Discuss the acclaimed book Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter by Ada Ferrer, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and Professor of History at Princeton University. In 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power, Ada Ferrer’s mother made the agonizing decision to flee Cuba with her infant daughter, Ada, and to leave behind her nine-year-old son, Poly. That moment was a ripple in a much larger story of global revolution. Yet, within their family, that moment of separation was a crossroads that still reverberates with heartbreaking repercussions today. In this masterfully composed memoir, Ferrer shifts between her roles as historian and family member, weaving a multigenerational tale that reaches back into the past to understand the circumstances and choices that led to the present. We see key historical events through the eyes of the family: the grandmother who raised Poly after Ada’s departure; Ada’s parents, forced to invent themselves anew in a foreign land; and two brothers left behind—Poly and another, once-secret brother named Juan José, both of whose lives were marked irrevocably by revolution and family separation. Moving between Cuba and the United States and back again, Ferrer explores the experiences and emotions of migration, for those who left and those who stayed. Delving into a treasure trove of letters found after the death of her parents, as well as government documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, Ferrer offers a profound, loving reflection on belonging, memory, and the legacy of history.
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