man of two heritages and two countries. In a searing memoir of a family torn apart by exile, P?rez Firmat chronicles the painful search for roots that has come to dominate his adult life. With one brother beset by personal problems and another embracing the very revolution that drove their family out of Cuba, Gustavo realized that the words ñNext Year in Cuba,î had, for him, taken on a hollow ring. Now, married to an American woman, and father to two children who are Cuban in name only, P?rez Firmat has finally come to acknowledge his need to celebrate his love of Cuba, while embracing the America he has come to love.

Photographic Ekphrasis in Cuban-American Fiction offers new readings of Cuban-American novels and autobiographies, demonstrating that a focus on photographs (alluded to, analyzed, and/or obsessively recurrent in the narrative discourse) provides fresh insights into these texts. The study introduces the concept of photographic ekphrasis as a reading tool for diasporic literature and argues that visual images are important components of narratives about dislocation, nostalgia, and transcultural experience. Authors treated in depth include Carlos Eire, Cristina García, Oscar Hijuelos, Roberto G. Fernández, Ana Menéndez, Achy Obejas, and Gustavo Pérez Firmat. Missing Pictures offers an original perspective on Cuban-American literature and contributes to the scholarship on ekphrasis and on the interactions between photography and narrative.

Internationally renowned scholars address the Cuban diaspora from multiple perspectives and locations.

Cuban Studies has been published annually by the University of Pittsburgh Press since 1985. Founded in 1970, it is the preeminent journal for scholarly work on Cuba. Each volume includes articles in both English and Spanish, a large book review section, and an exhaustive compilation of recent works in the field.

The Cuban revolution of 1959 initiated a significant exodus, with more than 700,000 Cubans eventually settling in the United States. This community creates a major part of what is now known as the Cuban diaspora. In Cuban-American Literature of Exile, Isabel Alvarez Borland forces the dialogue between literature and history into the open by focusing on narratives that tell the story of the 1959 exodus and its aftermath. Alvarez Borland pulls together a diverse array of Cuban-American voices writing in both English and Spanish--often from contrasting perspectives and approaches--over several generations and waves of immigration. Writers discussed include Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Reinaldo Arenas, Roberto Fernandez, Achy Obejas, and Cristina Garcia. The author's analysis of their works uncovers a movement from narratives that reflect the personal loss caused by the historical fact of exile, to autobiographical writings that reflect the need to search for a new identity in a new language, to fictions that dramatize the authors' constructed Cuban-American personae. If read collectively, she argues, these sometimes dissimilar texts appear to be in dialogue with one another as they all document a people's quest to reinvent themselves outside their nation of origin. Cuban-American Literature of Exile encourages readers to consider the evolution of Cuban literature in the United States over the last forty years. Alvarez Borland defines a new American literature of Cuban heritage and documents the changing identity of an exiled literature.

This book develops the communication and literacy skills of heritage Spanish speakers with exercises that are designed to improve oral and written proficiency in the language. Nuevos mundos uses the cultures and voices of the major Hispanic groups in the United States, as well as those of Latin America and Spain, to familiarize students with a variety of issues and topics, which are sometimes controversial and always thought-provoking.

What is 'Latin American Studies'? This companion gives a concise and accessible overview of the discipline. Covering a wide range of topics, from colonial cultures and identity to US Latino culture and issues of race, gender and sexuality, this book goes beyond conventional literary companions and situates Latin America in its historical, social, political, literary and cultural context. This essential book provides the key introductory information on the subject and will be especially useful for students taking or considering taking courses in Hispanic or Latin American Studies. Written by an international team of experts, each chapter supplies the necessary basic information and a sound introduction to central ideas, issues and debates. In addition to 12 chapters on the main topics in Latin American Studies, the companion includes an introduction, time chart, glossary and suggestions for further reading.

Cuban Studies 38 examines topics that include: liberalism emanating from Havana in the early 1800s; Jose Martí's theory of psychocoloniality; the relationship between sugar planters, insurgents, and the Spanish military during the revolution; new aesthetics in Cuban cinema, the “recovery” of poet José Angel Buesa, and the meaning of Elián Gonzales in the context of life in Miami.

Unlike any other book of its kind, this volume celebrates published works from a broad range of American ethnic groups not often featured in the typical canon of literature. This culturally rich encyclopedia contains 160 alphabetically arranged entries on African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and Native American literary traditions, among others. The book introduces the uniquely American mosaic of multicultural literature by chronicling the achievements of American writers of non-European descent and highlighting the ethnic diversity of works from the colonial era to the present. The work features engaging topics like the civil rights movement, bilingualism, assimilation, and border narratives. Entries provide historical overviews of literary periods along with profiles of major authors and great works, including Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Maya Angelou, Sherman Alexie, A Raisin in the Sun, American Born Chinese, and The House on Mango Street. The book also provides concise overviews of genres not often featured in textbooks, like the Chinese American novel, African American young adult literature, Mexican American autobiography, and Cuban American poetry.

This richly detailed reference offers a strengths-based survey of Latinx immigrant experience in the United States. Spanning eleven countries across the Americas and the Caribbean, the book uses a psychohistorical approach using the words of immigrants at different processes and stages of acculturation and acceptance. Coverage emphasizes the sociopolitical contexts, particularly in relation to the US, that typically lead to immigration, the vital role of the Spanish language and cultural values, and the journey of identity as it evolves throughout the creation of a new life in a new and sometimes hostile country. This vivid material is especially useful to therapists working with Latinx clients reconciling current and past experience, coping with prejudice and other ongoing challenges, or dealing with trauma and loss. Included among the topics: · Argentines in the U.S.: migration and continuity. · Chilean Americans: a micro cultural Latinx group. · Cuban Americans: freedom, hope, endurance, and the American Dream. · The drums are calling: race, nation, and the complex history of Dominicans. · The Obstacle is the Way: resilience in the lives of Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. · Cultura y familia: strengthening Mexican heritage families. · Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland. With its multiple layers of lived experience and historical analysis, Latinx Immigrant, is inspiring and powerful reading for sociologists, economists, mental health educators and practitioners, and healthcare providers.