Thanks for stopping by my stop on the PROPERTY OF THE
REVOLUTION by Ana Hebra Flaster Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours!
Title: PROPERTY
OF THE REVOLUTION
Author: Ana Hebra Flaster
Pub. Date: April 22, 2025
Publisher: She Writes Press
Formats: Paperback, eBook, Audiobook
Pages: 312
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/Property-Of-The-Revolution, Get directly
from Simon & Schuster
“Written with the vividness of a poet
and the reflexivity of an auto-ethnographer . . . a classic story about
displacement, resilience, and triumph, Property of the Revolution offers
fresh perspectives and a deeper understanding of the intersectional meanings of
home, country, and family.”—Richard Blanco, 2013 Presidential Inaugural Poet,
author of The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood.
In this sweeping, historical, yet intimate memoir, the author details her
family’s transformation from pro-Castro revolutionaries in a scrappy Havana
barrio to refugees in a New Hampshire mill town—a timeless and timely tale of
loss and reinvention.
Ana Hebra Flaster was six years old when her working-class family was kicked
out of their Havana barrio for opposing communism. Once devoted revolutionaries
themselves but disillusioned by the Castro government’s repressive tactics,
they fled to the US. The permanent losses they suffered—of home, country, and
loved ones, all within forty-eight hours—haunted her multigenerational family
as they reclaimed their lives and freedom in 1967 New Hampshire. There, they
fed each other stories of their scrappy barrio—some of which Hebra Flaster has
shared on All Things Considered—to resurrect their lost world and
fortify themselves for a daunting task: building a new life in a foreign land.
Weaving pivotal events in Cuba–US history with her viejos’—elders’—stories
of surviving political upheaval, impossible choices, and “refugeedom,” Property
of the Revolution celebrates the indomitable spirit and wisdom of the
women warriors who led the family out of Cuba, shaped its rebirth as Cuban
Americans, and helped Ana grow up hopeful, future-facing—American. But what
happens when deeply buried childhood memories resurface, demanding an adult’s
reckoning?
Here’s how the fiercest love, the most stubborn will, and the power of family
put nine new Americans back on their feet.
Excerpt used by Restless Books New Immigrant Writing Prize 2023, where
Property of the Revolution (then titled Radio Big Mouth) was one of 4
finalists.
By ANA HEBRA FLASTER
An excerpt from Property of the Revolution
Juanelo, Cuba, November 1967
In our barrio, any kid worth her café con leche knew
what the rumble of a motorcycle meant. Another family was about to disappear.
Until that
night, I ran fast and free over Juanelo’s crumbling streets, hunting crinkly
brown lizards in the dusty yards, gossiping with the omnipresent abuelas.
The old women took care of us while our parents worked at places like the
school on the corner or the canning factory down by the river. Four
generations of my family lived all around me. No one shut her windows or doors.
Everybody knew everything about everyone.
On that last
normal afternoon in the barrio, I was where I always was after school, chasing
skinny hens in Abuela Cuca’s yard, the smell of hot rubber wafting from my
grandfather’s stamping machine in the shed. I played at Abuela Cuca’s house
every afternoon until dinnertime, when the sky started to whisper about night
and she or one of the other viejos (elders) scooted me out of the yard,
stood at the corner, and watched me zigzag down Castillo to our lemon-yellow
house on the corner.
The struggles the viejos endured during those
early years after the 1959 revolution barely registered in my six-year-old
brain. I only knew what I knew. But one thing stumped me: sometimes, friends
disappeared overnight.
After dinner
every night, Florecita and I played los caballitos on the sidewalk. We
searched for the biggest palm fronds we could find, straddled them—our
“horses”—and raced at full speed, slapping our thighs with our free hands.
Sometimes she cheated. Sometimes I cheated too. Above us on their porches, the viejos
rocked away in their chairs, talking, talking—always talking.
Later, in my
bed, I’d hear the clunk of a motorcycle as it snuck into the barrio and wonder.
By morning the sound of the moto the night before would feel like a wispy thing
that I’d only imagined. But the day I stood waiting for Florecita on the corner
of Blume Ramos in my school uniform and she never appeared, I knew the moto had
been real. My friend’s shimmering green house was empty. A gray banner spread
itself across the front door, sealing it shut.
Forty long and
distant years later, I learned what it said: Property of the Revolution.
Now the moto
was back, chugging slowly down Blume Ramos. I flew out of Abuela Cuca’s gate,
leaving the hens and lizards behind, and took a left onto Serafina and a right
onto Castillo—our street. I saw a crowd forming in front of our house and more
people rushing toward it from different directions. Those bodies sent out an
energy I’ll never forget, a current that ran up the street, buzzed through my
feet, and landed, vibrating, in my chest.
I fought the
urge to cry, to run back to Abuela Cuca’s. I wanted to be brave. My mother had
shown me how to make myself brave on this very same rise on Castillo, where
she’d taught me to ride a bike. She had let me go too soon, and I’d picked up
too much speed. I’d crashed where the road dipped, tangled up in the pedals and
spokes, bloody and bawling. “Ya pasó, ya pasó,” Mami had said then,
over and over.
And she was
right. It was over—and, somehow, that bit of distance eased the pain.
Then, with her eyes so close to mine I could see the thin blue ring around her
black irises, she said, “Ponte guapa”—make yourself brave.
I ran straight
through the dip in the road and into the bodies swarming in front of our house.
I knew them all from the neighborhood. Some people were crying, even though
they were smiling. Others were sobbing, hard. What were we feeling? What were
we doing? People shouted, “¡Se van, se van!” But who was leaving?
They pushed me
along and I bumped into the familiar belts and elbows of my waist-high world
until I was on the sidewalk, next to the enormous moto at the curb. Through our
open door, I saw a guardia.
He wore an
olive-green uniform and was sitting at our kitchen table, his back to me. I
stared at the gun holstered on his belt as I brushed past him. My father sat
across from the guardia, his hands jammed under his chin, his gaze
pinned to the top of the table.
The look on my
father’s face told me everything and nothing at the same time. It was someone
else’s face, someone else’s father. Papi’s frozen expression terrified me. I
was too scared to talk, let alone ask questions. And no one seemed to notice
me, anyway. I couldn’t have understood, then, the horrible truth Papi was
telling me without uttering a word.
Sometimes when
our dreams come true, they break our hearts at the same time.
My parents had
been waiting three years, since 1964, for this moment, the delivery of their permiso.
But until this moment they hadn’t known when—or if—the exit papers would
arrive. The new government had created the permiso edict to slow the
outflow of hundreds of thousands who were heading for higher, freer ground.
The revolution had promised Cubans an end to Batista’s dictatorship and the
restoration of democracy. Instead, within months of the take- over, my parents
had seen the economy, their personal freedoms, and Cuban society itself shatter
around them. They’d never thought of leaving the barrio where they were born
and raised, but now they began to search for a way out of Cuba, even if it
meant leaving their extended families behind.
That
concept—abandoning your family, especially your viejos— was Cuban taboo.
My parents, like all gusanos—worms, the government’s term for people
who were “abandoning” the country—knew they’d have to turn over everything they
owned to the government when they left Cuba. But these material losses couldn’t
compare to the pain of leaving their extended family behind, probably forever.
That was the cost of their dream coming true.
My mother had
felt the crush of that truth earlier, when she heard the moto turn down
Castillo and pull up to our house. How many times had she heard the moto pass
our house as the guard brought another family their permiso? Finally, it
was our turn. She ran to the bedroom—her heart pounding, bogobóng, bogobóng—
grabbed the box with our photos and baby albums, and rushed to the window that
faced the alley, where Neri was already waiting to take it. Mami passed her
most cherished possessions to her friend for safekeeping in the hopes that one
day, maybe, we could get them back.
Neri was the
kind of next-door neighbor you wanted after a communist revolution. She was
always tuned in to Radio Big Mouth. Radio Bemba—Cuban slang for “the
word on the street”—was the best source of information after the revolution,
given the new government’s complete control of the media. State TV wasn’t going
to tell you who was selling cooking oil on the black market, which bodega just
got a shipment of black beans, or how to cheat on your ration book to get extra
soap. Life-saving information like that was passed like pearls from mouth to
mouth on Radio Bemba. The nosy widow told the new mother on the corner, who
mentioned it to the old man at the park, who whispered it to the chatterbox
standing next to you in line. Neri spent a lot of time on Radio Bemba. She’d
call out to my mother with breaking news—“Consuelo, run! The potatoes are
here!”—and the two of them would grab us kids and run to Antonio’s bodega to
wait in line, ration books in hand.
Neri was just
as bound to her husband, a revolutionary colonel who would fight in Algiers,
Angola, and a few other countries where Castro sent Cubans to fight
imperialism. Orestes would return from one of those stints unrecognizable, his
son eyeing him from their porch as he got out of a taxi on the corner, his
uniform floating over him as he walked, barely rustling as his bony legs
carried him home.
Neri would
stay with her husband in Cuba, but she kept her promise: Mami’s box stayed
under her bed for two decades.
I didn’t know
about the box of photos, the plan to meet at the window, or anything else that
day, but a quick look at the chaos in our house told me that someone had picked
up my world and flipped it the hell over. One end of the table was half set for
a dinner we’d never eat. Papers were spread at the other end, where the guardia
and my transformed father radiated a tension so menacing it colored them
both gray. My mother ran from room to room collecting a change of clothes and a
second pair of shoes for each of us—the only items permitted in our suitcase.
Juana, the president of our block’s comité, and her daughter, Dulce,
counted chairs and opened cupboards. They needed to verify that everything we’d
had in the house when we first applied to leave the country was still there. Gusanos
couldn’t give away or sell their belongings; those were destined for
revolutionary hands. Juana was a decent woman, so Mami hoped she’d understand
that the few missing glasses and plates hadn’t been sold for profit, only broken
by accident.
As Juana
counted cutlery, Papi sat still but worked hard not to react to the guardia’s
insults. The only tranquil creature was Blanquita, our perpetually pregnant
white mutt. Her tight belly kept her in her favorite spot by our kerosene
stove.
Somehow, I saw
Abuela Fina, my maternal grandmother—the one who lived with us—last. She stood
in a corner holding my little brother, Sergito, who was banging his head
against her chest in an attempt to get back on solid ground. Abuela Fina pulled
me to her side and in no time all three of us were wailing in comforting
solidarity.
Only then did
the guardia notice me. He crooked his finger and called me over.
“Niña,
is it true that you want to leave your house, and friends, and school, and
never see them again?”
Knowing they
had a chatterbox on their hands and exactly how I’d answer this question,
Abuela Fina, Mami, and Papi jumped to answer for me, “¡Sí, claro que sí!”
Abuela swept
Sergito and me into our bedroom, where we could disintegrate in peace while the
guardia continued questioning Papi.
“Why do you
want to leave the country?”
“My wife wants to leave.”
The guardia rolled his eyes. He smirked and started to say something,
but Mami interrupted him.
“I don’t like communism,” she said, trying to draw the attention
away from my
father.
The guardia looked at her for a long moment before turning back to my
father. “I see who wears the pants here.”
My mother reached for her chain, held the medallion of la Virgen between her
index finger and thumb, and prayed Papi would stay in his chair.
The guardia
continued flipping through his forms, asking questions, and not looking
at my parents when they answered.
“What about
bank accounts? Any withdrawals in the past five years?”
Mami sorted
through an envelope and handed him a stash of deposit slips and a ledger. “We
have this one savings account. We did take money out, but we returned it, like
they told us at the Ministry.” She opened the ledger. “That’s when we returned
the money. The balance is the same as when we applied for the permiso.
Seventy-five pesos.”
“What about
jewelry? Where is it?”
“We don’t have any,” my father said.
The guardia looked at Papi. “So a pelotero who played baseball in
the United States doesn’t have any jewelry? Come on . . .”
“I sold what I had to pay for our wedding,” Papi said.
The guardia laughed. “Well . . . she screwed you then, and she’s
screwing you now. Your flight leaves in two days.
Finish packing.”
Mami’s legs
started trembling uncontrollably. She looked at the stacked plates on the
table, the pots drying on the counter. She wanted to put everything back where
it belonged. “Can I shower before we leave?”
She didn’t realize she’d actually spoken until the guardia replied,
“Where are you
sleeping tonight?”
Mami hadn’t
thought about that yet. “I suppose . . .
at my brother-
in-law’s,
upstairs.”
“Then you can shower there.” The guardia got up and collected the
papers off the table. “Keys?”
As soon we’d finished packing the few items allowed
us, the guardia swept us out to the porch—even Blanquita—and locked our
door. We watched as he unfolded a long banner—the same one I’d noticed pasted
on other houses. He stretched it across the door and over the jamb, pressing
the glued backing into the surfaces. I remember the clap of his hand against
the door and the stucco, making sure—very sure—no one would get back in without
permission.
With the
slapping and sealing over, the guardia handed the last of the documents
to my father. “Your flight leaves the day after tomorrow. Be at the Camarioca
airstrip by eight that night.” He jumped on his moto and roared up Castillo
toward the calzada.
The family and
neighbors who’d gathered out on the street finally joined us on the porch, and
the hugging and smiling and crying began. The muffled sobs and the laughter,
the women wiping their hands on their skirts—tore the last bit of brave I had
out of me. I began to cry, to my mortification, like a baby.
This was the
scene that would spur my questions over the years. My cousins and brother would
rarely ask about Cuba, but for the rest of my life I’d beg the viejos for
their stories, hungry to understand what pushed each of them to the brink, how
they survived as gusanos while they waited, exposed, with no guarantee
of ever getting out.
But in that
moment of upside-down happiness all I wanted was Blanquita. I found her lying
down in front of our door, low to the ground, like me. I stroked her pregnant
belly gently, so her puppies wouldn’t wake up. I looked up at the banner
stretched across our door, so crisp and powerful, and it wrecked me. Our house
wanted to breathe, but that thin strip of paper was suffocating it.
I really enjoyed this read! I recommend to parents! This is a read that you can use in your homeschool as well. The storyline is awesome and if you are a history buff especially interested in Cuba this would be an excellent read for you! Easy to read the author gives a first hand account.
I give this book 5 our of 5 Stars!!!
Ana Hebra Flaster has written about Cuba and the Cuban American
experience for national print and online media including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Boston Globe, as well as for her
popular Substack, @CubaCurious. Her
commentaries and storytelling have also aired on NPR and PBS’s Stories from the Stage. Property of the Revolution, her first
book, has won early recognition in several international writing competitions,
including being shortlisted in the 2023 Restless Book’s New Immigrant Writing
Prize and the 2022 Cintas Creative Writing Fellowship. After almost forty
years in the Boston area, she recently moved back to southern New Hampshire
with her husband, Andy, and their Havanese pups, Luna and Beny Moré.
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