In Cuba I was a German Shepherd

Disclaimer: This review is about the short story, not the book as a whole

        Ana Menendez's short story, In Cuba I was a German Shepherd views a meetup between four men in the park of Little Havana in Miami. They are all older men, two of whom lived in Cuba during the revolution. They discuss many reasons why they do not feel quite right in their current home of Miami. Little Havana is an accurate mimic of a neighborhood in Cuba. They feel mostly at home, but there are always the tour buses that come and speak of Cuban culture and how many of these people are Cuban exiles. There is a rather comedic scene where one of the characters runs after the tour bus yelling curses. The title of this story is significant because when they refer to feeling out of place in America, one of the characters tells a story about a dog who comes to Cuba from America and is misunderstood. Overall, this was a great story. The profanity could have been a bit less, but it was not completely overwhelming. It was fun to follow the lives of these men who do not feel that they are correctly understood in America.

Ana Menendez

        Ana Menendez was born in 1970 in Los Angeles to Cuban exiles. Her parents planned to move back to Cuba at any time, so they prepared Ana for this. She spoke only Spanish until she was enrolled in kindergarten. They didn't ever move back to Cuba, but they did move to Florida, where Ana earned her Bachelor of Arts from Florida International University. She got her Master of Fine Arts at New York University. Ana was a journalist from 1991 until 1997. She then accepted a Fulbright Grant to teach at the American University in Cairo. Ana entered the Creative Writing program at New York University in 1997, where she was a New York Times Fellow. She now lives in Maastricht and Miami. In an interview with Coastline Magazine, she said:

"The difference between writing fiction and writing journalism is a little like the difference between working with oils and working with fast-drying acrylics. With fiction, you have a long time before the work 'sets'; you can re-contour, re-blend, touch-up, even wipe clean and start again. With journalism, you have about eight hours to get the picture done and then another four or five of obsessing, 'did I spell that name right, did I screw up that date, is the fact correct?' With journalism, there's no going back. There are no 'revisions' only 'corrections'. It's very unforgiving. There's something to love and loathe in both 'media'."

        Ana has written four books. Her first book, In Cuba I was a German Shepherd, was awarded a Pushcart Prize and was nominated for a New York Times notable book. This was a book of short stories. It was published in 2001. Her first novel, Loving Che, was published in 2003. In June of 2009, she published another novel, The Last War. Her most recent book, Adios, Happy Homeland!, was published in 2011 and is a book of linked, formally experimental short stories.
        As a journalist, Ana Menendez has done plenty of work in Cuba, Haiti, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and India. She has written for the Miami Herald, where she covered the small neighborhood of Little Havana. The Last War is about the war in Iraq and is set in Istanbul. This displays her as a rather adventurous author, as Istanbul is one thousand miles from Baghdad. This was a bold choice that could easily have destroyed the book, but she was able to precariously pull it off. Ana Menendez is a fantastic author, who's legacy is not easily overstated.

The Mirabal Sisters

        The Mirabal sisters were four sisters who opposed the Trujillo regime. For more information on the regime, see my other post, The Dominican Republic during the Trujillo Regime. Three of the four sisters openly and sometimes violently opposed the regime.

Patria Mirabal

Patria Mercedes Mirabal Reyes (Patria)

        The oldest of the sisters, Patria was usually the role model. Though she was not the leader of the rebel uprising, she played an active part in it. She went to the Inmaculada Concepcion,  a convent and boarding school, when she was 14. She married Pedro Gonzalez when she was 17. Pedro also actively supported the rebels. There are records of her saying "We cannot allow our children to grow up in this corrupt and tyrannical regime. We have to fight against it, and I am willing to give up everything, even my life if necessary." She was one of the three sisters who was murdered by Trujillo's henchmen on  November 25, 1960.

Dede Mirabal

Bélgica Adela Mirabal Reyes (Dede)

        Born one year later, Dede did not actively participate in the rebellion. She likely would have participated, but her husband, Jaimito, wouldn't let her. It does not end there, though, as Jaimito disapproved of  what the other three sisters were doing so much that he called the police on them. She filed for divorce in 1984.  As she was the only sister who survived the conflict, she devoted the rest of her life to continuing the legacy of her other three sisters. Jaimito's calling the police resulted in the other three sisters and their husbands being sent to prison, but they had to be let out when spectators appeared. The husbands were transferred to a prison in the mountains, where the sisters were murdered and run off a cliff. Unlike her sisters, Dede did not go to college. She stayed home and helped with the family business, as she was a prodigy at math.

Minerva Mirabal

María Argentina Minerva Mirabal Reyes (Minerva)

        Since Minerva was the third sister born within a year of the other two, her father was beginning to realize that he wasn't going to get a boy. Minerva was arguably the leader of their movement, as she had learned of the horrors of the regime at a fairly early age. She was exposed to this at the Inmaculada Concepcion by a friend who had her brother, along with the rest of the men in her family, murdered by the regime. She also had another friend who became one of the many girlfriends of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, the current leader of the regime. She is quoted as saying "It is a source of happiness to do whatever can be done for our country that suffers so many anguishes. It is sad to stay with one's arms crossed."

Maria Teresa Mirabal

Antonia Maria Teresa Mirabal Reyes (Maria Teresa)

         Born five years after Minerva, Maria Teresa was the fourth and final sister. She did not learn of the rebellion until it was on the brink of violence, but joined and openly participated anyway. She married Leandro Guzman, who also participated in the conflict. She studied math at the University of Santo Domingo. She was crucial to the conflict with her knowledge of mathematics and all around devotedness. She is quoted as saying "… perhaps what we have most near is death, but that idea does not frighten me, we shall continue to fight for that which is just…"