Introduction

Abstract

At the beginning of Cristina García’s 1992 novel Dreaming in Cuban, Celia del Pino, the family matriarch, sits on the porch of her home in Cuba, staring out into the ocean through binoculars, purportedly looking for an indication of another Bay of Pigs invasion. Celia knows that spotting any sign of an invasion will help her curry favor with Fidel Castro and show her support of the Revolution. At the same time, her attention on the ocean becomes a reminder that much of Celia’s family lives away from Cuba, emphasizing her troubled relationship to an island that she has sworn to protect, but that also has driven away much of her family and isolated her.