Soaring.

 Two countries
 Two Families
 Two sets of words. 

Travel. 

 Travel books
 help me dream
 of islands
 Visits to Cuba
 Palm-Leaf Raincoat
 Northeast Los Angeles
 Passports.
 Fear. 

Self. 

It really is possible to feel
 like two people.
 I almost feel 
 like a part of me
 still belongs. 
 Maybe I don’t belong after all. 
 Not completely.
 Not anymore. 

Listening
 to horses. 
 My future. 

Cuba. 

Abuelita, Mami,
Garden horse. 
 Poisoned air, 
 Doomsday warnings.
 Diplomacy succeeds. Words win. 

It cannot be used for travel
 To Cuba. 
 
 When? 
 
 

The reader is made to consider the human impact of big geopolitical events like the Cuban Missile Crisis. In this verse memoir, Engle is not simply rehashing the events of the conflict, but is showing us how these events made her feel as a young girl with ties to both nations. The reader learns the deep personal effects the crisis had on Engle and her family, which deepens their understanding of events. 

Through the memoir, the reader learns what it was like for Engle to grow up in a multicultural family. Engle considers her Cuban side almost like a separate person, referring often to her "Cuban twin." This sense of split identity is exacerbated by the US/Cuba conflict, which prevents her from travelling to Cuba and seeing her family there.

Writers can communicate a lot about their subject through their choice of perspective. Engle takes the perspective of herself as a young girl throughout the memoir, and does not insert her adult perspective at all. Her grappling with the Cold War is done so from her limited understanding of events as a child; for example, she refers to international relations as “friendships” between countries. This childlike perspective on events enables her to achieve one of her purposes in the book, which is questioning the very nature of conflicts like the Cold War. From the viewpoint of a child, these events seem nonsensical. 

Different languages can be brought together into the same text to tell a story. In this memoir, Spanish words are interspersed with English. This  highlights the duality of Engle's multicultural identity, but also points to a certain dissonance or contrast between these two sides of herself, especially when the conflict between Cuba and America worsens.