Ada Ferrer Tracks Family’s Cuba Story

Why this is here: Ada Ferrer’s half-brother Poly wrote to his mother in 1970, at age 16, apologizing for forgetting to send a Mother’s Day card and admitting, “Deep inside me lives the name of my absent mother.”

Historian Ada Ferrer explores her family’s displacement through Cuba’s history in her new memoir, Keeper of My Kin. Ferrer began to connect her academic study of Cuba with her parents’ lived experiences while at the University of Texas in the late 1980s. She discovered a gap between the historical narratives she studied and the personal memories of her parents, who emigrated from Cuba in the early 1960s.

Ferrer’s research was greatly aided by a trove of letters exchanged between family members separated by the revolution and distance. These letters detail the emotional toll of separation, particularly on her half-brother, Poly, who spent seventeen years apart from his mother. The letters reveal how political upheaval reshaped individual lives, creating both breaks and bonds within the family.

The book also considers how a changing Cuba might impact future generations. Ferrer’s father, despite his initial opposition, expressed a desire to return to Cuba, acknowledging its complexities even as it descended into further crisis. Though he passed away before he could revisit the island, his story, like those of countless others, remains part of Cuba’s ongoing narrative.