Dreaming in Cuban Characters

Ernesto is Felicia’s unlucky second husband. He is a pale, nondescript, scrupulously honest restaurant inspector. Four days after they meet, Ernesto dies in a hotel fire.

Berta is Jorge’s mother. Celia lives with her during her first year of marriage to Jorge. Berta hates and torments Celia, calling her a whore and breaking her spirit. This treatment triggers a mental illness for Celia that culminates in a stint at an asylum.

Ofelia is Jorge’s unmarried sister who suffers from tuberculosis. Celia lives with her and Berta del Pino during her first year of marriage.

Blanquito is the American cousin with whom Pilar seeks refuge after running away to Miami.

Dom Guillermo is Rufino’s father who is wealthy from Cuba’s casino business. He and his wife, Zaida, are exiled to America after the Cuban Revolution.

Dona Zaida is Rufino’s mother. She and her husband, Guillermo, are exiled to America after the Cuban Revolution. She despises Lourdes.

Alicia is the great-aunt with whom Celia lived in Havana as a girl following her parents’ divorce. Alicia’s love, music, and progressive values have a lifelong influence on Celia.

Felicia is a young woman Celia meets in the asylum. Felicia is said to have burned her husband to death. Celia later names her own daughter Felicia after her friend.

Maribel works in Lourdes’s bakery at one point before she’s summarily fired for pocketing change. A few years later, Maribel’s teenage son—whom Lourdes busts on her auxiliary policewoman beat—commits suicide by jumping into the river.

Xiomara Rojas is the lieutenant of Felicia’s training brigade in the Sierra Maestra.

Ester is the wife of the postmaster in Santa Teresa del Mar. She accuses Loli Regalado of seducing her husband, Rogelio.

Loli is a woman in Santa Teresa del Mar whom Ester Ugarte accuses of seducing her husband, Rogelio. Rogelio ultimately confesses to seducing Loli.

Rogelio is the postmaster of Santa Teresa del Mar, husband of Ester. He eventually confesses to seducing Loli Regalado and is sentenced to a year’s volunteer service.

Irinita is Javier’s daughter in Czechoslovakia.

Max is Pilar’s musician boyfriend in 1976. Max’s real name is Octavio Schneider, and they start dating after Max (who is half Mexican) speaks Spanish to Pilar at a club. He encourages Pilar to become a bass player someday.

Mr. Mikoyan is Ivanito’s Russian teacher at boarding school. He is especially fond of Ivanito and ultimately flees the school after he’s accused of “indiscretions” with underage students.

Otto is Felicia’s third husband. He found her wandering around the carnival where he worked and married her the next day. Otto ends up falling off a roller coaster. Felicia later claims, in a trance, that she pushed him.

Salvador is Herminia’s father, a Santería priest. He was sometimes derided by the community as a “witch doctor.”

Rubén is a Peruvian boyfriend of Pilar’s at Barnard College. He cheats on her with a Dutch exchange student.

La Madrina is a Santería practitioner connected with Herminia and Felicia.

Minnie is Pilar’s troubled 17-year-old seatmate on the bus ride from New York to Miami. Minnie is traveling to Florida seeking an abortion.

A sister at the Sisters of Charity Hospital. She takes care of Jorge, including shaving him twice a day, after Lourdes empties her savings to pay for that sort of personal care. Jorge appears to Sister Federica after he dies, making her believe that he is a saint.