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.
We were lucky enough to feature an excerpt from the book which you can read below.
Juanelo, Cuba, November 1967
In our barrio, any kid worth her café con leche knew what the rumble of a motorcycle meant. Another family was about to disappear.
Until that night, I ran fast and free over Juanelo’s crumbling streets, hunting crinkly brown lizards in the dusty yards, gossiping with the omnipresent abuelas. The old women took care of us while our parents worked at places like the school on the corner or the can- ning factory down by the river. Four generations of my family lived all around me. No one shut her windows or doors. Everybody knew everything about everyone.
On that last normal afternoon in the barrio, I was where I always was after school, chasing skinny hens in Abuela Cuca’s yard, the smell of hot rubber wafting from my grandfather’s stamping machine in the shed. I played at Abuela Cuca’s house every afternoon until dinnertime, when the sky started to whisper about night and she or one of the other viejos (elders) scooted me out of the yard, stood at the corner, and watched me zigzag down Castillo to our lemon-yellow house on the corner.
The struggles the viejos endured during those early years after the 1959 revolution barely registered in my six-year-old brain. I only knew what I knew. But one thing stumped me: sometimes, friends disappeared overnight.
After dinner every night, Florecita and I played los caballitos on the sidewalk. We searched for the biggest palm fronds we could find, straddled them—our “horses”—and raced at full speed, slapping our thighs with our free hands. Sometimes she cheated. Sometimes I cheated too. Above us on their porches, the viejos rocked away in their chairs, talking, talking—always talking.
Later, in my bed, I’d hear the clunk of a motorcycle as it snuck into the barrio and wonder. By morning the sound of the moto the night before would feel like a wispy thing that I’d only imagined. But the day I stood waiting for Florecita on the corner of Blume Ramos in my school uniform and she never appeared, I knew the moto had been real. My friend’s shimmering green house was empty. A gray banner spread itself across the front door, sealing it shut.
Forty long and distant years later, I learned what it said: Property of the Revolution.
Now the moto was back, chugging slowly down Blume Ramos. I flew out of Abuela Cuca’s gate, leaving the hens and lizards behind, and took a left onto Serafina and a right onto Castillo—our street. I saw a crowd forming in front of our house and more people rushing toward it from different directions. Those bodies sent out an energy I’ll never forget, a current that ran up the street, buzzed through my feet, and landed, vibrating, in my chest.
I fought the urge to cry, to run back to Abuela Cuca’s. I wanted to be brave. My mother had shown me how to make myself brave on this very same rise on Castillo, where she’d taught me to ride a bike. She had let me go too soon, and I’d picked up too much speed. I’d crashed where the road dipped, tangled up in the pedals and spokes, bloody and bawling. “Ya pasó, ya pasó,” Mami had said then, over and over.
And she was right. It was over—and, somehow, that bit of distance eased the pain. Then, with her eyes so close to mine I could see the thin blue ring around her black irises, she said, “Ponte guapa”—make yourself brave.
I ran straight through the dip in the road and into the bodies swarming in front of our house. I knew them all from the neighborhood. Some people were crying, even though they were smiling. Others were sobbing, hard. What were we feeling? What were we doing? People shouted, “¡Se van, se van!” But who was leaving?
They pushed me along and I bumped into the familiar belts and elbows of my waist-high world until I was on the sidewalk, next to the enormous moto at the curb. Through our open door, I saw a guardia.
He wore an olive-green uniform and was sitting at our kitchen table, his back to me. I stared at the gun holstered on his belt as I brushed past him. My father sat across from the guardia, his hands jammed under his chin, his gaze pinned to the top of the table.
The look on my father’s face told me everything and nothing at the same time. It was someone else’s face, someone else’s father. Papi’s frozen expression terrified me. I was too scared to talk, let alone ask questions. And no one seemed to notice me, anyway. I couldn’t have understood, then, the horrible truth Papi was telling me without uttering a word.
Sometimes when our dreams come true, they break our hearts at the same time.
My parents had been waiting three years, since 1964, for this moment, the delivery of their permiso. But until this moment they hadn’t known when—or if—the exit papers would arrive. The new government had created the permiso edict to slow the outflow of hundreds of thousands who were heading for higher, freer ground. The revolution had promised Cubans an end to Batista’s dictatorship and the restoration of democracy.
Instead, within months of the take- over, my parents had seen the economy, their personal freedoms, and Cuban society itself shatter around them. They’d never thought of leaving the barrio where they were born and raised, but now they began to search for a way out of Cuba, even if it meant leaving their extended families behind.
That concept—abandoning your family, especially your viejos— was Cuban taboo. My parents, like all gusanos—worms, the government’s term for people who were “abandoning” the country—knew they’d have to turn over everything they owned to the government when they left Cuba. But these material losses couldn’t compare to the pain of leaving their extended family behind, probably forever. That was the cost of their dream coming true.
Ana Hebra Flaster has written about Cuba and the Cuban American experience for national print and online media including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Boston Globe, as well as for her popular Substack, @CubaCurious. Her commentaries and storytelling have aired on NPR and PBS’s Stories from the Stage. She is also the author of ‘Property of the Revolution: From a Cuban Barrio to a New Hampshire Mill Town.’ Learn more about Ana Hebra Flaster on her website, or follow her on Instagram.
