Brandon's Puppy

Pepin y el Perro

If I thought that the world was small, the Cuban/Cuban-American world is even smaller.
I am still in awe by the discovery Marta made a couple of days ago. Turns out her family and mine are from the same small town in Cuba!
I think a lot of what Tere says here has something to do with it. Cuban exiles, while more often settling in places like Miami and New Jersey, can be found just about anywhere. And once you find one of "your own", no matter how far away from Cuba, they and their experience becomes a part of you. To me, it's like a puzzle piece that I am missing. I will never know the beauty of Cuba and growing up there, and knowing it as my parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles did. All this was taken from me before I was born. It is because I feel as Cuban as I am American that this gap exists. So I hang onto these pieces and I find them and I cherish them, like the story of my great-uncle getting bitten by Marta's mother's dog, and I hope that someday my puzzle will be complete.