{"id":37501,"date":"2015-04-23T12:21:14","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T16:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=37501"},"modified":"2015-12-15T22:27:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T03:27:30","slug":"tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/","title":{"rendered":"Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tropical<\/a>In case you’ve missed the recent headlines, Cuba has been in the news a lot: “We are separated by 90 miles of water, but are brought together through shared relationships and the desire to promote a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba,” a recent official White House foreign policy statement<\/a> reads. “President Obama is taking action to cut loose the anchor of failed policies of the past, and to chart a new course in U.S. relations with Cuba that will engage and empower the Cuban people.”<\/p>\n

As for literature by and about Cuban and Cuban Americans, I can’t even name a handful of writers: Cristina Garc\u00eda<\/a> and Reinaldo Arenas come immediately to mind, as does the latest Very Important Awards-darling Rachel Kushner (although I admit I haven’t been able to finish any of her titles, oh well). My go-to Cuban American favorite, however, is Margarita Engle<\/a>, and wow (!) does she provide an important\u00a0history lesson here.<\/p>\n

How many of you knew this? [I had no clue!] “Despite tragedies and scandals, Cuba accepted 65,000 Jewish refugees from 1938 to 1939, the same number that was taken in by the much larger United States during that same period,” Engle writes in her ending “Historical Note.” “Overall, Cuba accepted more Jewish refugees than any other Latin American nation.” Clearly, the hapa Ukrainian Jewish Cuban American Engle is a Newbery Honoree<\/a>\u00a0for good reason; she’s also\u00a0the first Latina\/o author of such lauded ilk, with countless other distinctions, awards, prizes, as well.<\/p>\n

“The situations and major events in this book are factual. The characters are entirely imaginary,” Engle explains. Rendered in haunting, exacting,\u00a0spare, free verse, Engle’s protagonists become immediately real on the page. In June 1939, Daniel, just 13, arrives in Havana Harbor on a German ship, having been turned away from New York and Canada, and is finally allowed to disembark with other refugees. He is the last of his family: “My parents chose to save me \/ instead of saving themselves.” Frightened, wary, desperate, he is slow to trust anyone; his only dream is to be reunited with his missing family.<\/p>\n

Paloma, a 12-year-old local girl who befriends the refugees, mourns the loss of her runaway mother and hides the greedy, inhuman secrets of her wealthy father. David, who arrived from the Ukraine long ago, knows “what it means \/ to be a refugee \/ without a home.” Daniel realizes David “is still Russian, still Jewish, \/ but he talks like a completely \/ new sort of person, \/ one without memories \/ to treasure.”\u00a0The three\u00a0create new bonds by listening, teaching, accepting, and nurturing one another. They reach out to others in need, including a Jewish woman and her Christian husband who come under threat when non-Jewish Germans are suspected of being Nazi spies.<\/p>\n

In the modern U.S.\u00a0imagination,\u00a0our long-estranged\u00a0Caribbean neighbor has been associated with denial and human rights abuses. Title by title, Engle shows us otherwise, from the 19th-century\u00a0Poet Slave of Cuba<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0to 19th-century Cuban women’s rights pioneers in The Firefly Letters<\/em>, to\u00a0the 1896 fight for independence from colonial Spain in\u00a0The Surrender Tree<\/em>. Take my word: You couldn’t choose\u00a0a better guide to get to know the real Cuba.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Middle Grade, Young Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In case you’ve missed the recent headlines, Cuba has been in the news a lot: “We are separated by 90 miles of water, but are brought together through shared relationships and the desire to promote a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba,” a recent official White…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,366,90,6775,6770,6,312,30,31],"tags":[84,6608,10,11,135,24,214,25,737,6354,738,39,55,739,6353,6355,45],"class_list":["post-37501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-caribbean","category-caribbean-american","category-cuban","category-cuban-american","category-fiction","category-jewish","category-middle-grade-readers","category-young-adult-readers","tag-betrayal","tag-bookdragon","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-grandparents","tag-historical","tag-holocaust","tag-immigration","tag-margarita-engle","tag-matt-green","tag-ozzie-rodriguez","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-religious-differences","tag-roberto-santana","tag-tropical-secrets","tag-vane-millon","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\nTropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In case you’ve missed the recent headlines, Cuba has been in the news a lot: “We are separated by 90 miles of water, but are brought together through shared relationships and the desire to promote a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba,” a recent official White...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-23T16:21:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-12-16T03:27:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2015\/04\/Tropical-Secrets-by-Margarita-Engle-on-BookDragon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"826\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle - BookDragon","og_description":"In case you’ve missed the recent headlines, Cuba has been in the news a lot: “We are separated by 90 miles of water, but are brought together through shared relationships and the desire to promote a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba,” a recent official White...","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2015-04-23T16:21:14+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-12-16T03:27:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":826,"height":1360,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2015\/04\/Tropical-Secrets-by-Margarita-Engle-on-BookDragon.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/","name":"Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-04-23T16:21:14+00:00","dateModified":"2015-12-16T03:27:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tropical-secrets-holocaust-refugees-in-cuba-by-margarita-engle\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37503,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37501\/revisions\/37503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}