Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir

A poetic description of a life in two languages. 



Engle, Margarita. Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2015.

Margarita Engle is the daughter of a Cuban mother and an American father. Born before the Cuban revolution, she grew up mostly in California, but spent her summers with her grandparents in Cuba. There, she learned to love the land, the language, and its people. In free verse that is both detailed and evocative, she speaks of the "otherness" she recognizes in each place. She calls the first half of her book "Magical Travels." Then the Cuban revolution changes everything. She can no longer travel to Cuba; even letters back and forth between the families become difficult. Her Cuban-American family is caught in a web of suspicion, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

For young readers, it is both a history lesson and an evocation of a life bifurcated by immigration, lost contact with family, and dual languages. It is also an example of the power of language to enable readers to feel as well as understand the experiences of others, and a timely reminder of how world events intrude upon the everyday lives of ordinary people.  

Engle notes at the end of the book that as she was writing it, she was hoping for normalization of relations between the two countries. "That prayer has been answered," she writes. Well, maybe.