Review: "A Little Piece of Cuba" by Barbara Caver

A Little Piece of Cuba by Barbara Caver
Published December 2025 via She Writes Press
★★★

In another life, Caver might have grown up in Caribbean luxury: Her mother's family hailed from Cuba, where they had led privileged lives. As Castro came to power, though, they quietly relocated north, settling into a comfortable life in the US and—for most of them—never returning. And so Caver grew up knowing her roots but struggling to understand what they meant for her identity. What made one a "real" Cuban or a "real" Cuban American?

My mother's story is one of assimilation, whereas mine is one of differentiation. (loc. 1570*)

I enjoy both a family memoir and a travel memoir, so this was a good fit for me. There's not quite so much travel as I expected—just five days in a country, I guess, can't really compare to a whole life of experiences. I wasn't really sure how to feel about "Sara the real Cuban" (a character who is an amalgamation of people in Caver's life who helped her figure out what it meant to be Cuban American), as I suppose that the takeaways are more important to the story than introducing numerous characters who just pop in and out, but at the same time I would have liked the richness of detail that introducing those characters might have allowed.

My grasp of Cuban, and Cuban American, history is admittedly shaky: I learned a little bit about Cuba in school, of course, but mostly what remains are vague memories of the Elián González case and a history lesson or two about the Cuban missile crisis. If your grasp of history is similarly shaky, you might find it useful to brush up before diving into A Little Piece of Cuba, as there's some history here but the emphasis is very much on the way in which Caver's family background affected her, not on what has happened in the country. Fascinating to think, though, about the different reactions to immigration and refugees over time. While I'd never say that someone who had to flee their homeland was lucky, within the context of that flight, Caver's family was in a good position—coming with, it sounds like, established financial stability; part of a population that the US government welcomed into the country. (Considering that the current US government only seems enthusiastic about accepting white South Africans into the country...well, it was definitely a different time.)

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.