The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood

In the opening chapters, Blanco illustrates the difficulties his Cuban family faces as they try to assimilate in America and how they attempt to recreate their life in Cuba. At the same time, Blanco, a little boy whose only memories are of America, wants desperately to be a real American and is often frustrated and embarrassed by his Cuban family. Blanco’s feeling of being lost—of being neither Cuban nor American, of his simultaneous vexation with his old-fashioned family and his yearning to feel connected to his Cuban roots—will become one of the most important themes in The Prince of Los Cocuyos.

Part of the humor of these chapters is in Blanco’s presenting fixtures of American culture from an outsider’s perspective, demonstrating wonder, admiration, and sometimes confusion. Blanco considers whether “someday [he] I would marry an exotic American girl like Emily” (17), his favorite cashier at Winn-Dixie. He playfully pokes fun at American eating customs by remarking how his mother can’t understand why the Thanksgiving sweet potatoes have marshmallows on top: “So sweet. Are you sure this isn’t dessert?” (31). In dreaming about Winn-Dixie, Blanco envisions “Swanson TV Dinners and Eskimo Pies” (9); he brings home Easy Cheese and boxed macaroni, prompting Abuela to exclaim,: “First cheese in a can and now cheese in a bag” (20). TEven though Abuela is fascinated, readers are left to ponder the significance of the fact that these processed inventions, which “make everything so easy” (29), epitomize America. That Winn-Dixie itself—or “el Winn Deezee” (12)—inspires awe in Blanco and Abuela perhaps offers a different perspective to American readers, who may not find much inspiration in a supermarket.

Blanco’s family faces language barriers and cultural differences that can make America confusing or even hostile. His family’s struggles to fully assimilate are perhaps best encapsulated by Abuela’s first and only experience at Winn-Dixie. Blanco writes that “[f]ew things intimidated Abuela; among these were black magic Santería and americanos” (8). Frightened by the fact that “[o]nly los americanos shop” (8) at Winn-Dixie, she’d adamantly refused to step foot inside the store. When she finally agrees, she “kissed Abuelo good-bye as if she might not return” (10) and is “too anxious to speak” (10),” claiming:, “We don’t belong here” (10)—a conclusion Blanco comes to himself after a language barrier results in a confrontation between Abuela and the manager. In Chapter 2, Abuelo is “perplexed” (62) when the Animal Control officer tells him chickens are against the law, exclaiming,: “¿Qué? No gallinas in my own backyard? That’s impossible” (62). Echoing Mamá’s complaint that she didn’t leave Cuba just “to clean chicken shit” (41) in America, he argues that “this is a free country […] ,” that “[t]hat’s why I camen here from Cuba” (62). Interspersed with the challenges of assimilation are suggestions that despite providing respite from Castro, and despite the promise it’s supposed to represent, America can be more tedious or confining.

Not quite fitting in, and aware of their vulnerability, the adults in Blanco’s family find comfort in recreating Cuban life. Abuela insists on giving Blanco’s American foods a Cuban flair, adding annatto and cumin to the instant mashed potatoes and making “Cubaroni” (20) from macaroni and cheese. Abuelo plants fruit trees that remind him of Cuba and sneaks various animals into the backyard, slowly recreating his farm and even choosing a puppy that looks like his old dog Papo. Though his fruit trees never produce fruit as sweet as he had in Cuba, the chickens he raises surpass “eggs from the store that taste like pura mierda” (46), and he eats them with satisfaction, “as if he were tasting Cuba itself” (46). Even Blanco’s beloved chickens taste better than “the bland chicken from el Winn Deezee” (63)—seeming to justify Abuela’s determination to resist American culture.

Blanco, on the other hand, who knows nothing but America, thinks Abuela’s being “so afraid of Americans […] [is] ” (14) is “stupid” (14) and that “Cubans were the weirdos” (14). Tired of eating “the same Cuban food […] I ate every day” (7), he dreams of a pantry “stocked with Crunch Berries cereal and Oreo cookies” (9). Compared to the Cuban bodegas, which he finds tired, old, disorganized, and smelling “of grease from the chicharrones frying in the back room” (5), Winn-Dixie is “quiet and neat” (15) […] [with] , with “perfect rows of cans and bottles” (15). Blanco establishes Winn-Dixie as the epitome of Americanness for which he strives: “This was the world I wanted to live in. This was America” (16).

Blanco’s yearning for a traditional Thanksgiving exemplifies his desire to fit in and to be a real American. Believing the benign, simplistic images on his school dittos to represent this uniquely American holiday, he is disappointed when his family fails to recreate them exactly. In response to his English prayer, his relatives cry:, “¡Qué viva Cuba!” (31)—thus behaving “[n]othing like the dittos” (31). They ask what the cranberry jelly is for and pour “ladlefuls of black beans over their mashed potatoes like it was gravy” (32). After his pumpkin pie is ignored in favor of tía Ofelia’s flan, the family dances salsa, and Blanco laments: that “You can’t teach old Cubans new tricks” (34).

This blending of the American and the Cuban—in the Thanksgiving foods, in the after-dinner activities, and even in the Cubanized name “San Giving”—is symbolic of the blend of cultures within Blanco himself. At first, Blanco complains that Abuela’s food combinations “didn’t belong together […] ” (18) because “they were from two different worlds” (18), demonstrating, more generally, his resistance to his grandmother’s traditional ways and his desire to be fully American. However, on Thanksgiving, he realizes the beauty of blended cultures. Even tThough Blanco at first wants their Thanksgiving to look exactly as it does on his dittos, Abuela’s announcement that her sister is coming to America leads to his recognizing the value of his heritage. Noting the tears and solemn expressions of his family, Blanco realizes how much they have in common with the Pilgrims, who “had left England in search of a new life, too, full of hope and courage, a scary journey ahead of them” (35). When Abuela brings out her old photos, though Blanco has never met Abuela’s sister, he feels a part of her world, a world represented “in ditto sheets [he]I had never colored” (36). The blending of the food, coupled with Blanco’s eventual contentment, demonstrates that flavors, or cultures, actually do go together. Just as his relatives spread cranberry jelly on Cuban bread and pour Cuban pork fat over the American turkey—using something from each culture to improve both—Blanco sees “something absolutely perfect and complete, even beautiful” (34) about his Cuban relatives dancing on Thanksgiving. In this way, Blanco ultimately achieves an American Thanksgiving after all.