Americans, meet Cuba.If you’re like me, you probably don’t know all that much about the mysterious and often forbidden (American travel to Cuba is limited by the U.S. Treasury Department) Caribbean island just ninety miles south of our own nation’s borders.
That’s where Lea Aschkenas comes in. At the height of the Elián González ordeal, a time when the little Cuban boy’s face was all over American news and rallies in his name filled the streets of Havana, she ventured to the island nation to take a Spanish course and ended up spending nearly ten months there, split between two trips, and falling in love with both a country and a man. Her adventures became the captivating book "Es Cuba: Life and Love on an Illegal Island," allowing all who read it a thorough and enchanting glimpse into an otherwise cryptic culture.
Aschkenas’ book offers everything: depth and insight, plenty of factual information, strong writing, and a personal tale of love and discovery. Not just a book about a country, "Es Cuba" follows Aschkenas as she meets a Cuban man, Alfredo, falls in love with him, and struggles through the complications that arise when you’re involved with somebody from a completely different culture, especially when the two countries in question are the United States and Cuba. Her tale takes place in Havana, where she participates in a Spanish-language program, and elsewhere throughout Cuba as she and Alfredo travel around the island. This story serves as the backbone of her memoir, which is written as a travel narrative or a journal, but Aschkenas doesn’t shirk her responsibilities as a travel writer to make another culture come alive to her readers, blending these notes about her personal life with information about the country and people.
The title of her memoir, "Es Cuba"—“That’s Cuba”—stems from the oft-muttered expression Alfredo uses to shrug off the idiosyncrasies of his country, and there are many. Aschkenas shares them with us, providing fascinating insight into the country’s culture, history, economics, and politics, painting a vivid picture of Cuban life with a series of dancing, interwoven narratives. Seamlessly, she jumps around a bit, going off on tangents before returning to the more chronological story at hand, mentioning this anecdote or that encounter in a stream-of-consciousness-like flow that is actually easy to follow and appreciated in that the extra details enrich her story and our understanding of the culture.
And there’s so much to understand about this country whose character, she finds, is the “odd, seemingly contradictory mix of melancholy and optimism.” Drawing from her own observations and experiences, as well as from tales and accounts shared with her by locals—Alfredo is an especially rich source of insight into the life of a Cuban—Aschkenas tells of the lack of violence and machismo in Cuba, the free education and health care, the interest in learning. She talks about the odd economic system using both dollars (for tourists and wealthy Cubans) and pesos (for the average, poor resident), the fact that the country is continuously low on supplies because of the U.S. embargo, and the candidness and criticalness with which Cubans speak of their government. Then there’s the salsa dancing, the endless nightlife, and the frustration among locals over the fact that tourists have more rights than they do.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, just a sampling of the wealth of information she shares about a country that’s very foreign to most Americans. Even just a few pages in, I found myself reading with my eyes wide, amazed by all that I was learning about the fascinating culture that I’d never known much about, and the story is kept lively and entertaining by Aschkenas’ clear, easy-to-read writing style, the ongoing narrative of her relationship with Alfredo, and the fact that she doesn’t simply compile a list of observations. She wants to know why things are the way they are, and seeks to find answers as well as to carefully draw her own conclusions.
The result is a memorable, informative, captivating book about romance blossoming under unlikely circumstances and the resilience and optimism of the Cuban spirit. No longer will Cuba be a mystery after reading Aschkenas’ tale, a land known to Americans for its leader and the fleeing citizens scooped from the waters between Cuba and Florida. With clear writing and a knack for drawing out the essence of a people, Aschkenas introduces us to this new culture that she herself fell in love with.
-Reviewed by: Stephanie Crozier
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