Interview with Ana Hebra Flaster
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Ana Hebra Flaster was nearly six when her family fled Cuba and settled in Nashua, New Hampshire. After graduating from Smith College and enjoying a career in software consulting, she began her writing career. Her writing about Cuba and Cuban Americans has appeared in the The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and elsewhere. Her commentaries and storytelling have aired on NPR’s All Things Considered and PBS’s Stories from the Stage. Property of the Revolution, her first book, was shortlisted for the 2023 Restless Book’s New Immigrant Writing Prize and the 2022 Cintas Creative Writing Fellowship. You can find out more about her in Substack, Cuba Curious. And her personal website.
TERESA DOVALPAGE: You alternate chapters about life in Cuba —especially in Juanelo— with chapters about your family’s life in the U.S. Why did you choose this intertwined structure, and how do you think it deepens the reader’s understanding of your family’s journey across time and geography? ANA HEBRA FLASTER: I wanted to give voice to the viejos’ stories, so readers would hear them the way they told them to me. Taking readers back to the years just before the revolution and bringing them on the same journey of hope, disappointment, hardship, betrayal, exile, and, finally, recovery would accomplish that. That broken chronology also made it easier to link past and present. I could set up a problem in one chapter, let’s say in the past, and in the next chapter, set in the present, show how that past event directly impacted the scene taking place. The past is alive in the present. The past isn’t even the past, in a way. DOVALPAGE: That’s exactly how I perceived it a reader, like an echo from the past reverberating in your life here. Now, let’s talk about an important topic: la comida. In the chapter “Are We American Now?” you describe feeling embarrassed about inviting friends over for a Cuban Christmas dinner — only to find that the “Americanitos” loved roast pork, garlicky yuca, and black beans. What does being “American” mean to you now, after a lifetime of navigating these two cultures? How has your sense of identity changed since those childhood moments of embarrassment? |
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HEBRA FLASTER: I’m extremely proud of my Cuban American identity now. I have two treasure chests of history, culture and language to play with. However, I do not feel fully Cuban or American. I am something in between but whole. It surprises me that after all these years, I still feel the pull of my Cuban identity so strongly. Then again, I’m reminded of my Cuban-ness when I hear someone who doesn’t know my background say offensive things about Latinos or immigrants. That gets my “Cuban” up. I don’t fight every one of those battles. I used to think I had to, but it’s depleting and often unproductive. Those moments remind me: hey, you know you’re not like the rest of these people.
DOVALPAGE: The two identities are fully reflected in your memoir, which, by the way, includes unforgettable, often funny scenes — like the tías dressed in mourning trying to get you into a girdle, or their insistence on using a bidet. How did humor help you process the challenges of exile and adolescence?
HEBRA FLASTER: Humor saved us/me. It still does. I often read ironic pieces by Cubans on the island about the absurdities of the Cuban system, or some ingenious solution someone has come up with will crack me up. Cubans joke about everything, and we certainly did. Seeing the absurdity is a way to flip the story the other way, own the ending. Smile.
Here’s one. There’s a water shortage in many Cuban towns and cities. During a recent rainstorm, this clever Cuban found a solution. He cut the top off a plastic jug, connected the mouth of the job to a pipe and positioned the contraption under a roof drain. The guy filming is laughing and teasing him about the device. Hearing that teasing reminded me of home, of Cuban humor.
DOVALPAGE: Oh, Cuban ingenuity! I would love to see that video. Now, memoirs often work like time travel. You write about returning to Cuba during the Special Period with your mother, as a way of confronting the past and healing yourself. What did that trip teach you about memory and forgiveness? Did it change your relationship with Cuba — or with yourself — in unexpected ways?
HEBRA FLASTER: I didn’t feel I needed to forgive anyone. My mother may have, given her feelings about the revolution’s betrayal. But she wasn’t wired for bitterness, and I think that’s where you end up when you hold on to grudges and injuries for too long. I did feel more complete, in a way. I’d gone back into the Cuban world I’d lost as a child, walked those streets and walked into our old home. What I learned is that memory is a living creature and time is a twisted thing. I felt like I was living in the past and the present at the same time. I remember thinking, wow, people here look like me, talk like us, have the same sense of humor. Hearing all these Cubans speaking the language I had once thought was something only we spoke in our house felt surreal. At the same time, it was clear that I wasn’t fully a part of that world either. It was an exhausting trip, physically and emotionally. We were trying to solve our family’s problems the whole time we were there, living with them, not in a hotel, seeing their hardship and their courage humbled me.
DOVALPAGE: “Time is a twisted thing.” I love that. Speaking of time, Property of the Revolution spans six decades of Cuban and Cuban American history, from the early days of the revolution to life in New Hampshire. What did you discover about your family — and about Cuba — by placing their stories in this broad historical context? How do you see the role of the “viejos” as carriers of memory for future generations?
HEBRA FLASTER: I broke the traditional time span of memoirs by going for six decades, but I wanted to show the long reach of “refugeedom” and the impact of the now adult “assimilated” refugee. I couldn’t do that by just summing up a few decades at the end of the book, as memoirs often do. There were too many revelations for that. It would have been far easier to do the flash forward ending. The long narrative arc captures the complexity of our journey—the intensity of the loss, the magnitude of the viejos’ courage, the depth of the injustices, the sweetness of the family’s redemption in a new land. I’m the “vieja” now. The book is my way of capturing the viejos’ memories and legacy and handing it to the next generation. I will be quizzing them regularly!
DOVALPAGE: And I am sure that the new generation will appreciate that! Muchas gracias for this interview.
DOVALPAGE: The two identities are fully reflected in your memoir, which, by the way, includes unforgettable, often funny scenes — like the tías dressed in mourning trying to get you into a girdle, or their insistence on using a bidet. How did humor help you process the challenges of exile and adolescence?
HEBRA FLASTER: Humor saved us/me. It still does. I often read ironic pieces by Cubans on the island about the absurdities of the Cuban system, or some ingenious solution someone has come up with will crack me up. Cubans joke about everything, and we certainly did. Seeing the absurdity is a way to flip the story the other way, own the ending. Smile.
Here’s one. There’s a water shortage in many Cuban towns and cities. During a recent rainstorm, this clever Cuban found a solution. He cut the top off a plastic jug, connected the mouth of the job to a pipe and positioned the contraption under a roof drain. The guy filming is laughing and teasing him about the device. Hearing that teasing reminded me of home, of Cuban humor.
DOVALPAGE: Oh, Cuban ingenuity! I would love to see that video. Now, memoirs often work like time travel. You write about returning to Cuba during the Special Period with your mother, as a way of confronting the past and healing yourself. What did that trip teach you about memory and forgiveness? Did it change your relationship with Cuba — or with yourself — in unexpected ways?
HEBRA FLASTER: I didn’t feel I needed to forgive anyone. My mother may have, given her feelings about the revolution’s betrayal. But she wasn’t wired for bitterness, and I think that’s where you end up when you hold on to grudges and injuries for too long. I did feel more complete, in a way. I’d gone back into the Cuban world I’d lost as a child, walked those streets and walked into our old home. What I learned is that memory is a living creature and time is a twisted thing. I felt like I was living in the past and the present at the same time. I remember thinking, wow, people here look like me, talk like us, have the same sense of humor. Hearing all these Cubans speaking the language I had once thought was something only we spoke in our house felt surreal. At the same time, it was clear that I wasn’t fully a part of that world either. It was an exhausting trip, physically and emotionally. We were trying to solve our family’s problems the whole time we were there, living with them, not in a hotel, seeing their hardship and their courage humbled me.
DOVALPAGE: “Time is a twisted thing.” I love that. Speaking of time, Property of the Revolution spans six decades of Cuban and Cuban American history, from the early days of the revolution to life in New Hampshire. What did you discover about your family — and about Cuba — by placing their stories in this broad historical context? How do you see the role of the “viejos” as carriers of memory for future generations?
HEBRA FLASTER: I broke the traditional time span of memoirs by going for six decades, but I wanted to show the long reach of “refugeedom” and the impact of the now adult “assimilated” refugee. I couldn’t do that by just summing up a few decades at the end of the book, as memoirs often do. There were too many revelations for that. It would have been far easier to do the flash forward ending. The long narrative arc captures the complexity of our journey—the intensity of the loss, the magnitude of the viejos’ courage, the depth of the injustices, the sweetness of the family’s redemption in a new land. I’m the “vieja” now. The book is my way of capturing the viejos’ memories and legacy and handing it to the next generation. I will be quizzing them regularly!
DOVALPAGE: And I am sure that the new generation will appreciate that! Muchas gracias for this interview.
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