Rocio Cordova’s Reviews > My Native Land is Memory: Stories of a Cuban Childhood > Status Update
Rocio Cordova
is finished
“You go through life for a long time thinking “no one has ever suffered the way I’ve suffered, my God, my God.” Then you realize - you read something or you hear something, and you realize that your suffering does not isolate you; your suffering is your bridge. Many people have suffered before you, many people are suffering around you and always will, and all you can do is bring, hopefully, a little light into that…”
— May 02, 2022 11:00PM
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Rocio’s Previous Updates
Rocio Cordova
is finished
Each city has a unique smell that evokes its memory. Havana is a city built by the sea; it is a city of water. Even in areas where you cannot see in the water, you sense it’s presence in the ceaseless breeze that softens the tropical heat.
— Nov 01, 2021 10:09PM
Rocio Cordova
is finished
I was grateful to have had “El Salón de los Pasos Perdidos” all to myself for a few minutes. It felt as if my steps were not all lost; they belonged there in the building, in that land of my birth regardless of how many years I had been away and how many steps I had taken in other places.
— Sep 21, 2021 10:01PM
Rocio Cordova
is finished
I was a little machine spewing questions; our Saturday excursions gave me an opportunity to exercise my endless curiosity. Papi always made a point of letting me know that he thought my questions were intelligent. “Who made this? What is it made of? Who put it there? How long has it been there?” On and on… I only kept silent while twirling my tongue around an ice cream cone, usually mango, my favorite flavor.
— Sep 21, 2021 09:47PM
Rocio Cordova
is finished
No matter how upset she may have been a few minutes before, the moment he walked in she focused on him as a flower turns toward the sun. I yearned for the attention he got from her, for that loving woman he could find inside my angry mother. How did he manage so easily to make her look lovingly at him? …lacking any other form of understanding, I concluded that he was, indeed, the sun.
- Mami y Papi
— Sep 19, 2021 12:03AM
- Mami y Papi
Rocio Cordova
is finished
Historical events and individual lives intersect to create autobiographical memory. Places and people change, so the only way of knowing who you are – that you are – is to remember. Although autobiographical memory is important for everyone, for those of us who have lived in many places throughout our lives, memory binds the array of shift and experiences into a sense of personal identity, a sense of continuity.
— Sep 18, 2021 09:57PM
Rocio Cordova
is finished
For me, the distance between Cuba and the United States had not been 90 miles, but a quarter of a century and a dense wall of memory. The long months of preparation for the trip and the two week visit to Cuba set off a flood of memories. Emotions dormant for two decades were awakened. “Boxes” closed for decades opened up. A torrent of remembrances jostled for my attention.
— Sep 18, 2021 09:49PM
Rocio Cordova
is finished
“I had left, as so many other human still then, believing that the absence would be brief; eight or nine months, a year at most. The shattering of the hope of return felt unbearable. Living day to day far from Cuba was hard enough that summer; a lifetime of exile was unfathomable. Yes my life in Cuba had not been perfect. But it was mine. Now, each day felt like a page borrowed from someone else’s life.”
— Sep 18, 2021 09:08PM
