[Music] hi I'm Heather Marie montia and you're watching PBS books thanks for joining us PBS books in The Institute of Museum and Library Services created and produced visions of America all stories all people all places is in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of our nation PBS books and IML as premiered visions of America a journey to the Freedom Tower stories of Cuban migration to Miami in September let's take a moment to watch the trailer hello everyone and welcome to visions of America all stories all people all places this episode we're in Miami Florida to explore the building known as the LS island of the South Freedom Tower in the campus of Miami Dade College while this may just be another Hallmark of the Miami Skyline for some for others it will always be the symbol of their own original vision of [Music] America to watch this episode and learn more about the visions of America series go to visions of america.org well today imls director Crosby keer will speak to his inspiration for a journey to the Freedom Tower episode scholar Carlos a award-winning author of waiting for snow in Havana and learning to die in Miami they discuss Carlos's books and his experiences as an immigrant an exile and an American it is my extraordinary pleasure to welcome Crosby keer welcome thank you heather I'm here talking to Carlos ER Rigg's professor of history at Yale University author of the national book award winning waiting for snow in Havana and its sequel learning to die in Miami Memoirs of his childhood in Cuba and the United States truly magnificent Memoirs he's the author of many works of history about early modern Europe including his magisterial and compendious reformations the early modern world voted the best book in the Humanities of 2017 Carlos all your books are banned in Cuba I'm told and you're proud of that can you tell me why well I I consider it the highest honor ever bestowed on me because it means that I uh my work even when it doesn't even relate to Cuba the fact that I exist annoys all the uh men they're all men who run the dictatorship uh an annoying them is is my greatest pleasure well obviously they they they have annoyed uh an awful lot of people 600 over 600,000 Cubans in the early early six 60s exiled themselves came through Freedom Tower which we've been uh looking at uh in the 1960s how did you you came here the age of 10 11 I yeah uh 11 and and you you came came to the United States with your with your brother Tony but without your your your parents right we were um the the airlift that brought us here didn't have a name then but it was later given the Peter Pan or Pedro pan uh air left and um you know I it wasn't until um the early 2000s that I discovered that there were 14,000 of us I always thought it was maybe only like you know at most most 5 6,000 kids but it was 14,000 and um the Missile Crisis put an end to uh the air left because Fidel Castro shut all doors out of Cuba and U at that time when it shut down there were still 880,000 children holding Visa waivers waiting to be airlift it's an extraordinary uh story and and was called Pedro pan obviously Peter Pan and and and you tell it as both an adventure story but it's also kind of the some people return home in in in h Peter Pan and but most of most of you who who came to the United States were like more like The Lost Boys you're and you're you you landed on your own as a a pre-teen and your brother Tony was I guess a teenager at that point or yeah 14 and uh and you came into a place called Homestead yes which is that that's a little ironic isn't it that to to be exiled to the homestead yes to the homestead um and it was at that I don't even know if it's still an Air Force Base it was an active air force base at at the time and um those of us who were boys pre-teen boys and all girls uh were placed in these uh houses that had been built for Airmen and their families but Homestead yes Homestead and also there's a great irony on the name uh Peter Pan because the Lost Boys uh remain boys remained children forever all of us who came on this airlift became adults instantly even even the ones that were four years old yeah you you describe it in in the book do it having to do in the family that you're assigned to uh and which is also a little ironic that two Catholic Cuban boys are are all of a sudden in a Jewish Family in in uh in in Miami uh but that you you found yourself all of a sudden doing all kinds of things uh that you had never had to do uh in in in your more privileged background in uh in Cuba well yes uh and you know it really is not a question of privilege is just that human culture um children were not assigned chores usually uh and uh yes all of a sudden they had chores and um my foster parents uh Lou and Norma Chate were wonderful they were very patient with me they were extremely patient I still remember uh one of the last times I I was able to visit them uh nor Norma kept saying you know you didn't even want want to take out the garbage you should have seen the look on your face when I asked you to take out the garbage and and so there two uh Catholic Cuban boys in a in a Jewish family but in in another sense your your childhood as you describe it in Cuba and and the book is is really it's a it's a creates a whole world magnificent uh uh world uh you know fascinating World um but it was also remarkably American your toys your comic books your TV movies was really in some ways was not that far from An American Childhood United States child it was you know I I I barely had a culture shock of course the language you know language was the shock um but so much of our entertainment and I think that that's what it boils down to because even in the 1950s so many toys were tied to entertainment right so um you talked about Batman and and Superman you wanted to be Batman yes yeah uh although I realized at one point that Batman didn't really have superpowers so then you wanted to be Superman so I thought I oh yes I've I've uh I've attached myself to a a superhero of lesser rank uh but that's fine that's fine I actually had um course my comic books were in Spanish they were published in Mexico the Spanish translations of of American comic books were were published in Mexico and I I left behind because I had to leave everything behind I left the number two Batman comic book in Spanish which would probably be worth you know thousands thousands of dollars right maybe tens of thousands yeah it's aspirationally I'm I'm fascinated by the fact I share I share this with you you you wanted to be uh Jimmy Stewart or Carrie Grant you you were fascinated by them and yes I wanted to be Jimmy Stewart when I was when I was younger too oh yeah well that's it well he's he's a great role model for I mean most of the roles he played uh are are good men yeah Mr Smith Goes to Washington yes and and that voice I wanted to have that voice uh but we we get what we get exactly I'm still aspiring to that you know I with with artificial intelligence and photoshopping there might be a possibility I hadn't given that any thought but you're right yes so there as you know because you were her her good friend I my late wife Maria Rosa menal shared with you uh the experience of being a child Exile from from family but there there's certain phrases that you you use in the book and that she used uh OT ferer whom we've talked to uh uses uses these phrases as well and I love them but they're they're paradoxical um lucky me uh is it seems to be a favorite Cuban phrase and Lord have mercy on me I'm Cuban yes um well I I I added the the I'm Cuban bit uh and and um I I did so because it's just being Cuban is paradoxical period but being a a Cuban in Exile is doubly paradoxical so um you know the the country has turned into such a nightmare it's been a nightmare for 64 years um that um I think something that many Americans um don't don't ever uh experience in the same way is that you you feel a great deal of pain but at the very same time uh a great deal of Shame for what has happened in your country uh so that that even deepens the Paradox for me anyway uh much more so I I often when I read the news from Cuba uh I I keep up every day I I say Lord have mercy I'm Cuban or um when I I write things uh online for aimed at other Cubans I I turn it to latinus in Latin we are Cubans and it it's language is very important in uh to in for obvious reasons transitioning to a country in that has a different language but also as a scholar but there there's an interesting dialogue in in in uh in your two Memoirs uh a language linguistic dialogue between uh SP Cuban Spanish uh and and various modes of of Cuban Spanish uh American English and also the Catholic Latin lurgical language which erupts uh regularly into into your vook do you see your your your own language in that that that way is a as a kind of dialogue of languages oh yes constantly and um the thing is that you know I uh after um I left Miami in 1963 and went to live in the midwest with my uncle in Bloomington Illinois where I I was only one of two foreign born kids at Bloomington Junior High School um I I have lived in places with very few other Cubans uh and actually a very few other Spanish speaking people except for my time in Chicago with my mom um so I've kind of my my Spanish is very Rusty but it's it's it's the point of reference for all of their languages uh so yeah you're right uh I I had I had not noticed this about you know waiting for snow or learning to die but it's true yes I'm constantly um going back and forth and and Spanish is a point of reference and you know um there's some phrases or words in Spanish that I have to admit touch me much more deeply than uh any of the other languages I read so um for instance with with Maria Rosa sometimes she would use a Spanish prase and oh boy it would hit deeply um I I I remember one time when when she used the phrase the word get ready because that's that's the word that human parents used when we had done something wrong and some some punishment was coming yeah and boy that that word struck me so deeply I hadn't heard it in decades right and there it was right in front of me I I I love your your discussion of the difference to to the benefit of of Spanish uh word of may not pronounce it correctly cohetes and firecrackers yes Coes is is a much better word you you say for firecrackers absolutely a CO is also the word for Rocket right so uh those Chinese uh fireworks that my father bought in in uh Chinatown in Havana um they were they they were uh ticket to another world uh in a way that firecrackers never that's just kind of silly word firecracker because I of course having just learned the word cracker in English I thought what is this you know mixing a cracker with fire that doesn't make any sense rocket makes much more sense coet yes magic word magic um and and there's there's a lot of magic in your childhood I mean it's a it's a your your family in many ways is uh uh is is of course Very instructive and and and and and you you care about them and there throughout your your your both Memoirs that members of your family play a very large role but you you you also see them as a burden and also as Mythic almost mythical iCal historical figures your father is Louis the Louis the 16th I think and your Your Mother Maria tette yes well actually you know some reviewers uh of waiting for snow in Havana accuse me of getting carried away with my magical realism which of course many uh literary Scholars uh think that anyone with a Spanish surname who writes whatever they write is magical realist must a magical real right in my case I was not exaggerating and I and it whenever I speak in public uh to to public audience about waiting for stone and I have to make it clear I was not making anything up I was not exaggerating my father's family his entire family were deeply into theosophy and spiritualism and um I found this out through a student's dissertation many many years later the American theosophical society sent missionaries all over the world their most successful mission was Cuba and their second most successful was Brazil so my father not only like Shirley mclan the actress my father claimed he could remember his past lives and he remembered being Louis the 16 and everyone in my household had been a member of the Royal Family in France when when the revolution occurred except for me I was I was the an interloper in in in in the borbone family he never told me who I had been so to this day I I don't know how I ended up you know with Louis the 16th and Maran poette and and so so the waiting for snow Han in me in many ways has the feel of of magical realism but it's also uh uh and it has and it's it's a childhood story but it's also very philosophical you you bring you bring the Saints and St Thomas aquinus uh and and his five proofs of the existence of God in Fairly fairly regularly and Emanuel Kant plays a role but but he plays you're you're in essence learning or or teaching teaching children to ignore Kant for for various reason he seem seems to be the uh the foil for the philosophy of of the book he no categorical imperatives for you he is the arch villain in in my Memoir for various reasons but the chief reason is that um you know con convinced most intellectuals in the western world that what all all we can talk about is this world there is nothing beyond the physical we cannot talk about the metaphysical we can't really deal with the spiritual uh seriously so um he he he marks uh a very special spot in in the evolution of Western culture and and Western thinking and I I despise him for that plus I was forced to read all his books in graduate school and I I actually had to take a comprehensive doctoral exam on on Kant so I I grew to despise the man few more reasons Beyond those uh well and and and a word that that is that is always there and that I think seems seems to have power in in in Cuban life and in Cuban Exile life again I speak a little bit about my my my late wife your your friend Maria um the word desire and and uh and how the philosophers don't don't deal very well with it the Saints try hard to overcome it uh and and maybe by that actually point to its importance uh in our lives and and and maybe as a Cuban Exile you know more about the thwarting of desire and the need for desire and the need to to to to find uh objects of Desire yes most of us passion is very important in Cuban culture you know uh desire is actually a mild form of of passion but Cuban culture is just riddled with with passion and Cubans can get very passionate uh it may be obsessive oh yes definitely no no I you know passion is a is a danger and uh you know speaking of you know the theologians uh who appear in uh waiting for snow there there are many who don't appear and some of the early church fathers who who thought that yeah as you say the Saints have to overcome desire and passion because um it often leads you astray and actually it it more often than not it does Lead You astray in in some ways so uh one one of the things that recurs in the uh in the book and and and and I would guess in your in your life later in fact I think you say you say this at some conversation uh uh that uh we have so little knowledge in the United States of uh our Hispanic heritage of our relationship to OT fur book about about Cuba and America says this as well that there's a constant relationship between the United States and Cuba and yet we in the United States have so little knowledge of uh the Hispanics in our our our midst particularly Cuba probably Mexico as well what's your sense of that and what and why why is that why yeah uh that's a great question and you know I I have given that some thought one of my first impressions uh talk about culture shock I I I I land in the American School in Miami Everglades Elementary School and then Citrus Grove Elementary school and then every school after that whenever there are geography history books uh that I picked up the section on Latin America was so bizarre so bizarre because um you know all all of Latin America was was uh painted with a very broad brush uh as third world third world and I remember one book I had the only photograph of Cuba that it had was uh an ox uh Ox driven cart uh full of sugar can right with some some uh dirty peasant uh loading the wagon and that was it so um what are kids going to learn when they have a book like that I think that's one of the main sources of of Americans lack of understanding of all of Latin America is what they pick up in school it it it's so interesting that we are in the last 30 plus years maybe more than that um um and maybe more importantly in the last decade we we've come to terms with and and and started to celebrate and and uh and and make a part of the larger American story the story of African-Americans uh the story of Native Americans um and it seems to be this incredible story which actually starts in the continental United un States well before the the uh the English got to Virginia and uh and to New England uh in Florida we and and South Carolina uh and and of course in the southwest there's a huge Hispanic heritage uh that uh uh that we're we're kind of missing at this stage in in the the larger American history yes and I mean I I don't know because my my own children are now way past uh Elementary School and and just School in general uh so I don't know what textbooks have in them now uh about Latin America but at least the ones that were used through the 1960s and to some extent when my own kids uh were were in school in the late 90s and early 2000s yes I remember this uh I just had a memory all three of my kids had the same book assigned to them in second grade a book published in 1963 was still being used in 2003 oh my gosh and it was a book on on the um European discovery of the American continents and all of the explorers in that book were English and French hardly a word about the Spanish or the portuges who actually settled compan American history seems to to start in the 17 century when in when in fact this the Spanish the European the first European settlement that that stuck are are all Spanish um and uh the first the first enslaved person uh uh who who sort of freed himself was estano uh you know in the 1520s marching with kabisa Daka across the almost across the entire Southern United States in one of the great adventure stories of world history it it's always been a source of irritation for me um the the kind of questions that I I get uh from from audiences when I speak about waiting for snow in Havana the the assumptions that my audience brings with them to that room and the sorts of questions that I get uh because it's all part of this this myth uh I mean many many many many of my audience members actually think that what happened in Cuba was wonderful but the Cuban Revolution so-called Cuban Revolution this wonderful thing that improved lives for Cubans they actually fall for that lifee because of these textbooks I just mentioned they think that you know Cuba was full of ox carts and we didn't have uh internal combustion engines and whatever uh I was asked when I when I first arrived in Miami at my school some of the American Kids uh would ask me things like oh what what what did it feel like to wear shoes for the first time or and and and in fact one of the things that that we we know if we pay attention and that you you would have known coming from from Cuba is that that that Cuba in terms of things like health care and education was either the most advanced or close to most advanced of uh of all the Latin American uh countries uh and and very close to uh the United States and European uh countries yeah in in the 1950s before before Fidel no and when I when I S some uh United Nations statistics that are easily available now online uh sometimes I get called a liar u a fact such as this I'll leave it at this one which I think is just astounding 1958 Cuba had more television sets than Italy the Italians were too busy eating I think yeah enjoying themselves right and and you know that so so that you know the the sense that the revolution uh made things better is is is probably uh possibly partly true in in in in in some sense of uh class uh trying trying to move Folks at the very bottom up but then in fact the the overall all Health and Welfare of Cuba uh was was probably at its highest point um at the moment of the Revolution and has declined since since then yes unfortunately that that is true um and that you know 64 years later you mentioned the the figure 600,000 Cubans coming uh to to Florida in 2022 over 300,000 Cubans came to the US mostly through the Mexican border but also Rafters um added to their number 300,000 Cubans uh plus I don't know how many thousands went to other countries uh they're fleeing Cubans are fleeing because 64 years after this so-called Revolution began the place is uh I call it a Labyrinth of ruins physically if you look at it uh and the young people who made up most of those 300,000 they they feel they have no no future no hope and cars play a large role uh in uh in particularly in waiting for snow in aana and it's the same cars are are on the streets of faan today yes because there no new cars no with with Russian engines usually russan parks right well I so a larger question is as a as a Cuban Exile the Cuban Exiles have have been extraordinarily uh productive uh and successful uh in in America Miami's become a uh a sort of one of the capitals of uh uh of the entire Western Hemisphere because in significant measure because of uh uh leadership of of Cuban Exiles and their progeny um it it is there something special about that in the Exile story that we should all learn from well definitely uh which is uh you know uh what were there two factors that that I think contribute to the Cuban so-called Cuban success story in in in the United States one is that um the the the first wave of migration most of the Cubans who came to the us were the entrepreneurial class and and and many were you know professionals many own their own businesses in in Cuba uh but there there was a a vibrancy to Cuban culture uh that is is uh I can attribute to something that most people don't realize happened in Cuba which is that most Cubans who ended up in the United States especially the first wave and second wave the Mario boatlift too and even to this day they're the children and grandchildren of immigrants who came to Cuba in the same way that immigrants come to the United States to improve their lives and to be quote unquote successful here's a statistic that that just blows my mind when Cuba became into depended in 1902 population of Cuba was around 3 million between that date and 1958 over 1 million immigrants came to Cuba Cuba actually used to attract immigrants my mother's parents were immigrants arrived in 1920 and just about everyone I knew my My Generation almost everyone I knew had had immigrant grandparents mostly from Spain but we had immigrants from from all many other uh parts of the world uh we had Chinese immigrants we had Lebanese immigrants we had Jewish immigrants uh and um a few um different regions of Spain were represented in this immigrant way but the fact is the grandchildren and in some cases the children of these immigrants then had to start over in the US and the same was true of many of the Chinese immigrants and certainly the Jewish immigrants uh because we had two we the the two Jewish communities in Cuba were the sapharic Jews of originally of Iberian uh ancestors and the ashkanazi Jews uh from Eastern Europe um they were also most of them uh recent arrivals uh so came to the US and took off but the overarching lesson I think to learn is that it doesn't matter if they're Cubans or nicaraguans or uh Polynesians no matter where what part of the world you come from the United States is a remarkable Place remarkable and in many ways a unique sort of uh uh environment in which those who who want to move ahead can and and can actually um make much of the opportunities I still remember one time I was uh on a on a book panel so I was I was the Cuban book and um the guy next to me was Vietnamese and he had a Vietnamese book I forget his name but uh he was a dentist right he like me had been airlifted out of Vietnam he was one of the human beings on that Embassy roof pulled off by helicopters and had come here to the US without his parents and he was a dentist had a successful practice but he had already published something like five books and he turned to me after the Q&A uh section session and he said um you know why why is it why is that that that we immigrants get it the uniqueness of the United States and and and and get the the fact that there are these opportunities that for anyone who has the slightest bit of ambition or passion can can actually open doors almost magically yes there are hardships to endure but um was it uh Thomas Edison what was his his formula you know invention is 99% perspiration perspiration yeah and 1% inspiration right yes that's a matter of course the that that's true but the inspiration part the aspirational part seems to be so important you you described the suitcase that you brought with you and and the tiny number of objects because it was based on on weight what you could bring uh in the airlift and uh but what you brought uh what many immigrants what you're describing is is the aspiration and what's what's upstairs not what's not what's surrounding you in terms of property or or objects yes at the aspiration inspiration right and you know I I ended up spending I had a summer job at my mother's Factory in outside Chicago in Evanston illino Illinois and uh something like 75% of the workers in that factory were Cupid they they had referred each other to this wonderful job as sending photocopy machines and um we had professionals working in there uh as assemblers uh the janitor one of the men who swept the floor had been a lawyer in Cuba and that job was only for most of them the first step towards better jobs but the jobs were available and uh a good number of those uh Cubans also had little businesses on the side like cooking meals for their fellow employees and and and making a profit out of you know selling meals preparing lunch meals um bedding pools there there were bedding pools for every sport sports event that summer that I could bet on uh and uh so on so forth somebody made money that way extra cash um you just describe in the uh I think it's in learning to die you describe Learning To Die Miami that your your mother had to take a job uh your your brother Tony uh had to lie about his age in order to to to take a job um the whole family had to had to pitch in at a at an economic at the lowest possible economic level on the ladder toh to do this but but did what that had to be done right and you know to me as a teenager it seemed normal because every other uh Cuban I I met in Chicago or who went to high school with me was in the same situation during freshman year of high school I worked full-time full-time job at night at the Conrad Hilton Hotel uh uh and uh then I cut I cut down I got a a part-time job where I only worked 30 hours a week all the way through high school so and everybody I knew was doing that EV every other person my age male or female was doing that which I think M makes not just the Cuban American story but the Immigrant American story uh really one of the one of the great stories in in world history yes I I agree with that 100% so there there are a lot of words uh to use uh about your experience you're an immigrant an exile a refugee you you use all all of those words you're you're Cuban you're American you're Cuban American uh it it identity plays a large role in our our current culture uh how do you how do you think about yourself and how do you think about this country and Cuba uh today um well first question you know what what I think about my identity I am all the things that I am and um uh I believe that the to get to the deepest truths you you you you have to embrace paradox uh and I I word again yes yeah you have to embrace Paradox and you know um immigrants have to continually uh remake themselves that's hence the title of my my second Memoir learning to die in Miami is that there are moments in your life where your your old self actually does die and and you embark on a new you a new self and and you keep uh evolving throughout life so I remember one audience uh when I said this you know you know somebody explain uh said explain to me the title of your book I said yeah you know every time you go through a major change your identity is new you're born again you die your old self dies and a new one is born uh and sometimes you die repeatedly uh I said for instance and is an example yeah anyone who gets married you die and a new person has to be born and one man raised his hand with three fingers and said yeah three times in my case uh so and you you you the EP epigraph if you will that the poem at the beginning of Learning to to to die in Miami is from Emily Dickinson and it and it who we could call the poet of paradox uh and it and it's essentially about the dialogue between death and spirit just what you're saying the the the rebirth uh that that comes uh that that we we look for as we as we as we grow up and shed our skins and and find new ones yes definitely and uh you know this is this is the thing about identity yes I'm a Cuban American uh but I am who I am um and uh I've had unique experiences that other Cuban Americans have not so I am who I am um as for thinking about Cuba and the US um I feel nothing but sorry and to some extent great degree shame um for instance now there there are Cuban mercenaries fighting for Russia in Ukraine all these young men um one figure I saw of one estimate is that there are now over 1,400 Cubans fighting in Ukraine um how did that happen well it happened in Angola it happened in Ethiopia it happened in places you know uh Cuba is is basically a colony uh of has been a colony uh continuously since 1959 of one other power or another first it was a Soviet Union then uh oddly enough it was Venezuela who was supplying Cuba with all sorts of stuff now it's it's Russia and China again and um it's a colony and some people would say that Cuba was an American colony from 1902 to 1959 and to some degree culturally yes and to some extent economically also but the prosperity of that those five decades cannot be denied almost ev Everything if you look at a map of Havana in 1902 in a map of Havana from 1958 most most of what is now hav was built between 1902 and 1958 and since then the only thing that has been built are hotels for tourists that's it as for the US you know I I have to say that um having lived through the Cuban Revolution and and having been uh exposed as the eyewitness I lived through it I I am reminded of um a tour guide in Prague when I was visiting there with a tour group uh there was a museum of Communism in Prague which I think still exists excuse me and one of one of my uh fellow tour mates asked the tour guide have you been to the Museum of Communism she said I don't need to I I lived it when I when I when I see the United States going in a certain certain directions ideologically and politically I grow very worried and and and and the and the last question I want to ask you is does this sense of of rebirth uh that that Exile can give you and uh the sense that you have to your your old self has to die you say at one point you you say Christ's Soul function is to die again and again and again until the end of the world to to save us uh do the does this sense of Exile as rebirth um does that give you uh give Cuban Americans Cuban Exiles in particular uh a a particularly strong understanding of freedom of the freedom that we have uh the freedom that we're we're trying to celebrate as we we go into the 250th anniversary of the absolutely absolutely and you know it's not just the first wave second wave third wave I had a chance to meet a young Cuban Doctor Who had just left Cuba last last year 2022 I met him this past summer um and uh we had we had a long chat and um yes this is just so surprising to him that there's all this Freedom he just can't believe it he cannot believe it and and more than that the reason I met up with him and said somebody had given him waiting for snow to read and he happened to be visiting his wife's parents here in connectic he married an americ um Married An American in Cuba she was there uh on some kind of Exchange program so anyway he had read my Memoir and it it was not just a question of freedom but a question of of memory and information he knew nothing he told me about pre-revolution Cuba nothing it's not part of the cultural memory what they get is is a a false history that doesn't uh cover what actually happened and um you know this is what George Orwell said 1984 um he who controls the past controls the present he who controls the present controls the future they they get a twisted view of history that supports whatever um is going on in the present and makes sense of it because it's not just Freedom it's is actually coming face to face with the ability to have the freedom to investigate the past for yourself um and that's that's me the professor speaking the historian you know well and and kis it's also you the memoirist because you you have investigated your your own past in the two remarkable Memoirs waiting for snow in Havana and learning to die in Miami to stories two great stories of rebirth and freedom and uh and and of life's desires if not fulfilled at least explored and yes and and made Vivid so yes I want to thank you so much for this uh conversation uh it's been it's been wonderful uh reconnecting to you and uh and to to your to your wonderful work thank you so much I need to thank you for this conversation too it's been wonderful you're right it's been absolutely wonderful and thanks so much for asking me to take part thank you so I will turn this back over to Heather Marie montia PBS Books thank you all for watching thank you Crosby I appreciate your thoughtful questions and interesting conversation with Carlos a and thank you Carlos for being here and for sharing about your books your personal experiences and especially about your life it's really extraordinary for us to be able to have watched the visions of America all stories all people all places the journey to the Freedom Tower the stories of Cuban migration to Miami to watch that to be able to see that and then to hear your own personal story so for those of you out there who have not yet seen it please go to visions of america.org and you can also access resources and learn more about the project we had virtual conversations that occurred over the summer and it talks really about what it means to be an American well visions of America is every month so our next episode is on October 25th and visions of America will be taking a journey to the wing Luke Museum in Seattle so join us until next time I'm Heather Marie montia and happy [Music] reading