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Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar

Oct17

Across So Many Seas, the story of four twelve year old Sephardic Jewish girls from different time periods, felt very . . . educational. I didn’t mind the didactic tone of the story, and I was somewhat fascinated by the saga of the Sephardic Jewish experience from Spain to Turkey to Cuba to the United States (Miami). We tend to know and read more about Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jews and Judaism than we do about the Sephardic Jewish people, who came from Spain after the 1492 expulsion of the Jews under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (yes, Columbus’s sponsors). These Sephardic Jews spoke a Spanish-derived language called Ladino and either became conversos (converts to Catholicism) under threat of death, or left Spain as refugees, going to Italy and Turkey and other places to find freedom to practice their Jewish faith.

The first story in Across So Many Seas features Benvenida, a Jewish girl living in Toledo, Spain in 1492, during the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews. Benvenida’s family is forced to leave Spain, and they end up living in Turkey where the sultan has promised them freedom of religion. Again the story feels as if the author has a lesson to teach: “Here’s a story, children, to teach you about your history and heritage. Listen, while I make it into a tale for your edification.” Benvenida, who speaks and thinks like a miniature adult, never seems like a real person, only a vehicle for the teaching of history. But still, I was interested enough in the history to keep reading.

The other three girls in the story are Reina (Turkey, 1921), Alegra (Cuba, 1961), and Paloma (Miami, FL, 2003). These three are grandmother, mother, and daughter, and their tales are full of more displacement and emigration, as each girl experiences her own story of travel across the seas. Only Paloma seems to have a stable home where she can make free choices for herself without having to labor under the prejudice of others and the expectations that her family has for proper Jewish girls.

The author, Ruth Behar, comes from both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish ancestry. The book is based in part on the story of Ms. Behar’s Abuela, her paternal grandmother, who came to the United States via Turkey and Cuba and who was of Sephardic heritage. It’s a lovely tribute to Ms. Behar’s heritage and to her grandmother, and I enjoyed learning more about this stream of history. But be warned that the book is heavy on the history and light on believable characterization, dialogue, and plot.

The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez

Oct15

“From 1960 to 1962, the parents of over fourteen thousand Cuban children made the heart-wrenching decision to send their sons and daughters to the United States . . . alone. . . . They would save their children by sending them to the United States. And so, in 1960, a plan was hatched to help Cuban children escape the Communist island. The plan required the secret transport of documents, an underground network, and the courageous actions of people in the United States and Cuba. For the next two years, Cuban children arrived in Miami, Florida, by the planeload in what would eventually be called Operation Pedro Pan.”

From this actual historic event comes the fictional story of Lucia and Francisco Alvarez, Cuban children whose parents send them to the United States to escape from Castro’s revolucion. This book was nominated for the Cybil Awards in both the the MIddle Grade Fiction category and the Young Adult fiction category. Because of the age of the main character, Lucia, who is a 14 year old teenager with teen concerns as the book opens, and because of a couple of (non-graphic) mentions of aggressive sexual behavior, I would say that the book is most appropriate for teens ages 13 and up. However, don’t let that scare you off even if you have strict standards for that sort of behavior in young adult fiction. The Red Umbrella is anything but salacious, and the picture presented of the evils of Castor’s “Communist paradise” is on target and carries a needed message.

It’s easy for adults to forget and for young people to never be told how very repressive and cruel the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Cuba were. In Cuba’s case, of course, the repression and tyranny continue to this day. This story, which never descends into political didacticism, will make at least some young people curious enough to find out for themselves how Castro’s Cuba came to be. And that’s a good thing. I love history contained in good historical fiction, and The Red Umbrella is great historical fiction.

Ms. Gonzalez says that this story is based partially on the experiences of her parents and her mother-in-law who were all three as children involved in Operation Pedro Pan. By the third chapter of the book, I was rooting for the children to escape indoctrination by the Cuban Communist regime, and I was soon trying to figure out how it might be possible for the children’s parents to join them in the U.S. Of course, not all of the experiences the children have in the U.S. are positive, but for the most the United States becomes for them The Land of Freedom, even though they miss Cuba and their own Cuban culture and customs.

Other children’s and young adult books about Cuba and Cuban-Americans:
Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale by Carmen Agra Deedy.
The Bossy Gallito: A Traditional Cuban Folktale by Lucia M. Gonzalez.
The Road to Santiago by D.H. Figueredo.
Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle. Semicolon review here.
The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle.
90 Miles to Havana by Enrique Flores-Galbis.
Flight to Freedom by Ana Veciana Suarez.
Heat by Mike Lupica. Semicolon review here.
Jumping Off to Freedom by Anilu Bernardo.
Where the Flame Trees Bloom by Alma Flor Ada.
Under the Royal Palms: A Childhood in Cuba by Alma Flor Ada.