Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Carlos Eire
I happened to catch yesterday's broadcast of Fresh Air while sitting in the cell phone lot at the airport. The time passed almost without notice as I listened to Carlos Eire's sonorous voice describe the experience of leaving his homeland, his parents, and all that was familiar to escape Castro's Cuba in 1962. He tells the story in his new book Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy. This can be read in conjunction with Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana which describes his childhood in Cuba and won the National Book Award in 2003. Either would make a great gift and together they paint a fascinating portrait of a life lived very consciously.
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I heard the same broadcast, purely by accident because I don't usually listen to the radio at that particular time. I was amazed at the parallels with my own experience. I, too, was a Peter Pan child. My experience in trying to get rid of my accent and to become totally American was practically identical to his. I came to the US, unaccompanied, in 1961 at the age of 12. left South Florida in the early 70s to go to college and spent 30 years in the US Air Force retiring as a colonel. I consider myself as American as they come, and I am the embodiment of the American dream. I went home and ordered the book and I'm reading now.
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