Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way

Latin American and Latino Art and Culture

by Gustavo Perez Firmat

From Desi Arnaz and "I Love Lucy" to Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine, Cuban-Americans have conga'd and mambo'd their way into the heart of popular culture in the United States. This engaging book, which mixes the author's own story with his reflections as a trained observer, explores how both famous and ordinary members of the "1.5 Generation" (Cubans who came to United States as children or adolescents) have lived "life on the hyphen," neither fully Cuban nor fully American, but a fertile hybrid of both. Ranging widely from music to movies to television to literature, Gustavo Pérez Firmat chronicles what it means to be Cuban in America. He offers an in-depth look at Cuban-Americans who have become icons of popular and literary culture, including Desi Arnaz, Oscar Hijuelos (whose The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won the Pulitzer Prize and became a major motion picture), musician Perez Prado, poet José Kozer, and crossover pop stars Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada.

Genres: Nonfiction, Cultural

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Gustavo Pérez Firmat was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Miami, Florida.
He is best known for his memoir, Next Year in Cuba, available in Spanish as El año que viene estamos en Cuba, and for Life on the Hyphen, a study of Cuban-American culture, also available in Spanish as Vidas en vilo. His most recent book, A Cuban in Mayberry, is an affectionate and personal look at one of America’s best-loved TV shows, “The Andy Griffith Show.” He has also published several collections of poetry in English and Spanish—Scar Tissue, Cincuenta lecciones de exilio y desexilio, Bilingual Blues, Equivocaciones, Carolina Cuban—and a novel, Anything but Love. His books of literary and cultural criticism include The Havana Habit, Tongue Ties, The Cuban Condition, Literature and Liminality and Idle Fictions. He divides his time between New York City and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Reviews

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author came to Middlebury one summer and talked to us about his books. I liked some of his other books as well, but this one was particularly compelling. It's quasi scientific, but it's very well done. Great considerations about biculturalism. Any of you who have grown up in culturally mixed households will certainly relate to the situations depicted here.

[Helen Lemus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it and found the scent of my mother's Cuba in its pages, and the complications that my United States that I thought were so uniquely my experience turned out to be commonplace. I heard my laments and my joys in his erudite paragraphs. Because of this book, I gave myself permission to be me a little more open to a past that I felt I had to hide.

I was honored to read this book. Thank you, doctor.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little corny yet essential.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting and learned a lot. Towards the end chapters on Kozer, it was a little slow. Overall enjoyed the discussions and music and poetry.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very factual but not an easy read.

[Noam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read about a third of it for a class. Pretty interesting, and really fun to read. I'd like to finish reading it when I have time.