Analysis: Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García
As a student of literature, I’m always up for analyzing a good book. It’s honestly what I miss most about being in school. So, to add yet another type of inquiry into literature to our site, I present an analysis of Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García that I completed for a course for my Master’s degree. Enjoy, and add this book to your TBR lists.
The theme of language is omnipresent in García’s novel Dreaming in Cuban. Character interactions, relationships, personal growth, and decline can all be linked to the use of language. Celia, Lourdes, Felicia, Jorges, Ivanito, Pilar, Luz, and Milagro are the core characters in the novel, all of whom make up the complex del Pino family. Each character has a special and unique relationship with language, and this relationship shapes them. Even after death, language is used to communicate with the living, as is the case with Jorge. Language is also used as a way to connect, as is the case with Celia and Pilar. In contrast, language is used as a barrier, as is the case with Felicia and her daughters, Luz, and Milagro. It is used as an escape, as is the case with Lourdes and Ivanito. Whether language is used in a negative or positive way, it is clear that it forms the main characters’ development in the Dreaming in Cuban novel.
The del Pino family is born from the characters of Celia and Jorge. One could say that the characters in Dreaming of Cuban can thank Celia, the matriarch of the family for catalyzing their relationship with language. Celia is the core of the family, whether her children or grandchildren accept it or not. After a traumatizing breakup, Celia is coerced into a relationship with Jorge. While it may seem that Celia has no choice in marrying Jorge, she clings to her freedom through her former lover, who she nearly dies for before recovering and beginning a relationship with Jorge. In the same way that Celia is devoted to her former lover, writing him letters every 11th of the month for almost her entire life, she clings to the Cuba she knows, love, and in a sense, worships. In a word, Celia is devoted to her cause, be that her relationship with her former lover, or with Cuba, and eventually Fidel Castro, or, El Lider.
Celia’s letters become an inner monologue; a diary of sorts in which she records her life’s most important moments, intertwined with the important moments in Cuba’s history. Her level of devotion towards these letters (most of which she never sends), can be seen as in fact devotion to herself: Celia craves to speak and be heard. An example of this from the novel can be found in the opening chapter, ‘Ocean Blue’. Celia is sitting on the beach in front of her home, on the lookout for invading Americans. Suddenly, she sees a vision of her husband (who has been living in the United States to receive medical treatment), walking towards her across the ocean. Jorge attempts to speak to Celia, but she becomes frustrated as she can not hear what he is saying. The scene ends with Celia calling out to her husband, desperate to understand what he is trying to communicate to her. It is in the next scene that Celia determines that Jorge has died, and he was trying to reach her from the afterlife. There is a reference to Jorge’s most recent letter to Celia, in which she says she barely recognizes him; that he speaks to her as a young and passionate version of himself, one she states that she never actually knew. It is here, very early on in the novel, that the reader realizes that language is to become an entry point into the lives and emotions of the main characters.
Celia isn’t the only member of the family that Jorge speaks to after his death. Lourdes, Celia, and Jorge’s eldest daughter, is also visited by Jorge. In the weeks following her father’s death, Lourdes begins to be visited by Jorge’s ghost. The difference here is that Lourdes is actually able to speak with Jorge, they continue their relationship after his death, and one can see that their relationship is actually strengthened with his passing on. He speaks with her, and while at first, she has a hard time believing it is true, his visits become a comfort to her and she quickly becomes worried that they will not last forever; that she will have to say goodbye to her father for a second time once the visits end.
Lourdes’ relationship with language is perhaps the most complex of all of the characters in Dreaming in Cuban. Before Lourdes decides to leave Cuba to pursue a better life in America, she is a thin, active, and beautiful young woman who recently married a wealthy landowner. As conditions in Cuba worsen, the ranch that Lourdes and her husband, Rufino, live on is invaded by Cuban soldiers. Lourdes is cornered by two particularly unsavory ones, one of whom attacks and rapes Lourdes. The rape is described in a brutal scene towards the end of the novel, and the reader better understands why the attack changed Lourdes forever. The presence of language can be found in the rape as well. Lourdes’ attacker carves words into her belly with a knife, and try as she may, Lourdes is never able to decipher what the words are. They are sloppily done and resemble hieroglyphics. Lourdes will never understand what her rapist wanted to communicate with her.
Lourdes loses a baby in the aftermath of the rape, and a few years later (and the birth of her daughter, Pilar) decides to flee from Cuba to the United States. She completely reinvents herself upon her arrival, leaning on food and sex with her husband in an attempt to forget what happened to her on the ranch. She gains over 100 pounds and dedicates her life to pursuing the “American Dream”, opening a bakery and learning English. Lourdes completely devotes herself to becoming fluent in the language of her new host country. At the heart of the del Pino family, there is a question of the use of language as trying to get over past trauma, as seen through Lourdes and her obsession with the United States and Celia and her obsession with her letters. In both cases, the trauma is never overcome. Unfortunately, it is buried beneath countless letters and within the English language.
Lourdes and Rufino have a daughter, Pilar, born in Cuba a few years before they decide to leave. Although Pilar was born in Cuba, she spends most of her life in the United States. Pilar often feels like she is being pulled in two directions: one arm being held by America, the other by Cuba. Pilar has a strained relationship with her mother, as Lourdes wants Pilar to abandon her feelings for Cuban and embrace American life as she has. Pilar also has a very complex relationship with language. She is apparently able to communicate with her grandmother, Celia, on a psychic level. Pilar often complains that she and Celia do not speak as often as they used to, and she fears that with time she will lose all ties with her and with her home country of Cuba.
Pilar is Cuban, but she has the attitude and language of an American. This seems to be her life’s struggle. She is jealous of her mother’s ability to swear in Spanish and is also frustrated that she does not speak the same Spanish as Celia. Her dancing is described as clumsy, while her cousin Ivanito (who grew up in Cuba), is described as being a wonderfully natural dancer. Celia comments on this at one point in the novel, saying that Pilar speaks a Spanish that she does not understand. Pilar aches to return to Cuba to see her grandmother, imagining that all of the confusion she experiences in her life will disappear if she can return to the place where she was born. Pilar even goes as far as to run away to Florida so that she can reach her grandmother. Her plans are derailed once she arrives in Miami, and she realizes that she did not think her plans through. Pilar does not return to Cuba until the death of her aunt, Felicia.
There is one area in her life where Pilar feels at ease. She is a talented artist and often speaks on the fact that she feels like she can truly express herself through her paintings. This is something that Lourdes does not understand. In the chapter ‘A Grove of Lemons’, Pilar is sent to a psychologist, at her mother’s request. Pilar says:
“Painting is my own language, I wanted to tell him. Translations just confuse it, dilute it, like words going from Spanish to English. I envy my mother her Spanish curses sometimes. They make my English collapse in a heap.” (pg. 59)
This passage not only describes Pilar’s relationship with her art, but it also describes her tumultuous relationship with her mother, Cuba, and the Spanish language.
Pilar and Lourdes are anything but close. Pilar keeps a diary, which she must hide inside the lining of her winter coat. Pilar’s diary could be considered to be an echo of the pseudo-diary that Celia keeps, in writing letters to her former lover. Pilar and Celia are very similar, and their similarities emerge more and more as the novel goes on. This could be another reason why Lourdes and Pilar are constantly butting heads. Lourdes’s relationship with Celia is complicated. When Celia gave birth to Lourdes, she is quoted as handing the baby to Jorge and saying “I will not remember her name” (pg 43). Lourdes is aware of this story, and in a way explains the reasons why she clings to her father and rejects her mother.
One day Lourdes finds Pilar’s diary and learns that her daughter has started touching herself in the bath, a normal thing to do during puberty. Although Lourdes clearly has a problem with sex that her daughter is aware of, she berates her for this, hitting her and calling her a whore. There seems to be a constant battle between Pilar and Lourdes; Lourdes aches to be rid of Cuba, while Pilar craves to return and is convinced that she will find herself if she is reunited with her grandmother there.
The fact that Lourdes does not understand Pilar’s relationship with art is another major strain on their relationship. Pilar uses her painting to communicate with others, it is in this medium that she feels the most like herself, where she feels she can be the best understood. Lourdes is uninterested in what Pilar creates. She does not understand the abstract nature of her paintings. A vicious circle is created, as Pilar does not know how to communicate with her mother, and Lourdes does not know how to communicate with her daughter. A relationship between a mother and daughter is traditionally understood as being one of understanding and compassion. It consists of feeling safe, or a feeling of belonging. Interestingly, Pilar does not feel this with Lourdes, and Lourdes does not feel this with Celia. This brings up another theme that is omnipresent in Dreaming in Cuban, the question of home and belonging.
Finally, there is the character of Felicia, and her three children: Ivantino, and her twins Luz and Milagro. Felicia has a very close, and yet unhealthy relationship with her children. She dotes on Ivanito, and is isolated from the twins. Luz and Milagro have memories of their father that Ivanito does not share. For Ivanito, his father abandoned him and the rest of the family, and yet he doesn’t understand why or how. Luz and Milagro remember their mother setting him on fire one day and exiling him from their home. Felicia could be considered to be the most unstable of the del Pino family, suffering from what appears to be manic depression. She has extreme ups and downs; she has moments as a loving mother, caring for her children. This is overshadowed by her moments of frenzy, and an episode in which she tries to kill herself and Ivanito.
When Ivanito is sent to school, he develops an interest in learning new languages, specifically Russian, and also a little bit of English. He develops a relationship with his Russian professor, which much like the one with his mother, is seen as inappropriate in the eyes of his classmates and his school. His teacher is eventually sent away, for reasons that remain unclear, but it is suggested that it stems from having bizarre relationships with his students.
Luz and Milagro have fond memories of their father (although in reality, he was unfaithful to their mother and even gave her syphilis) and resent Felicia for kicking him out of the house. As a result, the twins speak in a secret language in which they are the only ones who understand, putting a wedge between themselves and Felicia and Ivanito. For the twins, language is deeper than just a form of communication, it is a way to keep themselves safe. They have a deep resentment for their mother and her manic mood swings, going so far as to call her not-Mamá. Luz explains in an excerpt from the chapter ‘The Meaning of Shells’:
“My sister and I call our mother “not-Mamá.” As in not-Mamá charred the chicken and is cursing in the kitchen. Not-Mamá is playing that record again, dancing by herself in the dark. Watch out, not-Mamá is feeling sorry for herself…” (pg 121).
Felicia lives an irregular and disorderly life. She marries three different men, one of whom she doesn’t remember meeting. She disappears for a time, and when she comes back she tells her story of waking up in an unfamiliar bed, married to an unfamiliar man. This is her second husband. Her third, she marries and very soon after accidentally pushes him off of a rollercoaster to his death. She is prone to blackouts due to her manic depression, which could have been triggered by syphilis the father of her children gave her, but it is also important to remember that her mother, Celia, has a nervous breakdown of her own after Lourdes’ birth. Sadly, Felicia dies soon after she returns home from her disappearance, giving the reader the impression that she was never meant to find her sense of belonging.
Lourdes learns of Felicia’s death from her father, the very last time she will speak to him. Felicia “was sad when she died” (pg. 196), Jorge tells her. He also tells explains to Lourdes why Celia was always so harsh with her from the beginning. He confesses to leaving her soon after they were married to his own mother, to punish her for having a Spanish lover before him. Jorge wants Lourdes to know that Celia did, in fact, love her, that it is partially his fault for the strained relationship they have. The same strained relationship that is then passed down and repeated between Lourdes and Pilar. As the novel goes on, it is clear that past traumas are not only shared, they are passed down from generation to generation, destined to repeat themselves.
As mentioned, the two major themes in Dreaming in Cuban are language and the question of home and belonging. What does it mean to have a language? What does it mean to have a home, or to feel like you belong somewhere? These are the questions that each and every core character in the novel ask themselves, time and time again.
For Celia, her home is in Cuba, where she has transformed herself into a devoted follower of Fidel Castro. She chooses to remain in Cuba, even when her husband moves to the United States. She remains, even when her eldest daughter and first grandchild move away. For Celia del Pino, she feels where she belongs in Cuba, supporting El Lider, and speaking her Cuban Spanish.
For Lourdes, her home is in the United States. She finds a new sense of belonging in America and in the English language she has adopted. It is here where she is visited by her father, where she has been able to reinvent herself, where she can pursue her personal “American Dream”. Even though her daughter does not understand her, it is only in going to America that she is able to escape the memories of her violent attack in which she lost a child. It is only in the dozens and dozens of sticky buns she eats in order to disfigure her own body, to camouflage the scars that spread across her stomach that she can not understand. Lourdes does not feel at home in Cuba, she has overwhelming feelings of discomfort when she is forced to return when Felicia dies. She mocks her mother's way of life and the rest of the Cubans that have decided to stay. She can’t wait to leave the island and return to her true home, in New York.
Pilar del Pino has a complicated relationship with language, with Cuba, and with America. When she is at home in New York, she hopes to return to Cuba one day. She feels that once she is on the island, everything will right itself in her world. Pilar is quite disillusioned in this sense; she has not lived in Cuba since she was a very young child and barely has any memories of it. All that she does know for certain is that she doesn’t like the life that her mother has created for her in the United States. She doesn't feel comfortable in Spanish or in English. Pilar feels like she can communicate the most when she has a paintbrush in her hand.
Over the course of the novel, Pilar also realizes that she is special in other ways, and it could be said that this causes her to feel even more isolated and misunderstood. When she was a child, her nannies were afraid of her because they recognized her as being powerful. This is lightly touched on in the novel when Pilar speaks about communicating with Celia in her head. This is mentioned again towards the end of the novel when Pilar is compelled to go inside a botànica, or a botany shop, soon before she goes to Cuba to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of Felicia’s death. The old man in the shop immediately recognizes her for her abilities, and welcomes her inside, giving her herbs free of charge. Here is a moment when Pilar is understood; she feels more understood by this man than she does by her mother. Pilar even experiences the presentiment that she is destined to return to Cuba soon, well before she learns of Felicia’s death.
When Pilar finally does reach Cuba, she speaks on the fact that she has begun to dream in Spanish, something that has never happened to her before. She describes how she feels in a passage from the chapter ‘Six Days in April’:
“I’ve started dreaming in Spanish, which has never happened before. I wake up feeling different, like something inside me is changing, something chemical and irreversible. There’s a magic here working it’s way through my veins. There’s something about the vegetation, too, that I respond to instinctively - the stunning bougainvillea, the flamboyants ad jacarandas, the orchids growing from the trunks of the mysterious ceiba trees. And I love Havana, its noise and decay and painted layness. I could happily sit on one of those wrought-iron balconies for days, or keep my grandmother company on her porch, which its ringside view of the sea. I’m afraid to lose all this, to lose Abuela Celia again. But sooner or later I’d have to return to New York. I know now it’s where I belong - not instead of here, but more than here…” (pg. 235-236).
This passage perfectly describes Pilar’s mixed feelings towards her Cuban heritage and her American upbringing. After spending time in Cuba, and with her grandmother, she has come to the, somewhat surprising, conclusion that it is in fact in America where she belongs. The United States is where she has the most sense of home and belonging after all.
Even more surprising than the fact that Pilar feels more at home in America is the fact that at the end of the novel, Ivanito flees Cuba in the hopes of eventually joining Lourdes and Pilar in America. In an intense scene outside the Peruvian embassy, at the urgency of Lourdes, Ivanito enters the throngs of people waiting to escape Cuba. When Celia learns of this, she is furious and goes down to the embassy with Pilar in order to bring Ivantinto home. After finding Ivanito, and seeing the note Lourdes has taped onto his chest (“MY NAME IS IVAN VILLAVERDE. I AM A POLITICAL REFUGEE FROM CUBA. MY AUNT, LOURDES PUENTE, OF 2212 LINDEN AVENUE, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, WILL SPONSOR ME. PLEASE CALL HER AT…” pg. 239), Pilar makes the split-second decision to leave Ivanito where he is so that he can go to America. Pilar then lies to Celia and claims to have never found him.
When we first meet the character of Ivanito as a young adult, it seems he has formed a connection with the Russian language. One can assume, at the end of the novel, that Ivanito has rather formed a connection with languages in general, and he knows that in learning a new language, he can create a new life for himself. Away from his dead mother, absent father, malicious sisters, and especially, away from Cuba. The reader is left with the hope that Ivanito will find his sense of home and belonging in America.
Like the rest of the del Pino family, Felicia struggles her entire life to find her sense of home and belonging. She can’t seem to be a good mother, a good wife, or a good sister. While Felicia’s story may have the least to do with language in the traditional sense in comparison to the other characters, her relationship with her children reflects her journey with language all the same. When Felicia returns home to her friends after her disappearance, she turns to religion in the hopes of finding her sense of belonging. Unfortunately, it seems that Felicia is never meant to find her home, as after performing a religious ceremony to cleanse herself, the opposite effect occurs, and she dies in the arms of Celia.
The characters of Luz and Milagro have a less than satisfying ending as the reader doesn’t hear much from their characters after the few chapters dedicated to them in the middle of the novel. The twins seem to have found their sense of belonging at the boarding school that they are sent to. One thing is sure, as long as the pair are together, they feel at home.
The novel Dreaming in Cuban is a journey, for the reader and for the characters inside alike. It is their journey to accept or reject their home countries and host countries; to accept or reject their mother tongue or learned language. Perhaps most importantly, it is a journey in acceptance of where they came from and where they are going. Language is the key component to this acceptance, and each character deals with language differently. Spanish, English, Russian, psychic communication, and visits from the dead make up the languages present in the novel, a mixture just as diverse as the characters involved.