Copyright 2005 Time Inc. - People
April 25, 2005

SECTION: PICKS & PANS/BOOKS; Pg. 43
By: Natalie Danford

[3 STARS]

Finding Manana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus
by Mirta Ojito

MEMOIR
New York Times reporter Mirta Ojito melds the personal with the political in a moving account of her family's departure from Cuba. She also provides a solid historical context for those five months in 1980 when 125,000 Cubans arrived in Florida, a mass exodus that came to be known as the Mariel boat lift. Ojito was 16 at the time, but her family had been attempting to leave Cuba for as long as she could remember. Her parents were tagged gusanos, or worms, for wanting to leave and were allowed to do so under Castro's plan to flood America with Cuban refugees. Finally, the cramped journey transpired--on a boat called Manana, captained by a one-armed man. Ojito's stirring memories alternate with widerview chapters on the boat lift's major figures that can take on a text-book-like tone. But for the most part Ojito integrates the multiple angles expertly and renders the past vividly in a fitting marker for the event's 25th anniversary.