Ana Hebra Flaster

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Ana Hebra Flaster’s Property of the Revolution: From a Cuban Barrio to a New Hampshire Mill Town is a captivating history-rich memoir that chronicles the extraordinary journey of a Cuban refugee family from post-revolutionary Cuba to a snowy New Hampshire mill town in 1967. Through vivid storytelling and loving vignettes (some of which have been prominently featured on NPR and PBS), Hebra Flaster brings to life her childhood in a vibrant Cuban-American household, complete with an abuela, tia, cousins, and canaries. She reveals how the strong-willed women in her family wove stories of their scrappy Havana barrio and Cuba into daily life, creating a new origin story of triumph over communism and repression, even as they struggled to assimilate to life in a new country.

At heart, all of the intimate stories in Hebra Flaster’s memoir highlight the indomitable spirit of immigrants, as she recounts learning English by watching Gilligan’s Island and deciphering American culture through the lyrics of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Throughout the chaos, her family’s quirky wisdom and her mother’s battle cry of “ponte guapa” (make yourself brave) provide strength when it is needed most, showing how fierce love, stubborn will, and the power of family can put nine new Americans back on their feet – even when they’ve lost nearly everything in the process.

As Hebra Flaster recounts her unlikely journey from refugee child to successful American professional, she eventually uncovers the hidden costs of her family’s displacement. When her own daughter turns five, the age at which Hebra Flaster fled Cuba, long-buried memories resurface, demanding an adult’s reckoning with the psychological trauma of the past – a powerful testament to the enduring impact of the refugee experience, even generations later. Property of the Revolution celebrates the resilience of the immigrant spirit as a whole, while honestly portraying the enormous challenges and complexities of cultural assimilation and identity formation, as well as illustrating how the journey of refugee-dom never truly ends.

Perfect for readers of memoirs, immigrant stories, and family histories, Property of the Revolution offers a unique window into a pivotal moment in Cuban-American history while speaking to the universal themes of loss, reinvention, and the unbreakable bonds that define family.

Stories by Ana Hebra Flaster in the Lexington Times Magazine