La Americana: Two cultures. Two languages. One home.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S PAPA DOBLE

12:15 PM La Americana 0 Comments Category : El Floridita , Ernest Hemingway , Finca Vigia , Old Man and the Sea , Papa Doble

Photo credit: Life Magazine

I'm a day late to the party.

Yesterday, Ernest Hemingway would have been 115. I can not pass on an homage to one of the greats and will do so in the form of one his favorites, the Papa Doble, a double frozen daiquiri he and famed bartender, Constante, crafted and made famous at El Floridita, his preferred haunt, in Old Havana.

Hemingway owned and spent much time on a sprawling palm and vine-covered ranch, Finca Vigía, just outside of Havana. It's a rugged, masculine, seductive and fascinating spot to wander as I did many years ago.

Ernest snuggled up to many of Havana's bars, but El Floridita was the first place he often took his famous friends who visited the island. The bar is still a pilgrimage for people from all over the world and the handwriting's on the wall, flooded in wild and loving scribbles to Papa, who died in 1961.

Not one to be shy about his consumption, or overconsumption, of the icy cocktail, the Papa Doble is sweetened only with natural fruit juice and a touch of maraschino liqueur. Hemingway wouldn't allow sugar in his drinks because it would put a damper on his ability to throw them back. To that, he wrote, as only he could, that the frozen doubles "had no taste of alcohol,” and “felt, as you drank them, the way downhill glacier skiing feels running through powder snow."

Whirled in an electric mixer with shaved ice and served foaming in large goblets, a properly beaten daiquiri looks, Hemingway said, "like the sea where the wave falls away from the bow of a ship when she is doing thirty knots."

Happy Birthday, Big Guy.

Papa Doble
2 oz white rum (Hemingway most likely drank Bacardi, but any will do)
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz fresh grapefruit juice
1/4 oz maraschino liqueur
2 cups shaved ice

Combine in a blender and frappé until the drink is foaming. Serve in a large cocktail glass, champagne saucer or goblet. Note: maraschino liqueur is NOT the same thing as syrup from a cherry jar. Run from any liquor store that tells you otherwise.

Wise, witty Hemingway:

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice."

"Never confuse movement with action."

"We're stronger in the places that we've been broken."

"Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so." The Old Man and the Sea

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

"Courage is grace under pressure."

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

“Write drunk. Edit sober.”

BECOMING AN AMERICANO

2:54 PM La Americana 3 Comments Category : 4th of July , American , naturalization , US citizenship

Today my husband received phone and text messages wishing him a Happy 4th of July. We all get these, but his are especially meaningful as this is his first as an American citizen.

I got the call from Luis in Atlanta almost three weeks ago late on a Monday morning: “Your husband is an American citizen,” he told me.

“Ya? Already? That's it?”

I'm not sure why I said that, as if it had a been a quick, casual sort of thing. Married to me, an American, Luis was allowed to apply for naturalization three years after becoming a permanent resident in 2006 (if not married to a citizen, it's a five-year wait period), but time slipped as it does and we hadn't done anything about it.

With a Greencard set to expire in 2016, it was time. We filed paperwork a few months ago and with a set date for an appointment, Luis had his nose buried in a study guide given to him by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) most of the week prior. The naturalization process includes an interview and exam made of three components: reading, writing and speaking. There are 100 civics questions to study, covering U.S. government and history topics, and applicants are required to answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly to be eligible for citizenship. They also have to be at least 18 years old, in good, legal standing and swear to take an Oath of Allegiance to this country.

The U.S. continues as the top destination for immigrants in the world and is home to about 20 percent of all, according to the Migration Policy Institute. As of 2012, the total U.S. population was 313.9 million and immigrants made up almost 13 percent of the figure, hitting a historical record of 41 million individuals. Of the immigrant pie piece, 46 percent reported to be of Hispanic or Latino heritage.

Naturalization numbers continue to grow with roughly 700,000 inducted yearly, but not everyone makes it the first go round.

As Luis waited his turn, a fellow Cuban left the exam room crying. The tall, stern man who had just completed her interview stepped out and called for Luis.

He stood and followed the officer down a hallway and into a room with a desk, behind which sat the man and an immigration officer-in-training. Luis was asked to sit in the chair just opposite them.

It was pin-drop kind of tense.

The pressure of passing or failing is quiet, but fierce. It's not something you even want to talk about. There was no reason to think Luis wouldn't pass, or at worst, renew his permanent residency, but somewhere deep within both of us, hiding behind three children, a home, a business, our entire life together, is the fear of what if? It's illogical, but what if, for some crazy, off-the-cuff reason, the U.S. were to deny him? I don't even have space in my mind for that option.

The thin-lipped officer who spoke fast, pursed and decidedly Southern, made small talk with Luis, based on notes in hand, asking about family and work in what was presumably a basic English test.

He moved to study guide questions and unlike other interviews, which ran about 15 minutes, this one pushed 50. And there weren't 10 questions, but 101, in both written and oral formats.

When the test ended the official looked Luis in the eye and smiled.

He'd aced it. The officer told Luis he usually shakes hands with an applicant who passes, but he was giving Luis a hug and came around the desk to do so. It was the first time in 27 years an applicant had answered all of the questions 100 percent correctly.

Chills. I darn near cried a river.

It wasn't a case of simple smarts, as much as it was connection. Luis didn't just study, he absorbed the Constitution and identified with the first round of immigrants who came here to move forward.

Happy 4th of July!

KING OF POPS

12:07 PM La Americana 0 Comments Category : Atlanta , Banana Puddin , bon appetit , King of Pops , paletas

SUMMER FINDS

3:13 PM La Americana 0 Comments Category : Asos , BCBG , JCrew , Jumpsuit , Mango , romper , Saks Fifth Avenue , Vogue

TITANIC LOVE

10:19 AM La Americana 0 Comments Category : americana , Cuba , Havana , James Cameron , love , Straus , Titanic

Havana, Cuba 2003

My paternal grandmother, Mardi Blun Bowden, was an amateur genealogist and did immense research over 40-some odd years, digging into our family's history.

As a kid, I remember thick collections of archives, newspaper cuttings and framed photos of ancestors during our weekly Saturday morning visits, but I most remember a big, black book filled with faded images next to groupings of elaborate, handwritten notes.

After smiley-faced eggs and toast, she sat with us in the living room and brought many of our family's black-and-white images to life with vivid story-telling and such excitement that the characters jumped into real time in our young, little minds.

But it wasn't until after my grandmother passed away a few years ago and my aunt asked if I would help put a number of the ancestral records onto discs for the family, that I realized that one of the world's most beloved modern-day love stories, famously recounted by James Cameron on the big screen, is one of our own.

She must have shared it with me as a child, but I sat clueless watching “Titanic” many years ago, unaware that original images of Ida and Isidor Straus, the older couple who refused to part ways as the ship sunk, were firmly glued into my grandmother's black book.

Isidor and Ida Straus

Ida was a Blun, my grandmother's cousin, by way of her father, and a German immigrant, like Isidor. As children, they both moved to Georgia and later to New York where they found one another in a simple boy-meets girl scenario, though they grew to be inseparable. Even when Isidor became successful as co-owner of Macy's and later a Congressman, it was widely known among friends and family that his greatest commitment was to Ida. They adored one another, were rarely apart during their 40-year marriage and wrote letters daily when they were.

As witnessed by various survivors of the Titanic disaster, Isidor begged Ida to go on lifeboat 8. She refused, saying, "We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go."

They were last seen standing arm-in-arm on the boat's deck.

"A Sublime Sacrifice," wrote the New York Times. "Mrs. Straus refused to quit husband," announced the rest of the world.

More than a century later their story still holds the admiration of folklore and it's not because it was thrown into a movie script. It's because real sacrifice doesn't pop in the door everyday.

As I reread details of their beautiful partnership, I couldn't help but look inward at my own as Luis and I recently celebrated 11 years together.

For many on the outside looking in, Luis and I were never going to make it when we shared news of our engagement in 2002. We were, after all, an impossible situation.

Luis was born and raised in a Communist country, didn't speak English and had never been to the United States. He knew things about life that I could never have imagined as a kid – or an adult - growing up in a quiet, suburban town in Georgia, idyllic and carefree.

Our connection, face to face, defied logic, but we understood one another in the most basic, instinctive and powerful way and the blinding euphoria we experienced falling head over heels in a Caribbean setting was fairy tale. In place of setbacks, our cultural differences were intriguing, like little puzzles we were both eager to unlock.

Yet surrounding circumstances, out of our control, were tough and for me, often veiled in fear as an American on Cuban soil who didn't understand the Communist playbook.

Logistically, hurdle number one was travel to Cuba with the U.S. embargo in place since 1960, making it tricky for me to get on and off the island at all. Going there wasn't illegal, but spending money was unless I could locate an authorized visa. I secured myself under the auspices of a humanitarian group various times, but the U.S. started to clamp down on opportunities fast and furiously, as the hatred between Fidel Castro and President Bush, Jr. grew, pushing into something personal and far beyond politics.

One morning I woke up to Fidel's voice over a loud speaker just outside my window. He was on a stage in Plaza Marti, on the other side of Luis' front balcony and by no mistake, directly in front of the U.S. consulate, which is housed inside the Swiss embassy. Flags, strategically placed to block streaming messages about freedom of speech on the building's outside wall, stood tall and in the center of masses on the street and soldiers on rooftops, Castro blasted Bush, who had just thrown him on a Top 10 terrorist list, lines below Bin Laden. Curled in bed, I imagined Fidel's finger pointed to the sky, as I had so often seen on T.V., and strained to understand the echoes of anger. It felt slightly like he was yelling at me, one of only a few Americans in Havana.

Around town, city billboards mocked Bush (i.e. Americans) in blunt, 3-D force and threats to close the U.S. consulate came from both sides, making our ongoing wait for a U.S. fiancé visa, allowing Luis to move here, unbearable. We needed an open office for a required exit interview if and when the visa, sitting somewhere in Kansas or Vermont purgatory, was ever approved.

In the meantime, my increased exposure to Cuba's control sets were unnerving - the block patrols who know the comings and goings of all, security who wavered on whether or not to take a rolled New York Times from my bag before I left the airport, the whispers about Castro's hand in Che Guevara's murder in Bolivia because saying anything outright could land you in jail or worse. Every time I reached Luis at the exit in the dozen-and-a-half times I visited the island, I was shaking equally with excitement and rattled nerves.

The presence of rules circling Cuban citizens at that time, many of which have relaxed today under current president, Raúl Castro, versus those of foreigners was always confusing and I couldn't grasp what was allowed and what wasn't. Such as cab rides and cars: Luis often sat in the front seat and I in the back, our fingers laced between aisles, like a secret. Many times we did ride in a family car he used as his own, but one afternoon, I discovered the risk in doing so.

Coasting over a speed bump in Havana, a police siren brought us to a stop in a residential neighborhood. The officer asked Luis to step out of the car and go across the street where two more policemen stood. Lunch shot to my throat. What was happening? Two of my best friends had traveled to Cuba to meet my husband-to-be and sat in the backseat, but not a sound moved between the three of us, virtual stones in terror.

The officer, fitted with a large gun on his hip, came around to my open window and started drilling questions: How much was I paying the young man to drive? I panicked, played dumb and pretended not to speak Spanish. But I think he sensed I did, driving further questions to me alone: How much gas had I put in his car? Where were we going? Were we staying at the young man's house and at what cost? I played the same routine, but he wasn't buying it and my hands were dripping.

Finally, Luis shot across the street and told me it was OK to tell the officer the truth. Hesitantly, I explained in Spanish that Luis and I were engaged, showing the ring on my finger to prove it. My friends and I were all guests at his home.

After a brief exchange between Luis and the officer, he hopped back in the car and we drove off, but the experience stuck.

It was all so nuts. My existence between two orbits, the kamikaze, three-day trips and the cultural whiplash of returning home. Costs piled with plane tickets, visa requirements and nightly phone calls, an hour plus at a dollar a minute. Luis and I were on a constant scramble to fund all and to keep our spirits up.

Our bright light in the midst of all was our wedding ceremony, not legally binding, but it is the anniversary we celebrate today. Most importantly, a close group of 80 Cubans and 20 Americans joined us in a hopeful and happy event.

Finally, more than two years after we first filed for Luis' visa and one year after we married, he was able to buy a ticket bound for Miami.

Over the years, many have commented to me that Luis must have been overjoyed arriving in the U.S., touching on the American Dream. I understand the assumption, but it's not that simple.

We were ecstatic to be together and to have the opportunity to make a future, but the American Dream doesn't settle with you when you land on U.S. soil. It's something you work extraordinarily hard for, you cry for, you miss your family and your culture for while trying to figure out how to function in new surroundings. I refer to Luis' first year here as a black hole.

Luis gave up everything he knew at 27-years-old, sight unseen, culture unknown, for me and wasn't allowed to leave the U.S. to see his mom or his first born for three years while he waited for a Green card. It's a brutal expectation of an immigrant.

We may not have made the ultimate sacrifice for one another like my distant cousins, Ida and Isidor, but ours were hefty and very real. Though, like them, neither of us was ever willing to quit on the other.

And as for the traditional 11^th anniversary gift of steel, which represents strength, there wasn't much need for an exchange. After all we went through, I'm pretty sure we're partially made of it by now.

LUIS AND MEL 2002

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ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S PAPA DOBLE

“Write drunk. Edit sober.”

BECOMING AN AMERICANO

KING OF POPS

SUMMER FINDS

TITANIC LOVE

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ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S PAPA DOBLE

“Write drunk. Edit sober.”

BECOMING AN AMERICANO

KING OF POPS

SUMMER FINDS

TITANIC LOVE

About Me

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