she wants me to be her , but i'm not miss cubanita . i mean , i love my mom and everything , but i've never even been to cuba , so how can she expect me to embrace it ? This is my country the US . guantanamera.As if there weren't a thousand other radio stations she could have on. '' mami , could you please listen to something else? They play that song , like , eighteen times a day '' . I can't concentrate on my teacher's handbook i've read the same paragraph three times already . '' it's better than that stuff you listen to that goes ........... and makes the car windows shake at every red light …....., she says, chopping up onions and peppers garbage ? Mom , that's what people listen to now. Nobody listens to guantanamera . Only a cubanita like you ,who's stuck in her own little world . Can't you try to act like the american citizen you are . I mean , it's embarrassing .you haven't been to cuba in txenty- five years .what are you holding on for ? Ten seconds of painful silence .
Then '' Isabelita , you keep telling yourself you're not cuban , even though you are .Sometimes i wonder if they didn't switch you for another baby at the hospital . '' she haks the onions with a little more force , shaking her head ,then starts talkingto herself._the all time Cuban mother thing to do._ to make me feel guilty about not understanding her .[ … ]
I leave the kitchen counter behind , her voice trailing off .[ … ] Doesn't matter what she's saying anyway . It's probably in Cuba things were like this , in cuba , things were like that, in cuba , blah blah blah . '' Ay ,all she ever talks about is Cuba ![...]
Summer has just started and already I can't wait to get out of here to begin my mother-free life at the University of Michigan in august .But until that happens , I'll ba teaching art at Everglades National park summer camp , same as last year […] I love working there , probably because I've always dreamedof living somewere other Miami.
I start tomorrow. If