47 pages • 1 hour read
Chanel CleetonWhen We Left Cuba
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Exile and the Longing for Home
Beatriz’s character arc in the novel is shaped by her sense of exile and the longing to return to the land, and the life, that is lost to her. Other characters echo and reflect on this theme in their own ways.
The violence and loss that attended the Perez’s family’s exodus from Cuba contributes to Beatriz’s sense of displacement and discomfort in Palm Beach. Not only did the death of her twin brother leave Beatriz feeling that she lost part of herself, but also her efforts to gain her father’s release from jail left her feeling that, even in the US, she will never be completely innocent or safe. Though her mother tries to recreate the luxurious life the Perezes led in Cuba, Beatriz feels disconnected from their social circle in Florida. Her sister Elisa has happily married and her younger sister Maria appears to be fitting in, but Beatriz senses accusation and judgment from those around her. Her exposure to violence has given her a hard edge that makes Beatriz feel she can never fit in with American women, though notably, her confrontation with Nick’s fiancée shows that Katherine has a flinty edge as well.
Confronting Castro in New York is a shock to Beatriz not only because of the way she has built him up in her mind as an adversary and threat, but also because she considers the US her refuge, and Castro has figuratively invaded this place, too. This sense of displacement is further exacerbated by Beatriz’s sense that she is out of her element in the world of international espionage. She feels this disappointment all the more keenly because she is motivated by more than simply avenging her brother’s death; she hopes that killing Castro will allow her family and families like theirs to return to Cuba and reclaim the life they knew, but with the reforms they were fighting for under Batista.
Beatriz’s time in London, another sort of exile (albeit voluntary), gives her time to develop a sense of independence and self-sufficiency. While living in Florida, she was essentially still under the shadow of Castro. In London, Beatriz misses elements of her life in Florida but feels the wish to return to Cuba far less keenly.
When she returns to Washington with Nick during the Cuban missile crisis, Beatriz begins to grapple with what home means to her. The assignment to go to Cuba forces her to confront her attachment to the new life she has built and weigh the possibilities for her future. In her final confrontation with Castro, in the Cuba he has claimed, Beatriz realizes that her exile is complete, and her homeland is lost to her. Eduardo, in contrast, has found his own way back, but at a cost Beatriz isn’t willing to pay. Their final promise to dance together at the Tropicana—something they know is impossible—confirms Beatriz’s final departure from Cuba, after which she embraces Florida as her home and her future. Her exile is resolved by opportunities in her new homeland, though Cuba will always hold an affectionate and nostalgic place in her heart.
Conflicting Loyalties
One of the conflicts that defines Beatriz’s character arc and propels her through the book is the tension she feels between loyalty to her family, her old home in Cuba, and her passion for Nick. All three of these loves lay claim to her heart, but they refuse to peacefully co-exist.
Beatriz’s sense of obligation to her family illustrates that loyalties can be complex and multi-layered. She feels sympathetic to her father’s need to start over in America, but she also resents her mother’s efforts to get the girls married, and is angry that Isabel, who left a fiancé in Cuba, appears to comply with her mother’s plans. While she feels a more straightforward affection for Elisa and Maria, their ability to adapt to new lives in the US is at odds with Beatriz’s need to put right the wrongs she feels Castro has done to her family and to Cuba. Perhaps because of her unique attachment to Alejandro as her twin, Beatriz feels it is her responsibility to avenge his death. To do so, she initiates contact with CIA agent Dwyer, with Eduardo’s help.
Beatriz’s loyalty to Cuba is not to the country it has become under Castro but to the imagined Cuba she was fighting for when she supported her brother’s revolutionary activities. She acknowledges that the cultivation and production of sugar, which underlined her family’s wealth, was exploitative and damaging in many ways, and she doesn’t wish to reinstate the rule of the sugar barons. Instead, she wants a Cuba that offers more freedoms and opportunities for success, but at the same time can afford the luxurious and leisurely lifestyle she knew. While she doesn’t have specific ideas about how to rebuild a life in Cuba, she allows dancing at the Tropicana, the vow she often revisits with Eduardo, to stand in for this imagined reconstitution of her homeland.
Beatriz’s romantic desire for Nick represents another attachment that lays claim to her heart, but her desire to be with him leads her to hurt her family, who wish to avoid looking scandalous or foolish. Her choice to live with Nick at his homes in Palm Beach and Washington prove that Beatriz is not swayed by her family’s concern for appearances, though this concern distances them from her. Beatriz’s avowed love for her family and fear for their safety lead her to insist on accompanying Nick back to the US when he learns of the missile threat, but instead of returning to Florida, she chooses to stay with and provide emotional support to Nick in Washington. She only goes to Florida when Eduardo is released from prison, which is a way of acting on her loyalty to Cuba. That loyalty again takes precedence when she accepts the assignment to visit Castro in Cuba; her vow to revenge her brother wins over the concerns expressed by Nick and her family for her safety.
Only when her meeting with Castro proves futile and Eduardo betrays her does Beatriz realize her loyalties to Cuba are at an end. Digging up the box of money on her family’s land and using it to finance her return to Florida symbolizes Beatriz’s decision to let go of her past in Cuba and turn toward a new future. No longer tormented by conflicting loyalties, she is finally able to imagine what she wants for her life and move toward it.
Freedom From Gendered Expectations
Throughout the novel, Beatriz struggles with the gendered expectations that are put upon her as a young woman living in the 1960s. In both the US and Cuba, the conventional future for young women, especially young women of wealth and some social standing, is at odds with Beatriz’s longing for independence and self-governance.
The chief expectation, and the ambition that Beatriz’s mother holds for her girls, is to see them in marriages that will provide social standing and financial security. Love seems not to be a consideration in this decision. Beatriz flouts this expectation in the way she collects marriage proposals—she is enjoying her fifth when the novel begins. Beatriz says several times that her chief objection to marriage is that she would need to limit her interests and activities to tending a household, raising children, and supporting her husband in his career, at the cost of pursuing a career or interests of her own.
In the traditional model that prevailed in this cultural moment, men were expected to lead public lives and to be the breadwinners for their families, while women tended to domestic concerns and childcare. This is the model that Beatriz’s parents follow and which Elisa and Isabel presumably adopt in their own marriages. However, while it’s assumed that this model will bring women happiness, Beatriz does not anticipate finding contentment or fulfillment in such activities. She knows this even before she becomes involved with Nick and experiments with a pseudo-domestic partnership, where she prepares meals for them and provides emotional companionship in addition to their sexual relationship—a part-time mistress, as she thinks of herself at certain points.
Though she doesn’t wish to pursue married life, Beatriz does benefit from and indeed take advantage of gendered expectations when she plays up her sexual attractiveness in her work for the CIA. She thinks of her youth and beauty as a weapon that can be exploited, because of the accompanying associations of innocence and naivete. While in London, her facility in social situations, along with her attractiveness, makes Beatriz a desired guest and allows her opportunities to gather intelligence.
She also exploits her attractiveness in her attempts to get near Castro, who she assumes is arranging to meet her for a sexual encounter. She is countermanded for holding these gendered expectations when it turns out that Castro acknowledges her as an intelligence operative, and entrusts her with a message to communicate to the US government. While Nick strove to shelter and protect her, and her family pressures her to pursue more conventional paths, it is Castro, Ramon, Javier, and Eduardo—all fellow Cubans, all involved in intelligence operations—who take Beatriz seriously as an intelligence operative and deal with her accordingly. The characters who are able to conceive of revolution as necessary to break free from restrictive practices or conventions are the ones who can acknowledge and understand Beatriz’s motivations and actions.
