Jubana!

by Gigi Anders

According to Gigi Anders, when you're a Jubana in America, or a Cuban Jewess in the U.S. of A.!, you have to know you're heading straight into the mondo-bizarro jaws of cross-cultural hell -- not every message you're given by your family and Juban community is synchronized or harmonious. Sometimes they switch into Cuban expectation gear, other times only the Jew 'tude will do. It's enough to make a Jubana hurl herself onto the couch of the nearest psychoanalyst.As the granddaughter of Eastern European and Russian shtetl-reared grandparents who immigrated as teenagers in the early 1920s to the fierce tropical beauty of Cuba, Anders is heir apparent to a legacy of transatlantic alienation. With dazzling wit and hilarity mined from the depths of loss and yearning, Anders chronicles her journey from beach baby to ostracized exile to vibrant intellectual, along the way balancing her obsession with killer outfits and zaftig, orgasmic Cuban meals with the more serious pursuits of love, sanity