The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood

Blanco isAbuela frequently chastises Blancod by Abuela for not being “un hombre.”;cCertain activities and behaviors are, in her eyes, appropriate only for girls. Her relentless criticism and teasing make him self-conscious about being himself, and as the book goes on, he grows resentful of the pressure he’s under to conform to the standards of traditional Cuban masculinity.

Abuela is angry when she learns that Blanco has been to Diamond’s, a craft store he’s wanted to explore but has never been allowed into:; asking, “What’s next—ballet?” (72). S she confiscates the rug-making kit he bought there, exchanging it for a leather wallet kit because “[l]eather is for hombres” (73). In Disney World, Blanco resists skipping toward Cinderella’s Castle when he imagines Abuela scolding him: “When are you going to act like un hombre?” (101). She first complains that Blanco is “skinny and frail like a girl” (152),” then that he’s “a fat sissy” (152). Explaining that “hard work […] will make him un hombre” (153), she arranges for him to work for Don Gustavo at El Cocuyito, telling him if he doesn’t lose weight, “his pipi will shrivel up” (153). Abuela lets Blanco visit Julio any time he wants to; she likes Julio because Julio “was un hombrecito” (160). Blanco admits to Anita that he finds Abuela to be “an awful and mean person” (194), and he longs to confide in Victor “how much [his]myabuela had ridiculed and hurt [him]me” (218). Her disapproval is always present in his mind: when deciding whether to pursue a romantic relationship with Victor, he finds he isn’t ready to admit that he “was a gay man, un maricón, just as Abuela had feared” (217).

Abuela is not the only adult in Blanco’s life to question his masculinity: Don Gustavo believes “being a man came with its own subset of lessons” (157),” and he imposes these rules on Blanco until Blanco is “worn out physically and emotionally” (157). Even Though he thrives working at El Cocuyito, Blancohe occasionally finds himself pretending to enjoy activities the other men partake in, taking a large gulp of beer “like it wasn’t a big deal” (179) and feigning interest in a Playboy magazine.

Julio, too, unwittingly adds to Blanco’s anxiety by asking him if he’s “kissed a girl yet” (190), urging him to get Anita’s phone number, and describing his own excitement when dancing with girls. Blanco never admits to be his indifferencet to all of these things. After years of convincing himself otherwise, Blanco begins to realize that he “wasn’t, and never would be, like other boys” (199) when he kisses Anita and “couldn’t feel what [he]I was supposed to feel” (194). As of yet unable to acknowledge why, he tells Victor that he sometimes feels sad because “something is missing” (211).

In the final chapter, Blanco writes how he sculpts his body by working out in the school gym and “doing sit-ups and push-ups at home before dinnertime” (202),” inspiring Don Gustavo to brag about “what an hombre I’ve made of him” (202). Abuela calls him “her little machito” (203), also taking credit for his transformation. Even Blanco “wasn’t completely used to the lean body of the man[he]I saw before [himself]me in the mirror” (225). Ironically, Blanco has achieved the very standard Abuela imposes on him repeatedly throughout his life: “It’s better to be it and not look like it, than to look like it even if you are not it” (72). In this statement, Abuela seems to criticize Blanco not for failing to be a man but for failing to meet traditional masculine standards. Blanco feels pressure to conform to these standards throughout The Prince of Los Cocuyos. It is suggested that it isn’t until events after the book closes, when he lies with his “first love, Carlos […] in our[their] bed without shame” (248), that his anxiety is alleviated.

AlTthough he’s lived in America since his infancy, as the son of immigrants who immerse their family in Cuban traditions and culture, Blanco is able to present a picture of America from an outsider’s perspective. In Chapter 1, Winn-Dixie, with its “air-conditioned air […]” (10), “polished terrazzo floors” (10) […],“soft violin music” (10),” and rows of cereal boxes sporting “cartoon faces […] I[he]’d seen only on TV” (10) represents the America Blanco “wanted to live in” (16). Blanco frequently brings home new products to Abuela. The American inventions , who is fascinate her. d by the Easy Cheese (“What? ¿Queso en una lata?” [11]), instant mashed potatoes (“That’s impossible. ¿Cómo puede ser?” [18]), and Pop-Tarts (“Oh, pero how do they get the estroberies inside?” [19]). She marvels, “Cómo inventan los americanos” (19). Blanco prefers this American food to Mamá and Abuela’s the Cuban food cooked by Mamá and Abuela. Despite Abuela’s delight that American foods “make everything so easy” (29), Blanco seems to suggest—with typical humor—that commercialized processed food is quintessentially American.

Blanco’s excitement for Easy Cheese and Pop-Tarts is surpassed only by his excitement about his trip to Walt Disney World, where the family stays “at the very fancy and very expensive Contemporary Hotel” (91). The hotel mesmerizes him with its “sloping walls of glass and girding balconies soaring upward like the layers of a gargantuan cake” (91). At the Magic Kingdom, Blanco admires the monorail that “felt like a spaceship” (92), the “litter-free streets lined with dainty willows and majestic oaks,” (93) […] [,the]“scented clouds of popcorn and chocolate fudge” (93), and the store stocked “floor to ceiling with every stuffed Disney character imaginable” (103). Driving away to return home, Blanco tearfully watches his “my perfect world shrink to a handful of tiny lights as far away as the stars” (105).

Through young Blanco’s eyes, Thanksgiving, a quintessential American holiday, through young Blanco’s eyes is as simple and benign as the illustrations on his ditto sheets and as his teacher’s reenactment:, in which “T[t]he chief of the Indians told Pilgrim John, We make big feast for you, and Pilgrim John said, Yes, let us give thanks for our new friends and for this new land where we are free” (21). This sanitized version of Thanksgiving depicts America as a land of welcome and opportunity, and; Blanco hopes to “have a real Thanksgiving” (21) to teach his family the meaning of America.

Papá’s Malibu represents, in part, the American dream: Papá worked “two years of twelve-hour days as a butcher at El Cocuyito” (80) in order to buy it from “Anthony Abraham Chevrolet, a landmark famous for its humongous American flag” (80). Upon leaving the lot, he tearfully marvels,: “What a country” (80).

In these examples, America is established as a land of plenty, almost as a paradise. Interestingly, commercialism is central to many of them. Children and adults alike are enticed by material goods; “making it” in America, or partaking in the quintessential American experience, involves the buying and spending of expendable, mass-produced goods. It is also seen as a land of freedom and an escape from Castro’s regime. AltThough his family frequently lapses into nostalgia for Cuba, they also acknowledge the perks of living in America. On the drive to Disney World, Mamá tells them: that “[W]when I as a niña in Cuba, we were so poor we had no toilet. I had to go to el baño every day under the guava trees behind la casa [….] You boys don’t know how good you have it” (78).

At times, America falls short of its promise. Mamá’s anecdote about el baño complements her complaining that Abuelo’s chickens leave droppings on the terrace: “Is this what I left mi madre and sisters in Cuba for—to clean chicken shit?” (41). When the Animal Control officer orders Abuelo to get rid of his chickens, he exclaims:, “I can have all the chickens I want—cojones—this is a free country. That’s why I came here from Cuba and now you tell me I can’t have chickens” (62). Despite these setbacks, however, America is a melting pot, a place that welcomed them when they needed a home. Sitting on the beach with his family on the Fourth of July, watching them “waving tiny American flags” (148), Blanco imagines his parents, his cousins, Yetta, and even Ricky Ricardo in blended, interchanging scenarios, suggesting that above all, America is a place accepting of everyone.

Blanco writes of the innocent joys he experienced in his childhood and how as he grows up, he begins to question the workings of the world and of himself. He adores the animals he and Abuelo keep in the backyard and “made Abuelo promise to wait to feed the chicks until [he]I came home from school” (41). He feels special and proud when his teacher, Miss DeVarona, allows him to help her build her bulletin board and even asks for his opinions. He “had a crush on Mickey and Minnie” (72) and is mesmerized by Disney World; he’s excited to visit Cinderella’s Castle and desperately wants to see “the real Mickey Mouse” (104). When Raquel, a customer at El Cocuyito, tells him he’s too young to hear the story of how her son passed away, Blanco writes:, “What did I know about loss or despair? What did I know about anguish or loneliness?” (171). As of yet, all he knew was “what [he]I saw in Raquel’s photos, what [he]I heard in her strained voice, what I[he] felt in her long pauses” (171).

Yetta predicts that “[o]ne day, when you’re old like me,” he will look at the world not like it is, but like it was” (139). As Blanco enters adolescence, he experiences hardships that force him to see a world far beyond that of his backyard barn and Mickey Mouse doll. He experiences his own loss and despair when Julio is killed, though he and his classmates “were too young, too naive, too full of life to understand death” (197). Unable to understand, Blanco is “haunted” by “[a]n unanswerable why […] haunt[s]” (197) him until a discussion about imaginary numbers in algebra class inspires the realization that “[i]f there was no real answer for his death then I’d just have to make one up for now, or spend the rest of my life waiting to reach infinity” (202). Julio’s death “started to make al little more sense” (202) when he thinks of it in context of the mermaids in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”:Hhe believes that “Julio had dared to disturb the universe” (202).

Blanco’s developing understanding is also reflected in his gradual acknowledgment of his sexuality. When Abuela first tells him “[i]t’s better to be it and not look like it, than to look like it even if you are not it” (72),” Blanco “only understood that it meant […] all the things [he]I enjoyed for which she constantly humiliated [him]me” (72). When she repeats her warning years later, however, Blanco “understood implicitly” (182). These questions culminate in the ultimate question in Chapter 7: “Who was Richard Blanco?” (229). Even Tthough Blanco doesn’t answer this question by the book’s end, he represents his finding it in the final pages, in which he looks into the future at the peace he finds as an adult.

Blanco’s Cuban friends and family frequently reminisce about and seek to recreate their lives in Cuba. Abuela shops only in Cuban bodegas. Abuelo cuts down the trees in the backyard and plants “fruit trees like those that grew in Cuba” (39), though he laments that the fruit was “never as large or as succulent or as deeply colored as the fruit in Cuba” (39). Abuelo also builds a farm in the backyard, even bringing home a dog that looks like the dog he left behind in Cuba. In Miami Beach, Blanco’s family complains about the “seaweed and muddy water” (132),” insisting that there was “nothing more beautiful than our beach at Varadero” (132).

El Cocuyito, a reference to Don Gustavo’s memories of fireflies in Cuba, is “a renowned and treasured place where Cuban exiles could satisfy their nostalgic hunger for foods that were almost impossible to find elsewhere” (158).;Iit serves as “a substitute for the life” (158) Don Gustavo “had left behind in Cuba” (158). At the bodega, “they could pretend they were still in Cuba” (180); tía Gloria stocks a wide selection of wines with which to please “exiles of the Cuban elite and their nostalgia for the buena vida they could barely afford anymore” (173). Felipe, a customer at the bodega, makes cardboard models of the buildings in Old Havana, lamenting “it’s getting harder and harder to remember” (162).

Ariel, who remembers many of the buildings of Blanco’s family’s past, patiently answers the men’s eager questions about which of their homes are still standing and whether he’s recently seen the family members they left behind. Asking “if the sugarcane fields still looked the same, if the mangoes still tasted as sweet” (236), the men tearfully listen to updates from their homeland, and to Blanco, their longing makes the scenes “come to life” (237). Later that day, Blanco realizes that the roasted pig was “beautiful” not because it was “pretty or gorgeous” (237) but rather “because of what it meant” (237).

Yearning for the past is not limited to those missing their homeland. Yetta longingly describes the house she and her husband lived in, then laments that “this crappy Copa” (126) used to be “one of the most la-di-da hotels on the beach” (127). Raquel, a customer at El Cocuyito, insists Blanco looks “exactly like” (168) her deceased son;. Blanco notes that “[t]here was some resemblance […]”[but]“not as much as Raquel wanted to believe, wanting to see her son again in [him]me” (168). Raquel perhaps expresses nostalgia best when she tells Blanco, “this what I live on now—memories and pretty dresses—and my delicious frijoles, of course. Is like my own little museum” (171). Many people in The Prince of Los Cocuyos create their own museums, where like Yetta, they can “look at the world not like it is, but like it was” (139).