A few days ago when I was looking at one of my baby pictures hanging in my bedroom, I found myself trying to remember what was happening when the image was being taken. I was in a boat sitting with my mother and nanny, across from my father. In my favorite tartan frock, I was playing with my mother’s scarf pretending to be a woman for the camera while my nanny was studying the expression on my face. As I was recollecting the events the pictured had captured, I could not resist a smile the memory had put on my face.

Oscar Hijuelos’ writings make the reader feel the same emotions as reflecting on a memory. Hijuelos used his talent as a writer to explore the Cuba he found in the city. The protagonist of his writings are Cuban-Americans trying to make a living in the New York City or other parts of the United States. His characters are often self-reflective, showing the reader how a person progressed as a Cuban to a Cuban-American. In the book, Thoughts Without Cigarettes, Oscar Hijuelos wrote about his own life as an American who was raised in the Cuban culture.

Growing up in New York City, Hijuelos was exposed to the Cuban culture especially since his parents were from Cuba. His style especially when he writes about Cuba shows a keen eye for detail. In his writings, he is very meticulous when he describes his parents’ youth, the Cuba they lived in and how the world was seen through his parents’ eyes. He often gives two points of views. As said above, his protagonists are usually Latinos (specifically Cubans) who eventually move to the United States for different reasons. And this allows them to speak from a Cuban point of view when engaging in America culture and from an American point of view when immersed in the Cuban culture. This switch in perspective is seen often in his memoir when Hijuelos describes his family. His parents used to host gatherings in his early childhood, with people from different Hispanic backgrounds. Hijuelos describes the gathering as one where the “guests came for their doses of Cuban warmth, the Congeniality, the music blaring on those nights from a living room RCA console, and … it wasn’t long before the crowd revved up would get onto the living room floor dancing away” (28). This description shows how the evenings of celebration began and in the middle of this colorful night, he would be “crawling innocently along [the] living room floor” as people around him danced all night. This format of writing shows an ease which conveys how comfortable Hijuelos felt in such as the environment. He experiences this ease because he is fairly accustomed to the exuberance of his culture.

However, there is a shift when he describes this environment on his return from his year-long stay in the children’s hospital. As a child, Hijuelos suffered from nephritis which separated him from his family. He was admitted in St. Luke’s convalescent hospital for almost a year (45). The first gathering, Hijuelos mentions, after his return from the hospital, is written as “Pascual or papi, was sitting by [the] Formica covered-table with some of his friends” (51). In the later paragraphs, he gives details on his father’s friends’ appearances and professions. But the tone stays bland as if a painting has lost its color. This change in tone indicates how he felt foreign to his roots, and how it changed his understanding of his heritage

This detached feeling continues especially when his family makes efforts to communicate with him. His mother often spoke to him in Spanish; however, Hijuelos was not able to reply in his native tongue. The dialogues between him and his mother follow a format of Spanish to English translation. For example, when he first arrives home his mother says, “recuerdas a tu papá?” which is followed by the comment “my mother asked me, just as [my father] looked over at me. ‘Remember your father?’”(51). Hijuelos follows this format of writing throughout the chapter and the text whenever a person makes a comment in Spanish. This format is many pauses in the writing and has an unevenness demonstrating a feeling of uneasiness. It shows that as he grasped English, he also developed a fear of speaking in Spanish which also detached him from his culture.

The disconnection Hijuelos illustrates through this format of writing not only voices how he felt when he was put into isolation for treatment, but also mirrors the sentiments of many Cuban-Americans in a certain time period. During Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba, the social conditions forced many Cubans to leave the country and enter the United States as refugees. Children of these refugees mostly did not get the opportunity to fully know the Cuban culture. At the same time, Cuban citizens did not have much exposure to the rest of the world. Both groups of Cuban were cut off from the true Cuban culture because a culture develops when people interact.

Although Hijuelos displays an initial disconnect, he saw Cuba through a different lens. During his early childhood, Hijuelos visited Cuba in 1955. The Cuba he saw that summer was a wonder to his eyes. He exclaims how the “ocean horizon, like a rising plain, reached up to all the stars, then endless fields of sugar and pineapple, and forests passing, their silhouettes so reminiscent not of vegetation but of contorted shadows standing at attention in row after row” (32). This imagery shows how Cuba as a land seemed mythical and intriguing to a young mind. Hijuelos shares that he felt as if “Cuba was full of spirits” (32). His experiences during his further emphasize how Cuba was a country from a fantasy. He expresses that during his visits he ate and drank exotic fruits and drinks, visited different places in the Holguín and heard many stories about his parents (34). His experiences sound like an expedition in a fairyland. Hijuelos’ nostalgic tone and vibrant imagery make the reader want to explore more about Cuba.

The Cuban culture carries this vibrance; it celebrates light, life, and colors. The different styles of expression including art, poetry, music, dance, and theater reflect how Cuba is truly full of spirit. This exciting celebration only makes people more curious about the country. Hijuelos writes mostly about his parents in the early chapters of his memoir. He concentrates on how his parents were both raised in families that appreciated Cuba as a country. His maternal grandfather, who was from Spain, decided to settle in Cuba with his family after it gained independence (12). His paternal side of the family has European roots as well, although his grandparents were native Cuban farmers (16). An interesting fact is that both of the families (from his mother’s as well as father’s side) admired and promoted all forms of art within the family. This support influenced Hijuelos’s mother to be a poet herself, which motivated her to support Hijuelos as a writer.

New York has influenced Hijuelos’s way of thinking because he grew up in the city, went to school here and wrote his first book here. His exposure to the Cuban culture was in New York City and like a curious New Yorker, Hijuelos tried to explore the Cuban culture throughout his life. This thirst for knowledge is clear when he discusses his experiences in Cuba and his encounters with Cuban-Americans as seen in his memoir, Thoughts Without Cigarettes. Hijuelos provides the perspective of a generation that perpetuated Cuban culture in the United States.

 

Bibliography

Hijuelos, Oscar. Thoughts Without Cigarettes: A Memoir. New York: Gotham, 2012. Print.