Why we left reading guide

1. Reading Guide on: “WHY WE LEFT?”
By: ANA MENENDÉZ in IN CUBA I
WAS A GERMAN SHEPHERD 2001
Name: Maria Fernanda Tibaquira,
Tmaria81@unisalle.edu.co
Cristian Rico Trujillo
crico96@unisalle.edu.co
WHY WE LEFT?
Plot:
This story tells of a man and a
woman's life. The couple live in
northern Miami. It is winter. The
couple moved to the west looking for a
better weather. Besides, the couple
lost a baby.
Main characters:
- Narrator: She is a black woman.
/She is a woman who lost a baby.
/She visits a forest where the
hibiscus grow from the limbs of
birches in winter.
- Narrator’s husband: He uses to pile
nickles and dimes (coins of
changes)/ He is hardly ever at
home. /He is incredulous before the
story of his wife and the palm.
- Ancient palm tree: It represents the
maternal voice of the nature.
Semantic level:
Imagery:
- Winter: this season is connected
with the couple’s discon te n t
(sorrow for the baby’s death).
- Summer: this weather implies good
memories of the time when they
were living in Miami.
Simbolism: about the author’s style.
- The metaphor of a broken window
associated with the emotional
bewilderment reflecting the mourning.
It means that she feels sad. Also, she
adds "I say we wrote all our dreams in
glass" stressing the couple' s
instability.
-The use of “I” leads one think to
narrator is first person. This personal
pronoun refers that narrator partakes
in actions, however does have a limited
vison. (e.g. when say: Why did you
stop counting coins at night?).
Structural level:

2. -Message: You can get from the past
experiences several meaningful things
for your life.
THE WRITER AND HER TIME: ANA
MENÉNDEZ
Biography:
Ana Menéndez was
born in Los
Angeles, California
in 1970. her
parents were
exiled from Cuba
and went to Los Angeles in 1964. She
used to speak just Spanish until she
entered Kindergarten.
She wrote four books of fiction, she
has been working as a journalist in the
United States and as a prize-winning
columnist for The Miami Herald.
She has a B.A. in English from Florida
International University and an M.F.A.
from New York University.
In this story, she focuses on the issues
that a couple has to face when they
lost a baby and how they pretend they
are fine and everything is good when
actually it is not.
Historical context:
“In Cuba I was a German Shepherd”
was a book published in 2001. This
book talks about the issues that people
that migrates to USA have to face,
when they have to build, and
sometimes rebuild, their lives. This
book was written after the revolution
in Cuba, showing the disappointments,
the life left behind.It is outstandinig,
too, the contrast that the writer makes
between people’s dreams and their
reality.
Menéndez shows in this short-story
“Why we left?” how people have to
deal with the fact that someone that
they love is gone and how hard it is to
hide the pain and how this hurts.
Review (comment by critics)
“Powerful . . . stories that not only
convey the bittersweet mood of exile
but also give us a wonderful gallery of
idiosyncratic characters whose lives
overlap to create a sense of shared
history, shared losses.” —Michiko
Kakutani, The New York Times
(source)
“If you don’t know what it means to be
a Cuban in exile, Ana Menéndez will
explain it to you, with humor and with
lovely descriptions of a summer storm
in Havana, of a baseball game on a

3. scalding hot day, or of how the shade
of a banyan tree might remind an old
man of home.” —Anne
Stephenson, The Arizona Republic
(source)
“[The characters’] struggles and
nostalgia for a lost homeland are
recounted with sensual and wistful
poignancy in these short stories.” —
The Bookseller (U.K.)
Worksheet.
1. Why did the couple left from Miami?
2. How can you explain that the
narrator is a girl and no a man? What
are the textual effects of this choice?
3. In what part of the tale do you note
migration issues?
4. What is your opinion about the
couple's grieving process?
5. What do you believe the climax of
story is?
6. In the tale where do you find the
suspense?
Bibliography:
- http://anamenendezonline.com