Hints of Providence: An Interview with Carlos Eire

Last updated on: May 2, 2011 at 1:38 pm by Amy Julia Becker

Hints of Providence: An Interview with Carlos Eire 2011-05-02T13:38:41-04:00 Amy Julia Becker

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Years ago I read Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, by Carlos Eire. It was written in the wake of the Elian Gonzalez affair, and Professor Eire (he teaches at Yale) wrote his memoir of growing up in Cuba before Castro took over. Last fall I heard Prof. Eire speak about his new book, Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy. I liked this book even more than the first. As it happened, I was able to arrange an interview with Professor Eire which has now been published in Books and Culture: “Hints of Providence.”

Here’s one of my questions and one of his answers just to whet your appetite:

I was in the audience for the opening night of your book tour last fall, which happened to be on Election Day. You ended by making a distinction, in relation to Election Day, between living in the United States right now and living in Cuba right now. And I learned from hearing you that night why it matters for me as an American that I understand your story. Not why it matters that I enjoy it or that I’ve picked up a little bit of history, that I’ve gotten a sense of this very difficult event that happened to a set of people, but that I understand this story in its broader context. I think of the preamble to the book, and the question it implies: Was it worth it to be free? I wonder if you can elaborate on why this matters for Americans and for people in the free world in particular to understand your story.

I think it is necessary for everyone who lives in a free society to understand what a rare gift it is in comparison to the rest of the world. And what a privilege it is, which is often taken for granted and worse than that. Not just taken for granted but mistaken for some sort of oppressive system. And it helps to have a point of comparison. In fact, there have been a few reviews that have come down very hard on me because the reviewers have no clue how fortunate they are to live in the United States.

So I encourage you to read the interview. You’ll learn more about the Cuban refugee crisis and why it is a privilege to grow up in America. Moreover, I encourage you to read the book–you’ll learn about those things in the context of Professor Eire’s lovely prose and careful thinking. Finally, I encourage you to poke around on the Books and Culture website. We have subscribed to the magazine for years, and I greatly appreciate the breadth of subjects covered there.

Happy reading!

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