The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood

Blanco grows up hearing his family tell stories of Cuba; until Ariel, he sees them as “simply vague stories told by old, weepy men” (237). The Prince of Los Cocuyos traces Blanco’s complicated relationship with his Cuban heritage and his attempts to understand his family’s journey. AltThough he struggles to connect with this journey, at times, storytelling enables him to imagine his family’s homeland. On Thanksgiving, Abuela shares black-and-white photos of her sister. ;Blanco writes that,In listening to the stories and looking at the photographs, Blanco was “floating somewhere in the formless, timeless space of memory” (35), remembering Abuela’s sister, though he’d never met her, as well as “the farm, the schoolhouse, the sugar mill” (35-36). Later, when Don Gustavo talks about his life in Cuba, Blanco “saw him as a child sitting with his father in their groves, slicing into dozens of oranges with their fingernails” (159). Blanco also is able to imagine Yetta’s old Miami: when Yetta describes the Miami of her day, Blanco “caught glimpses of just how glamorous it must have been back in her time” (137), and her nostalgia reminds him of his parents’ nostalgia for Cuba. Stories make the past come alive, helping Blanco understand not only the storyteller but also himself.

Winn-Dixie—or “el Winn Deezee,” as Abuela calls it—represents to Blanco in the early chapters “the world [he]I wanted to live in” (16). Abuela, who is intimidated by Americans, at first resists shopping there but is persuaded by their unbeatable prices on chicken. After a confrontation frightens her away, she refuses to return but allows Blanco to shop for her, encouraging him to bring home new products now and again. Walking around Winn-Dixie by himself, Blanco thinks:, “This was America.” Blanco contrasts the clean, organized, Lysol-smelling Winn-Dixie, with its countless aisles of his favorite American foods, to the Cuban bodegas that sell “the same Cuban food I ate every day” (7). His descriptions of the “soft violin music” (10) and “frost like snow on the freezer cases” (10-11) cast Winn-Dixie almost as a paradise. His desire to shop at Winn-Dixie is the earliest example of his desire to fit into American society; his shopping at Winn-Dixie for the ingredients for the family’s Thanksgiving meal feels quintessentially American.

At Winn-Dixie, Blanco convinces Abuela to try Easy Cheese, and though she’s wary, she enjoys it. In his depictions of Abuela’s fascination with this American invention, as well as with Pop-Tarts, instant mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese, Blanco humorously suggests Winn-Dixie encapsulates the ingenuity and opportunity of America as seen through the eyes of immigrants. Blanco is frustrated when Abuela uses Easy Cheese and other American products in her Cuban dishes, and their contrasting feelings about how the food should be used reflects their contrasting feelings about how completely they should immerse themselves in American society.

Blanco first references mermaids in Chapter 6, when he reads T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and is drawn to the mermaids, who “represented man’s most unattainable dreams and desires” (201),” of which people “spend their lives afraid to act” (201) because they are “trapped in a delusion and unable to face their true selves” (201). In this light, Julio’s death “made a little more sense” (202) because Julio had “dared to disturb the universe” (202) and “had heard the mermaids speak to him” (202). Blanco wonders if he himself would “ever dare to disturb the universe” (202) and whether he will ever heard the mermaids, too.

In Chapter 6, Blanco wrestles with his sexuality: his first kiss teaches him that he isn’t attracted to girls, and his relationship friendship with Victor forces him to acknowledge that he is, in fact, attracted to men. When Victor attempts to initiate a romantic relationship, Blanco is not yet ready to “disturb the universe” (217); Victor, in his goodbye note to Blanco, writes that Blanco should “[k]eep listening to the mermaids” (218)—in other words, he should continue to find, and accept, his dreams and his true self. On the last page of the book, Blanco suggests he will in fact find himselhimself:fwhen he writes that he will keep “Going [g]oing until I’d hear the mermaids not only sing to me, but carry me away with them to the place where my poems would whisper from” (249).

Blanco is embarrassed when Mamá insists on bringing her coffee maker to Disney and to Miami Beach. Abuela makes Cuban coffee on Thanksgiving, a day Blanco had hoped would be truly American. Don Gustavo makes Cuban coffee at El Cocuyito, telling Blanco proudly that “when I got here in 1965, there was nada, not even a place to get un cafecito or a loaf of pan cubano” (158). Café cubano appears throughout The Prince of Los Cocuyos as a comfort of home for Blanco’s exiled Cuban family as they navigate life in America.

Papá worked twelve hours a day for two years to be able to put a down payment on his first car bought in America. He cleans it religiously and won’t allow anyone to eat in it. It’s the car the family takes on vacations and the car in which they drive to El Farito in the final chapter. Papá’s beloved Malibu represents “making it” in America. It was bought in a dealership “famous for its humongous American flag” (80). W; when Papá drove off the lot with the car, he tearfully states:, “What a country” (80). Papá’s lament, “Everything is ruined” (107), Wwhen Papá he discovers Blanco’s melted crayons on the backseat of his car, he laments: “Everything is ruined” (107). This demonstrates how he is associatesing the car with success in America.