Let's Hear Their Voices

Book excerpt: The first anthology of poetry, prose, and drama by second-generation Cuban American writers. Let’s Hear Their Voices brings together works by ten distinguished and emerging Cuban American writers of the “second generation”—writers who were born between 1960 and the mid-1980s in the United States to Cuban parents or have a mixed ethnic background. Called “ABCs” (American-Born Cubans) or“AmeriCubans,” these writers experiment with different formal approaches and lace their work with Cuban Spanish to give voice to hybrid identities and cultural legacies within the contemporary multicultural United States. An introduction by Iraida H. López identifies key tropes in their poetry, prose, and drama, and provides an overview of Cuban American literature since the 1960s. With both original and previously published pieces by award-winning authors—including President Obama’s Second Inaugural Poet, Richard Blanco—the volume makes a welcome contribution to the fields of Latinx and American literature, as well as critical discussions across disciplines about the intersections of latinidad with race, class, gender, and sexuality. “The selections chosen are excellent across the board. Collectively, they give a sense of the directions in which second-generation Cuban American writing is moving, as well as of its abiding concern with the country of origin of the first generation. The writing is impressive, strong, and compelling.” — Marta Caminero-Santangelo, University of Kansas