Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings

Nonfiction | Memoir in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Parts 1-2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5-Author’s Note

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Background

Genre Context: Verse Memoir

Verse memoirs are a genre of full-length autobiographical narratives that are told through poetry instead of prose. Verse memoirs make use of the poetic form to tell stories that highlight mood, symbolism, and atmosphere through a tight control of language and literary device. Young Adult verse novels often structure the narrative in short sections with different narrators, providing multiple perspectives with insight into the thoughts and feelings of diverse characters. In verse memoirs, the perspective usually remains tied to the autobiographical narrator. Engle uses organizational techniques such as evolving symbolism to highlight the changes in perspective that take place over the course of the narrative. An increasingly popular genre for memoirs by women of color, recent verse memoirs include Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhhá Lai, and Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall.

Authorial Context: Margarita Engle

Margarita Engle is an award-winning author best known for her poetry for children. Born in Los Angeles, California, the author spent summers in Cuba with her mother’s extended family where she developed a deep love of and appreciation for Cuba as well as Spanish poetry. The author obtained a bachelor’s degree from California State Polytechnic University and a master’s degree from Iowa State University. She was a tenured professor of Agronomy at California Polytechnic before she began writing poetry. She has published 18 books of poetry, primarily writing verse novels about important historical events and figures that demonstrate her Cuban heritage with additional themes in nature and war as seen in works like The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano (2006) and Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba (2010). The author has said, “Writing a historical novel in verse feels like time travel, a dream-like blend of imagination and reality” (“About Margarita.” Margarita Engle). In 2009, Engle became the first Latino writer to win the Newbery Honor for her verse novel The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom (2008). She was the Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2017 to 2019, and she was the 2019 winner of the prestigious NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature. Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir is autobiographical and describes the author’s personal connection to Cuba. It also addresses her struggles growing up during the Cold War, divided between two cultures.

Socio-Historical Context: Cuban-American Cold War Relations

The nuclear stand-off between the US and the Soviet Union known as the Cold War lasted from 1946 to 1991. Ideology played a large part in the conflict, with the world dividing itself between those on the side of democracy—mainly the US and the West—and those on the side of communism—the Soviet Union, China, and many postcolonial nations in the global South. A former protectorate of the US, Cuba maintained political and military ties with the US throughout the first half of the 20th century, until corruption in the US-backed Batista government led the country to civil war.

In 1848, the Polk Administration attempted to buy Cuba from Spain. In 1898, Cuba briefly became a US protectorate after the Cuban War of Independence, giving the US an economic and political position of power. In 1902, Cuba was formally recognized as an Independent Nation. The Platt Amendment to the US Army Appropriations Bill of March 1901 provided for a number of US troops to remain in Cuba to help stabilize the Cuban government. The Platt Amendment allowed multiple Cuban factions to use the US military to continue direct influence upon political power in Cuba until 1934, encouraging popular discontent amongst many Cubans who saw American interference as acts of aggression.

Part 2 of Engle’s memoir takes place during the period of the Cuban Civil War, which began in 1953. By 1959, Fidel Castro led a successful uprising to overthrow the Batista government of Cuba. Popular revolutionary Che Guevara held significant influence with Castro, who took a benevolent approach to allowing the spread of communism in Cuba, unlike the previous Batista administration, which had outlawed communism when party numbers became a threat in the late 1940s. With Castro’s leadership and Guevara’s influence, Cuba became increasingly communist. Americans became increasingly suspicious of anyone with ties to Cuba as seen in Poems 28-34 due to the Red Scare and McCarthyism.

After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the American CIA incited a violent campaign of terrorism to destabilize Castro’s administration, resulting in civilian deaths and massive destruction of infrastructure. On August 6, 1960, the Cuban government nationalized all American-owned oil and sugar refineries in response. By 1961, America severed diplomatic ties with Cuba while continuing covert operations to overthrow the government. Part 4 of Engle’s memoir takes place during this period, including events surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In October of 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred, a 13-day Cold-War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. America deployed missiles against the Soviet Union in Italy and Turkey while the Soviet Union deployed missiles in Cuba against the US. The missiles were never fired, as President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev were able to deescalate the conflict. This event is recognized as the closest the world has come to nuclear war.