There is more than one Cuba. There is one for members of the ruling class, tourists, diplomats and other foreign visitors. There is different Cuba for those required to live only with the national currency and without access to stores selling goods for American dollars.
Mango Rain: A Revealing Story of the Two Cubas
The novel, Mango Rain,provides a view into that life and how different it is for those who by quirks of fate have escaped the prison that is the island nation of Cuba and those who remained behind. Despite Cuba’s geography as only ninety miles off the coast of Florida, life there is shrouded in mystery for most Americans. The politics of Florida and in some respects of the United States are affected by the large Cuban American population in the Miami area. Despite the importance of both Cuba and the Cuban American community the general American population knows little about how people there live and the families that have been torn apart by the policies of the two countries.
Dr. Berta Isabel Arias, Author of Mango Rain
The author, Dr. Berta Isabel Arias emigrated from Havana, Cuba in 1957 and has lived most of her life in the Chicago area. She has written short stories and poetry from a very young age. Mango Rain is her first full-length novel. Dr. Arias is a Professor Emeritus in World Languages and it was through a U.S. licensed academic trip with college students in 2004 to Cuba that she was inspired to write Mango Rain.
Her own family was torn apart by the Cuban revolution and the ensuing political standoff between Fidel Castro's Cuba and the United States. Her return to Cuba with her students was marked by reunion with family that she had not seen in nearly 50 years. Her Cuban family had come to visit her at the hotel where Dr. Arias and her students were staying. As Cubans in a hotel for foreign visitors, they were limited to visitng in the lobby. The contrast between her life and the family left behind could not have been more stark.
Real Events as Backdrop to Mango Rain
Dr. Arias takes real events and weaves them together as a vehicle to give insight into both the Cuban and Cuban-American experiences. In 1999, a trip by then Illinois Governor George Ryan to explore trade possibilities between Cuba and Illinois. Also in 1999 the political and legal drama of Elian Gonzalez, a young Cuban boy who made it to the US while his mother perished in the attempt to cross the 90 miles to freedom was the source of worldwide headlines. Dr. Arias uses these real life events as a backdrop of her story of discovery, passion, and intrigue as twin sisters, separated at the beginning of the Cuban Revolution as infants, are reunited as adult women.
In Mango Rain, the story of the two sisters reveals the great divide between a Cuban life and an American life. Dr. Arias tells a terrific story and provides an education at the same time. A rare combination in a book that is both fascinating and fun.
David J. Shestokas - Mr. Shestokas is a former prosecutor & writes on the Constitution & legal issues for the Save America Foundation & Suite 101.
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