It seems disrespectful to my parents who left... to hear their story over and over again which always ends with... 'and I'll never go back as long as anyone in the Castro family is in power.' Well, what happens if you can go back? Would you want to see things?
From Jennine Capó Crucet
My husband is a huge source of support and love.
'Some day,' I said, 'I will be an author.'
I really started considering myself a writer when I was about seven or eight years old. I wrote stories from my dreams and kept them all in a notebook that I still have.
I've had lots of wonderful people help motivate me over the years to work hard and write.
I have not been to Cuba, though if you count the stories my grandma told me growing up, I've been there in my head many times. I think someday I will see it, when things are different there, but I've come to feel like I really am a Miami girl.
When I left for college, my mom really latched on to the dog; She started buying him little outfits and calling him our brother, but that's as far as it got.
My parents were more surprised that I wanted to go away for school than anything. They didn't really understand the benefits.
I remember being so homesick and realizing that where I came from was not something that existed in the cultural imagination outside the city. People used to think Miami was just partying in South Beach all the time.
I was in Minnesota and Illinois when I wrote 'How to Leave Hialeah.' When I come to Miami, I'm happy. I don't need to write in Miami.
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