A marriage proposal must be repeated three times. She rushed to explain, using fingers and facial expressions, that in her old-fashioned town, the rules of romance had been established centuries earlier, at a time when brides were not supposed to seem eager. Their meetings were chaperoned, their conversations mimed-sketches, signs, and gestures had to substitute for words. Since they could not speak the same language, my parents communicated by passing drawings back and forth, like children in the back of a classroom. My mother was a local art student, ready to fall in love. My American father was a visiting artist who had traveled to Trinidad after seeing National Geographic magazine photographs of the colonial plaza, where horsemen still galloped along cobblestone streets, beneath soaring church bell towers, against a backdrop of wild green mountains. They were breathing the enchanted air of Trinidad de Cuba, my mother’s hometown.
They were standing on the terrace of an art school in an elegant palace now known as the Museo Romántico, the Romantic Museum. When my parents met, it was love at first sight. VALENTINE’S DAY, 1947 FOUR YEARS BEFORE I EXISTED How can the two countries she loves hate each other so much? And will she ever get to visit her beautiful island again? Read more When the hostility between Cuba and the United States erupts at the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Margarita’s worlds collide in the worst way possible.
Words and images are her constant companions, friendly and comforting when the children at school are not. But most of the time she lives in Los Angeles, lonely in the noisy city and dreaming of the summers when she can take a plane through the enchanted air to her beloved island.
Her heart lies in Cuba, her mother’s tropical island country, a place so lush with vibrant life that it seems like a fairy tale kingdom. In this poetic memoir, which won the Pura Belpré Author Award, was a YALSA Nonfiction Finalist, and was named a Walter Dean Myers Award Honoree, acclaimed author Margarita Engle tells of growing up as a child of two cultures during the Cold War.
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