Meet the Artist Behind How to Say Goodbye in Cuban

One of the books I was most anticipating this fall has arrived, and it’s every bit as great as I thought it would be. It is the latest work of Daniel Miyares, whose illustration credits include, among many great titles, the modern-day classic Float, a wordless picture book about a boy with a paper boat in a rain storm, and That Is My Dream!, in which his luminous images accompany Langston Hughes’s poem, “Dream Variations.” 

Float

That Is My Dream!

Now Miyares has turned to the graphic novel form. In How to Say Goodbye in Cuban, a quiet masterpiece of feeling and history, he tells the story of his family's immigration to the United States from the perspective of his father, Carlos, a boy living in Cuba during Fidel Castro’s revolution. Miyares was generous enough to answer some questions recently about the book, his family history, and how he ended up settling in the Kansas City area.

How to Say Goodbye in Cuban

DECIR ADIOS EN CUBANO / HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN CUBAN

My Conversation with Daniel Miyares 

DC: Your new book is based on your father’s experiences growing up in Cuba, and your grandparents’ momentous decision to move the family to the United States after the revolution. How did these stories come down to you? 

DM: Really I didn't know the stories growing up. I knew that my dad left Cuba as a boy, but that was about it. Much later on after I graduated college and moved to Kansas City for my first job out of school I was woken up in the middle of the night by the phone ringing. You know, one of the landlines with the cord that was perpetually tangled into a tight little ball and the ringer that had just one setting — fire alarm. I picked up and it was my dad on the line. He asked what I was doing and I said, "Sleeping dad." Over the years our relationship got more and more distant. My dad and mom got divorced when I was in second grade. It threw me at first that he was calling out of the blue, but he just wanted to check on me. He explained that he knew what it was like to be far away from home. We talked about his time in the Army and how he was actually stationed in Kansas many years ago, and then, unexpectedly, he asked if he had ever told me the story of how he escaped Cuba as a boy? I said no! And he started in. As he was sharing all the things he remembered, I felt compelled to grab a couple of nearby notebooks and start taking notes. I feverishly wrote down as much as possible. I had this fear in that moment that if I didn't, then these stories, the stories of my family's history, would just evaporate. We must have talked for like three hours that night. After that, I would call him up and ask more questions based on what he shared. I sat on those notes for almost 20 years. I was content to have them down and stored safely in my flat files.

DC: Your grandmother and grandfather are the main adult characters in the story. How well did you know them?

DM: Growing up I got to spend some time with my grandmother. Her, my aunts, and cousins live in Florida, so we got to see them occasionally but not often. I never got to meet my grandfather. He lived in Puerto Rico since I was little, and he and my father weren't on speaking terms for my whole life. I think that's a whole other story.

DC: I'm curious about what happened to your father’s family in the years after they arrived in America. For instance, your grandfather was starting his own furniture-making business in Cuba when Castro took over, and the new government seized ownership of it. Was he able to start up a new shop in the United States?

DM: That's a great question! Yes! They did start a new business when they got to the States. It was an upholstery business in Miami called Tapiceria Medina. Here's a picture of the storefront with my dad in his Army uniform and his car at the time. I don't know exactly what happened to it, but I know my grandmother did upholstery work for many years until arthritis forced her to stop.

DC: Have you ever visited Cuba, or do you plan to?

DM: I have not been to Cuba yet. My father never went back. He said he wouldn't go back until it was "FREE CUBA". One day, I'd like to take my kids and try and retrace my family's journey. We'll see. 

DC: I was engrossed by the atmospheric and expressive quality of the drawings in the book. There are a few family photos included at the end, but you must have done quite a bit of research. Could you tell us a bit about the process (research and technique) you used to create these illustrations?

DM: Thank you so much for that. Yeah, there aren't that many pictures in the back of the book because almost no photos made it out of Cuba with them. They couldn't take anything with them when they fled. What is included in the author's note are pictures from right after they arrived in the U.S.

This book had a few levels to it. It was extremely personal because it was based on my family's story, but also it all takes place in this important and tumultuous time in history. I had to tell the story in a way that kept the family at the heart of it but also gave enough historical context for the reader to understand the stakes. This required a ton of research. I had to organize the things my dad remembered into a timeline that made sense and lay the history of the revolution over top of it. The history was a lot of legwork but not that difficult because there are many resources out there. What was really challenging was when there was a discrepancy between first-hand accounts and published history. I would read published letters from Cuban exiles about when food ration books were first given to them after the revolution, and the dates they said were sooner than the dates the Cuban government said they began rationing. So, through that process of trying to vet things you realize that history is more gray than black and white sometimes. Maybe it depends on who's in charge of publishing it? Also, I spent many weeks combing over old pictures and news articles to get a sense of things like styles of shoes, clothing, boat designs, furniture, houses, soldiers' weapons, uniforms, the list goes on and on. Attempting to create an immersive reading experience for readers is a big undertaking, but I love it.

DC: The backmatter in the book mentions you live in Lenexa. How did you end up in Kansas?

DM: Well, I grew up near Greenville, South Carolina. After I graduated from high school, I attended Ringling College of Art & Design to study illustration. Once I finished there I got a job as an artist at Hallmark Cards, Inc. in Kansas City, MO. I met my wife in KC and we started a family. Now we all live in Lenexa with our dog Violet.

All images used with permission of Daniel Miyares.  

—Dan Coleman is a Senior Collection Development Librarian at Lawrence Public Library.