Letters from Cuba

Letters From Cuba is based on the true story of Ruth Behar’s real-life grandmother, Esther, who traveled alone from Poland to Cuba to help Behar’s great-grandfather earn enough money to allow the rest of the family to join them. The novel is deeply rooted in Behar’s family story and in Behar’s own life experiences. Behar admits that while “much of Esther’s story and her letters are fictional, many of the facts surrounding her are based on [Behar’s] family history” (236).

Behar was born in Havana and grew up speaking Spanish. As a girl, she was very close to Esther, or “Baba,” as Behar called her. Like Esther in the story, Baba had to convince her father that she could work as hard as a boy and persuade him to allow her to come to Cuba. Behar notes that her family “started from nothing in Cuba” (237). Like the fictional Esther, Baba loved Cuba, and Behar enjoyed hearing Baba’s stories about life in Agramonte. Behar is thankful that Baba immigrated to Cuba and loved it so dearly. She writes, “My grandmother became Cuban before she became American, and I did too, thanks to her” (242).

Baba and Behar’s family were forced to leave their beloved Cuba in the 1960s after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro, brought communism and political repression to the country. They immigrated to New York when Behar was five years old. The family always hoped to return to Cuba, but they never did. Behar’s semi-autobiographical novel, Lucky Broken Girl, which was a winner of the Pura Belpré Award, tells the story of young Cuban immigrant Ruthie, who is adjusting to her new life in New York City when a car accident forces her into a long recovery. Behar, like Ruthie, spent a year in a body cast following a similar accident.

Behar inherited what she describes as her grandmother’s “curiosity and passionate need to understand others” (242). Behar’s love of Cuba, the Spanish language, and other Spanish-speaking countries inspired her to become a cultural anthropologist, much like Fernando Ortiz, whom Behar references in the novel. Behar writes that her efforts to understand and respect other cultures—one of the novel’s important themes—comes from her work as a cultural anthropologist.

Behar visited Agramonte on research trips and saw a house like Ma Felipa’s, where there was a fountain of water in the walls, and she visited the now-abandoned sugar mills and learned about the history of the enslaved laborers who once worked there. Behar explains that for Letters From Cuba, she strived to include the diverse voices representing the Jewish Cuban immigrant story, the aftermath of Afro-Cuban enslavement, and the experience of Chinese Cubans. Behar recognizes that “[they are] all tied together in the knot of history” (240).