Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dreaming in Cuban, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Passion, Romance, and Marriage
Intergenerational Conflict
Religious Diversity
History and Personal Identity
Obsession and Devotion
Summary
Analysis
Herminia Delgado (1980). Herminia and Felicia met when they were six years old. Felicia was collecting shells on the beach. Herminia told Felicia that shells could be used to predict the future. Felicia asked Herminia, “Will you save me?” Herminia said, “Sure.”
Herminia and Felicia seem to be fated for friendship through Felicia’s attraction to shells, which figure prominently in Santería. Even as a young child, Felicia seems to sense that she’ll need “saving” one day.
Themes
Herminia’s father was a babalawo, or high priest of Santería. People in Santa Teresa del Mar told lies about him and made fun of Herminia, but Felicia defended her. Felicia also came to Herminia’s house even though her parents didn’t let her. Watching Salvador use a coconut in divination, Felicia’s fascination with coconuts began.
Felicia is fiercely loyal, no matter what the outside world or her own family think about her actions. Based on her loyal to Herminia, she also feels drawn to Santería long before she actively takes interest in practicing it herself.
Themes
Felicia was a loyal friend, staying with Herminia after her oldest son died. She was stubborn, but she used her imagination to cope with grief, which Herminia admired. She’s also the only person Herminia knows who doesn’t seem at all racist. Herminia knows that black Cubans’ history is only a footnote in history books, so she doesn’t trust what she reads, only what she sees and knows with her heart.
Herminia is the only minority character who speaks prominently in the story. Besides offering that perspective—one, she points out, that seldom receives official attention—she also provides insight into Felicia’s life that her own family cannot.
Themes
After she disappeared in 1978, Felicia returned to Santería eagerly. Herminia took her to La Madrina, and Felicia entered a trance. During the trance, Felicia talked about her third marriage, claiming that she’d pushed Otto off a roller coaster and watched him die. Felicia started working hard at the beauty parlor during the day and attended every Santería ceremony at night, finally seeming to find fulfillment. Celia doesn’t approve, but Herminia thinks that Celia is too political to understand the supernatural.
After her failed marriages, Felicia seems keen for a fresh start. After dabbling at the edges of Santería for most of her life, she finally devotes herself to it, and the fragmented pieces of her life seem to be coming together. Because Celia has never fully trusted Santería, she finds this development suspect.
Themes
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Felicia undergoes special initiations. The ultimate one is called the asiento and is very secretive. Felicia is possessed by a god and tastes the blood of goats and other animals. When Herminia sees her afterward, Felicia appears to be at peace. However, when Felicia goes home, none of her family is there to greet her. Herminia tells her that the family is frightened, but Felicia argues that this is completely different from the “summer of coconuts”; she has clarity now. Felicia is sad, but she thanks Herminia for saving her.
Felicia finally finds what she’s long been seeking in the practice of Santería. However, she discovers there’s still something missing: her family’s love and approval, without which she cannot be completely happy. Her family appears to chalk up Felicia’s religious conversion to further mental instability.
Themes
Most newly initiated santeras look radiant, but Felicia grows ill and old before her time. Her hair loses color, she goes blind, and her head swells. Everyone from Herminia’s casa de santo tries remedies and offers sacrifices, but nothing helps. Divination reveals only death. One day, as the babalawos are about to leave Felicia’s house, Celia shows up and orders the “witch doctors” out, stomping on the divination shells in her bare feet. Then she held Felicia and wept over her until she died.
The lack of family connection sickens Felicia—even her spiritual connection isn’t enough to compensate for that lack. Celia, who has always mistrusted Santería and seen shells as bad luck, destroys the shells as if doing so can somehow eradicate the misfortunes from her daughter’s life—as well as the ways in which she’s failed her daughter.
Themes
Ivanito. After Felicia’s funeral, Ivanito received a radio in the mail. He thinks it might be from his father. Whenever he can, Ivanito walks along the beach, trying to pick up radio stations in Key West so he can learn English better. Sometimes he wants to be a radio personality so he can talk to a million people at once.
With his mother dead, Ivanito is now free to find his own voice and his own way in the world. His efforts with his radio suggest that his future won’t be limited to Cuba. He has too many stories to tell.
Themes
