We “met,” if that’s the right word, on Facebook, when Elizabeth commented on Aaron’s post about his new novel, Hotel Cuba, inspired by his grandmother’s migration story. Elizabeth—whose new novel, Kantika (“song” in Ladino), grew out of her grandmother’s immigration story—was struck by how both women came to the United States via Cuba. She speculated on what might have happened if they’d bumped into each other. From there, we began a conversation that led to this one.
Despite its 21st-century virtual mode, our first encounter felt appropriate, marked, like our novels, by twin forces of separation and a desire to connect. As third-generation Jewish American writers, we both hoped to animate our family’s lost pasts. We both have recorded interviews of our grandmothers—both skilled dressmakers—and chose fiction as the form and wrote partly in response to the current refugee crisis and rising antisemitic and anti-immigration rhetoric. Finally, both our grandmothers were marked by grit, creativity, and a capacity for adaptation that might prove instructive for our current day.
