This spotlight on Caribbean American Heritage Month Reads is brought to you by Lyzbeth Lara, Corporate Communications.
Miami is not the Caribbean, but with its close proximity to countries such as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti and many more, it sure feels like it. Growing up at the very end of South Florida, the Caribbean was my entire universe. Summers were spent on the front stoop with my Cuban abuelo, picking mangoes out of his tree and waiting for neighbors to drop by with papaya or yuca. Dusk brought out mosquitoes that lingered around my ankles, but the sweat in the creases of my arms and legs would finally dry. The house would begin to smell sweetly of fried plantain, and I could retreat into books rich with lore — sea goddesses, generation-spanning curses, earthquakes of mythic proportions, and accents lost.