Jubana!: The Awkwardly True and Dazzling Adventures of a Jewish Cubana Goddess - Hardcover

Anders, Gigi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060563699 ISBN 13: 9780060563691

Publisher: Rayo, 2005

Synopsis

According to Gigi Anders, when you're a Jubana in America, or a Cuban Jewess in the U.S. of A.!, you have to know you're heading straight into the mondo-bizarro jaws of cross-cultural hell -- not every message you're given by your family and Juban community is synchronized or harmonious. Sometimes they switch into Cuban expectation gear, other times only the Jew 'tude will do. It's enough to make a Jubana hurl herself onto the couch of the nearest psychoanalyst.

As the granddaughter of Eastern European and Russian shtetl-reared grandparents who immigrated as teenagers in the early 1920s to the fierce tropical beauty of Cuba, Anders is heir apparent to a legacy of transatlantic alienation. With dazzling wit and hilarity mined from the depths of loss and yearning, Anders chronicles her journey from beach baby to ostracized exile to vibrant intellectual, along the way balancing her obsession with killer outfits and zaftig, orgasmic Cuban meals with the more serious pursuits of love, sanity, and lipstick in perfect siren red.

Whether dealing with her larger-than-life Mami Dearest, her youthful obsessions with Twiggy and Nancy Sinatra, the specter of Fidel Castro's role in her destiny, or her time at the exclusive and Waspy Sidwell Friends private school in Washington, D.C., Anders leads readers on a trip through what it means to be truly unique and just what lengths people will go to in order to be accepted.

Jubana! is ultimately a bittersweet, quirky, feminine story of bicultural acceptance and fusion, written with warmth, vivacity, and finally layered with the thoughtful sensitivity of a woman who has kept herself, like a great piece of jewelry, pure and brilliant -- through all that life throws at her.

About this title

About the Author:

Author of the hilarious memoir Be Pretty, Get Married, and Always Drink TaB, Washington Post special correspondent Gigi Anders and her parents were born Jewish in Havana, Cuba. The trio fled Castro's regime for the United States in 1961. After six months in Miami Beach, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Gigi came of age and eventually turned to writing. She has written for Glamour, Allure, Mirabella, American Health for Women, USA Today's USA Weekend, American Journalism Review, Hispanic, Latina, and First for Women.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Oy veh and ay caramba! What an upbringing Washington Post writer Anders had! Writing in a unique voice that captures the distinctiveness of both her Jewish and Cuban heritages, Anders becomes a sort of Alice in Wonderland, leading readers through a looking-glass life, before and after her parents were forced from Cuba in the wake of Castro's revolution. Anders remembers a princess-perfect world in Havana, where her Jewish grandparents had immigrated in the 1920s and made their fortunes. Then, in a poignantly funny scene, the clan must leave with almost nothing. The guards even demand Anders surrender her red tricycle, but she fights them off with a signature willpower that becomes more evident as the story proceeds. Handled equally well are her Cuban Jewish, fish-out-of-water stories, culminating at her eastern private school, Sidwell Friends, or as she calls it, Frenzy. There's only one character more fascinating than Anders, and that's her gorgeous, redheaded, red-fingernailed, potty-mouthed ("Fohk!") Mami. And Mami's unquenchable charisma is the ongoing problem in the relationship between mother and daughter. Gigi is always playing catch-up with a mother who doesn't even know there's a competition on. Often laugh-out-loud funny, with lots of Spanglish dialogue and priceless cross-cultural moments, this is more than a read; it's an experience. Ilene Cooper
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About this edition

• Publisher: Rayo
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060563699
• ISBN 13: 9780060563691
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304