The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood

Author and narrator of The Prince of Los Cocuyos, Richard Blanco describes his childhood living in Miami with parents and grandparents who’d immigrated to America from Cuba. Much of The Prince of Los Cocuyos describes his family’s nostalgia for Cuba and his struggle to relate to a world he’s never seen. His book recounts his quest to reconcile his Cuban heritage with his American upbringing. It also traces the process by which he came to understand and accept his identity as a gay man. Blanco accomplishes this by describing notable incidents from his childhood and adolescence and the many people who influenced him in some way.

Blanco opens his memoir with an anecdote about his tug-of-war with his abuela over whether to shop at Winn-Dixie: he yearns to shop for the fun processed American foods he eats at his friend’s house, while she insists “[o]nly los americanos shop there” (8). When she finally allows him to shop by himself and bring home new and interesting items, he is frustrated by her tendency to add Cuban elements to the American foods frustrates him. This tug-of-war mirrors the tug-of-war within himself: Blanco simultaneously desires to be fully American—he is frequently embarrassed by his Cuban parents’ conspicuousness—and to understand his heritage which, familiar to him only through his family’s stories, feels faraway and irrelevant.