We Came All the Way From Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?: Stories Book

I only liked a few stories in here: "The Spouse," "Forever," and "We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?" Reason being, I felt that the other stories didn't really belong in this collection because it didn't seem to talk about Latinx identity and a lesbian identity together. These three stories did.

"The Spouse" spoke about the difficulties a woman experienced with having to marry a guy even though she was a lesbian. She's also said to have been trying to run away from her Latinx identity, presumably as a Mexican. So it makes some sense here. She wanted to be with a woman, and she was becoming more Americanized. However, her family (married and blood-related) remind her that she's Latinx, regardless.

"Forever" is about a woman who's lesbian and Puerto Rican (like me!!), and she writes a column in a newspaper about the difficulties of being gay and a minority. Again, goes with the book's purpose. Other things occur, of course, but this makes sense.

Now "We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?" focused more on Latinx identity than the rest, in my opinion, but it still showed her difficulties. I can kinda get where her parents and herself were coming from honestly. She's Cuban (like me!!), and her family had to escape Cuba with her. Now, I didn't have to escape it. My family did. But I could see where both sides were coming from. Fidel Castro was absolutely awful, despite how Americans tend to glorify him as amazing and wonderful (it's like, then why the migration to the United States and other places if he was so amazing??). Despite how his "revolution" might have seemed like, he was known to abuse human rights, including those of my own family. HOWEVER, I could see where the main character of the story was coming from, because honestly? There was still a lot of racism and less human rights before Fidel Castro came up. Granted, Castro didn't really take away the problem, and only added fuel to the fire. But that there needed to be a revolution? Hell, yes. So, yeah, that's just a long way for me to say that I could understand both sides of the story here.

The rest of the stories didn't belong in this book, in my opinion. I didn't see the purpose of them. These three were the best fit for this book, but the rest... sorry, it didn't really fit.

2.5 stars overall
For the stories I liked?: 3.5 stars overall