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Cubanita
By Gaby Triana HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Gaby Triana
All right reserved. ISBN: 0060560223
Chapter one
She wants me to be her, but I'm not her. I'm not Miss Cubanita. I mean, I love my mom and everything, but I've never even been to Cuba, so how can she expect me to embrace it? This is my country, the U.S. 'tis of thee, with purple mountains and all that.
Okay, fine, so Miami is basically North Cuba, but still.
Guantanamera . . . guajira guantanamera . . . 1140 AM, WQBA. As if there weren't a thousand other radio stations she could have on.
"Mami, could you please listen to something else? They play that song, like, eighteen times a day." I can't concentrate on my teachers' handbook. I've read the same paragraph three times already.
"Ay, mi hijita, it's better than that stuff you listen to that goes taka-tun, taka-tun, taka-tun, and makes the car windows shake at every red light. Esa basura," she says, chopping up onions and peppers for the sofrito going into our dinner.
"Garbage? Mom, that's what people listen to now. Nobody listens to "Guantanamera." Only a cubanita like you, who's stuck in her own little world. Can't you try to act like the American citizen you are? I mean, it's embarrassing. You haven't been to Cuba in twenty-five years. What are you holding on for?"
Ten seconds of painful silence.
Then, "Si, ah-hah, Isabelita. You keeptelling yourself you're not Cuban, even though you are. La verdad que sometimes I wonder if they didn't switch you for another baby at the hospital. Que acomplejada tu eres."
She hacks the onions with a little more force, shaking her head, then starts talking to herself -- the all-time Cuban mother thing to do -- to make me feel guilty about not understanding her. "Ella quiere que yo deje de ser cubana, que deje de pensar en mi pais, en mis raices, en mi . . . "
I'm outta here. There's no way I can focus with her calling me acomplejada. I do not have a complex. Aren't seniors supposed to feel liberated after graduation? Then why am I so suffocated?
I leave the kitchen counter behind, her voice trailing offlike one of those slow trucks that announces shrimp for sale in our neighborhood when it disappears around the corner. Doesn't matter what she's saying anyway. It's probably "In Cuba, things were like this, in Cuba, things were like that, in Cuba, blah, blah, blah." Ay, all she ever talks about is Cuba!
In the hallway I pause to look at the oversized photo of me in my quinceanera dress. It was the tackiest ball gown you can possibly imagine: ruffles, bows, you name it. My mother insisted I have one of these galas for my fifteenth birthday, arguing tradition and culture keep families strong, but I never felt more alienated from her in my life. I would've rather waited and had a small party for my sixteenth, like half the girls I went to school with, but I caved in to her idea instead. It meant more to her anyway.
I remember shopping for THE dress. She wanted poofy; I wanted streamlined. She wanted the dorky studio portrait; I wanted the quick snapshot with the disposable camera. To make a long story short, here it is -- a poster of me in a bubble-sleeved dress, wearing a tiara, looking like a teenage bride. So much for trying to compromise with her. All this just for turning a year older. And to please Mami.
Always to please Mami.
Summer just started and already I can't wait to get out of here to begin my mother-free life at the University of Michigan in August. But until that happens, I'll be teaching art at Everglades National Park, same as last year. It has a summer camp -- Camp Anhinga, sort of an answer to those Camp Hiawathas up north, except the kids leave at 4:30 p.m. instead of sleep over. I love working there, probably because I've always dreamed of living somewhere other than Miami, somewhere with mountains and resorts.
I start tomorrow, and Mom is anything but thrilled. Surprise, surprise. If it weren't for my father, who's completely chill about everything, she'd never let me go. Are you kidding? Her ninita? Out there, with all those cocodrilos waiting for Isabel Diaz to fall in the canal so they can eat her for lunch? Thank God for Dad, that's all I can say. If it weren't for him, I'd never get to experience college away from home. I'd be stuck, taking classes locally, learning to cook and sew the holes in my brother's underwear on the side, cultivating my domestic skills as a backup career. Because that's what a good cubanita does, you know, thinks of nothing but home. Yeah. Okay.
Tap, tap.
Always, just as I'm getting ready for bed. "What?"
Tap, tap. My brother thrives on being annoying. You'd think he was younger than me, not twenty-one.
"What do you want, fool?" CK Eternity wafts in under the closed door. "It's unlocked," I say.
The door unlatches slowly, and there stands my brother, Mr. Calvin Klein poster boy, dressed to impress. He's wearing something he obviously just brought home, judging from his fashion show stance. Dark pants and a chocolate, long-sleeved, V-neck crew. Nice, if you live anywhere that actually experiences cool weather instead of eternal heat. He smiles devilishly and spins around. "Eh? Awesome, right? Am I ready to party or what?"
"Stefan, you look like a walking billboard. People don't really dress like that here, doofus -- "
"Listen to you," he interrupts. "People don't really dress like that. And how would you know? Oh, I forget, you go out so much, you're the Trend Tracker, the Clubhopper. For your info, people do dress like this. And even if they don't, I dress like this." He checks his watch.
"Okay, Enrique Iglesias, what I was going to say is that you're gonna get heatstroke the moment you step into any club. Remember, ninety degrees outside means, like, a hundred and ninety inside."
Continues...
Excerpted from Cubanita by Gaby Triana Copyright © 2006 by Gaby Triana. Excerpted by permission.
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