Dreaming in Cuban

This theme remains the most overt and important idea in the text, unifying the author’s study of the disparate experiences and individual voices that dominate Dreaming in Cuban and Cristina García’s other novels. The thematic importance of Immigration, Exile, and Cuban Identity is evident in the narrative’s historical grounding, in its characterization, and its setting. García brackets her text with two of the most important mass-immigrations in Cuban history: Cuba’s 1959 Revolution and the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. Part of Fidel Castro’s set of socialist reforms included the governmental seizure of private property, particularly the sprawling network of fincas (large farms and plantations) that benefited foreign and foreign-affiliated owners while doing nothing to increase the standard of living for everyday Cubans. The characters of Rufino and Lourdes thus become caught up in this process, and it is the appropriation of Rufino’s family finca and Lourdes’s rape at the hands of the soldiers that fuels the pair’s decision to immigrate to the United States with their daughter Pilar. Cuba’s Revolution was a time of violent upheaval, and it prompted a massive exodus from the island. Among this first wave of émigrés were many wealthy Cubans, those who had been part of Batista’s inner circle, and others with ties to the United States.