Oye What I'm Gonna Tell You
When is your culture bad for you? That is the question that weaves its way through Oye What I'm Gonna Tell You, a startling collection chronicling the lives of Cuban Americans from WWII-era Havana to contemporary times in "el norte." Whether they inhabit blue collar neighborhoods in the Northeast, the increasingly Latino-populated South, or Florida, the characters that populate this book—many of whom are the children and grandchildren of exiles, who have been raised in traditional Cuban homes but whose only homeland has been the United States—must decide what to take and what to leave from their upbringing.
Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés was born in New Jersey to Cuban parents. Her debut collection of stories, Marielitos, Balseros and Other Exiles (Ig Publishing, 2009), was followed by Everyday Chica, 2010 winner of the Longleaf Press Poetry Chapbook award. She lives in Orlando where she teaches literature and writing at the University of Central Florida.
