Dreaming in Cuban Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bakery

Celia del Pino spends the night watching the sea with her binoculars for any signs of invasion. From her balcony in the year 1972, she is the first line of defense of any enemy forces (as appointed by her neighbourhood). Since her house on the coast of Northern Cuba overlooks the ocean, she has the ideal vantage point. During her surveillance on this night she sees a light on the water and the ghost of her husband walks to the edge of the beach saying something she can't quite hear and radiating an eerie light. By the time she rushes to meet him at the water's edge, he disappears.

Celia decides to wade through the shallow waters at the shore while she remembers her husband, who went to the United States (where he passed away) not too long ago. She also thinks about her granddaughter, Pilar, who has resided in New York City, as an artist, for years. She finds herself wading too deep and returns to shore to await the returning fishing boats.

One of Celia's children, Felicia, arrives at the house and discovers that her mother has gone swimming. Celia tells her to send a telegram to Javier, her son in Prague, to state that his father has died after four years in New York City. After work, Felicia drives to her best friend Hermanita's house where the two of them sacrifice a goat to their gods.

Another of Celia's daughters, Lourdes, heads to work at her Brooklyn bakery before sunrise. Before the bakery opens she receives a call from a nun who has been attending to her father. She states that she witnessed him, in full health, walk through the wall and to the East River radiating a blue light. That afternoon, Lourdes closes the shop early and visits the hospital at which her father passed away to view the body. Upon returning home, already in an emotional state, she is also unable to locate her daughter, Pilar, and assumes she is missing. She calls the police, hospitals, fire station, and radio stations to ensure that she is found.

Answer: Spain

Pilar decides to make her return to Cuba after witnessing her father courting another woman in another neighbourhood of New York City. With the money earned from her mother's bakery she plans to hop on a bus to Miami and reach Cuba somehow. Pilar isn't too fond of her mother either, as she's been forced to work in the bakery since Lourdes discovered and read her diary. She was also taken from Cuba when she was two years old, though she claims to remember it fondly. Somehow, Pilar feels that she and her grandmother have a connection forged between them and that they can communicate just before she goes to sleep. It was Celia who convinced her to pursue art, and her skills led to her scholarship (which her mother opposed). Pilar also remembers her grandfather who came to New York for stomach cancer treatment; she always imagined the cobalt lasers firing blue beams into his stomach. Riding the bus through Florida, she falls asleep and dreams of her grandmother near the ocean in Cuba.

Many years ago, Celia worked at Cuba's most famous department store and a man from Spain courted her with gifts and love songs before returning to his home country. After he left, she was inconsolable and her friends and family watched as she wasted away in her bed for eight months. Finally, Celia's future husband, Jorge del Pino, convinced her to write to the man and eventually marry him instead. Since this time in her life, she has rarely taken off the pearl drop earrings she received as a gift from her Spanish love. In 1972, Celia picks up her twin granddaughters, Felicia's children, Luz and Milagro, to take them home. She tells them both that their grandfather has passed away. Their home was once the home of Celia's mother-in-law who, along with her sister-in-law, would treat her horribly while her husband was in the United States for work. After her first pregnancy, Celia was sent to an asylum leaving her first daughter, Lourdes, in the possession of her husband.

Leaving the children with their mother, Celia spends several days working for El Lider in the sugarcane fields of the countryside. When she returns she finds that Felicia has been an emotional wreck. She decides to take the twins back to the coast with her, leaving Ivanito with his mother in Havana. On the way home, Celia tries to feel sorrow for her deceased husband but she can't.

Answer: Miami

Celia's letters to her Spanish love describe the birth of her first daughter, Lourdes, from her darkened point of view, the subsequent institutionalization, and the birth of Felicia. After an accident involving Jorge, she realizes how much she does love him but she continues to write to Gustavo in Spain.

Pilar arrives in Miami and hopes to stay with a cousin for the night while avoiding the rest of her relatives who would most certainly send her back to Brooklyn if they knew her whereabouts. When she stops to rest on one of the family's pool chairs, she falls asleep and is awakened by her aunt, Rosario, and taken inside. She is later flown home.

Lourdes struggles with work and family issues before she hears the voice of her father at dusk. She doesn't believe she can hear him until he does this again a week later. She expresses her frustration with her daughter's lack of affection but Jorge assures her that there will come a time when Pilar will learn to love her.

Answer: Coconut

Felicia deals with delusions and recalls her own past as a child brought up with religion despite her atheist mother. This occurs while she tries to forget about her father's tragic death and she succeeds in avoiding the issue until her husband, Hugo, returns home, at least in her deluded mind. Felicia married Hugo after becoming pregnant with the twins and despite her father's disapproval. Their relationship turned sour before the birth and he left shortly after the marriage. Upon his return, Felicia decided to murder Hugo, lighting an oily rag on fire and dropping it on his face. Now, after her father's death, she feels that she must grieve powerlessly and she fears her own death.

Felicia's son, Ivanito, refuses to leave his mother's side. The two of them spend day and night together. One day, they head into the city to buy as many coconuts as they can find to bring them home and make coconut ice cream. When his sisters return, they recognize the behavior as what they saw when Felecia attacked their father. They also feel that Ivanito is experiencing some of the same symptoms. That night, he has his own delusions in bed. Felicia and Ivanito continue to bond despite mental breakdowns and he refuses to betray his mother's words.

Celia worries that Ivanito is becoming too adolescent at the age of five; he's becoming very much like his father. On one day, Celia offers to take the two of them up to the beach where she and the twins are staying. In bed, Felicia agrees to go. Celia thinks nothing of this response until that night when she realizes her daughter's plan to commit suicide and rushes back to Havana to stop her.

Answer: Czechoslovakia

In 1974, Felicia is in the army in a group dedicated to reintegrating social misfits into society by making them revolutionaries. After her suicide attempt she was deemed an unfit mother and Ivanito was sent to a boarding school.

In 1975, Celia continues to attend revolutionary gatherings and rallies; her undying passion for her country and her interest in the words of El Lider motivate her every day. Her volunteer work and interest in the community secure her a job as a judge in a local peoples' court. Her decisions shape the community around her, but she finds that many people are not willing to be generous enough, and their ways may cause harm to a positive revolution. Celia returns home and thinks about her children. Lourdes, in Brooklyn, sends pictures of pastries which feel like shots to her revolutionary mind while Felicia is now working at a beauty salon, away from the toils of revolutionary workers. Celia's son, Javier, traveled to Czechoslovakia many years ago and grew up to he a Professor of Biochemistry. He still writes and vows that his daughter, Irinita, will visit her one day and speak Spanish to her.

In 1976, Luz and Milagro, Felicia's daughters, decide to take it upon themselves to locate their father. They do and they reunite with him at a hotel in Havana where he has been staying after their mother burnt his face. Their time with him, they find, is precious, as they discover he is not as mad as their mother. On one occasion they decide to bring Ivanito to see him and realize the truth, but they stumble upon a scene they plan to forget. At the boarding school, Ivanito still fears his mother's anger at betraying her while the girls plan to become educated and leave Cuba for greater success.

Answer: The Statue of Liberty

Back in 1975, Lourdes has taken on the job of an auxiliary policewoman in her neighbourhood, working two evenings per week. She enjoys the job because she feels that it makes her a more powerful woman. So much has changed over the past years. While Pilar still rarely confides in her mother, Rufino, her husband, grows evermore distant and works on his projects in private. Lourdes still talks with her father about life and Cuba although she still despises El Lider and the revolution. One day, while on the job, Lourdes jumps into a New York City River to save a boy who jumps in before her eyes, though she seizes up before she does so. She survives but the boy does not.

One year later, Pilar has a boyfriend, Max, who plays in a blues band. Her mother has opened a second bakery and Pilar feels that she's trying to fight communism from behind her baked goods. Her mother still resents Cuba and still fights with her, but some things don't change. Pilar still thinks about Cuba but, due to the travel blockage, she's stuck in the U.S. She believes they'd be happier in a more rural environment.

One day, Lourdes asks Pilar to paint a mural for her second bakery -- something pro-American. Pilar is against the idea but when she suggest that she will only do it if Lourdes not see it until the unveiling, an unexpected agreement is made. Pilar infuses the image of the Statue of Liberty with punk culture and expects her mother to snoop but she never does. When the painting is finally unveiled, it's to the shock of the patrons of her bakery. Instead of scolding her daughter, Lourdes scolds the customers and their angry outcries against the painting. It's at this point that Pilar loves her mother very much.

Answer: Yes

In 1976, Ivanito begins to learn English using grammar books at his grandmother Celia's house. At school he is only permitted to learn Russian and while this isn't necessarily what he wants to learn, he excels at it so much so that his teacher suggests he go to Russia as smarter people come from cooler climates.

In 1978, Felicia marries her second husband, a man named Ernesto who is unlike what she would've expected in a man. She was warned of negativity in her future by a religious man and this proved true when Ernesto died in a grease fire in the same year while inspecting a hotel. She blames El Lider and a network of spies. In her anger she purposely harms a woman at her beauty parlor before blacking out for several months. She wakes up elsewhere in Cuba more than six months later and is forced to piece her life together. She married a man named Otto and he plans to take her to Minnesota where they can live together in the cold. In fact, he's already arranged for a boat to take them to the States. During a trip to the fair, Felicia pushes him off a ferris wheel to his death.

Javier returns home to Cuba and visits his mother's house on the oceanfront. For two months he remains in bed and Celia notices the similarities between herself after Gustavo's departure and her son (whose wife left him and took his daughter). When he emerges from the bed, things take a turn for the worse as he becomes an alcoholic. Celia is forced to cut back on revolutionary activities; the resigns as the judge for the peoples' court; she reduces her watch duties to one night per month. All of this is done to tend to her boy. She brings the santera who aided her in her time of need to visit her son but by the time they return he's already gone to explore the country. Shortly after, Celia finds a lump in her left breast; the entire breast is removed to excise the cancer.

Answer: Bass

In 1977, Pilar has gone to an art school in Rhode Island while Lourdes has lost a lot of weight by exercising and not eating. The spirit of Jorge Del Pino is concerned that perhaps his daughter is going too far but she claims to be fine. She purchases an exercise bike and plans to ride the distance from New York to San Francisco by Thanksgiving. She also succumbs to the fact that Pilar's mural would have been pretty if she hadn't taken it too far. When Thanksgiving rolls around, Pilar is shocked at her mother's transformation and even more shocked that she only survived on protein solutions. Lourdes' husband, Rufino, makes a succulent dinner and Lourdes devours it...and soon begins eating more and more.

The next year, Pilar wonders about her family. She still longs to reunite with the like-minded Celia and she contemplates how her mother strayed so greatly from the views of the revolutionaries. When she catches her boyfriend, Ruben, cheating on her, she stumbles across a classified ad for a stand-up bass and impulsively buys it. Taking it home, she plays until she finds her life beginning.

Felicia reappears after her several months with Otto and she stays with her friend Herminia, who, along with her father, practices spiritual customs. She gets her job back at the beauty salon and continues to partake in these odd customs. Before long she's willing to perform a ritual of clarity and dedicate herself wholly to the customs and religions of Herminia's people, the santera. When this is complete, however, and she is still unable to see her family she is concerned that the Gods are testing her. Herminia watches as she slowly wastes away and it's not long before Celia arrives to find her daughter in her final moments. After Celia destroys the offerings meant for Felicia's new God, her daughter passes away.

Answer: False

Lourdes continues to speak with her father until his appearances become fewer and farther between; he's unable to muster up enough energy to appear to her and it feels like he's dying all over again. He states that he and her mother did love each other just as her mother loved her, but when he placed her into a home with his own family he did so to punish her for her relationship with Gustavo. It was wrong of him, however. He also states that Felicia died sad and that Lourdes must return to Cuba. He can't tell her why; she'll know when she arrives.

Pilar, walking home from a music store, decides to stop in at an botanica shop she'd never entered before. The man behind the counter claims that she is a daughter of Chango and hands her a bottle of herbs stating that she must bathe in it for eight days following his specific instructions. On the ninth day she will know what to do. She heeds his suggestion and on the ninth day she calls her mother and says that they need to return to Cuba.

Answer: Ivanito

Celia prepares for her daughter's funeral. As per Felicia's wishes she is to have the funeral of a santera. The service is uneventful and Celia gathers the last of her things from her residence. The evening after the funeral, Celia uses a bathing suit once belonging to her daughter and swims in the ocean.

Pilar and Lourdes arrive the next day to find Celia sitting in a swinging chair, still wet from her swim, and it's clear that not all is well. Lourdes fixes her mother some food and cleans her bed. The next day, while her mother sleeps, Pilar sits with her grandmother who explains that she prepared Lourdes as if for war and that she knew her granddaughter would continue her legacy.

Lourdes feels that her father was wrong; her mother never changed. She looks at Cuba with disgust for their ways and the values of the revolution. She accompanies Ivanito during dinner on his thirteenth birthday and reignites a passion for dance but this is quelled by her nephew's comment that she dances like his mother. She decides to take a drive along the northern coast of Cuba stopping in Varadero and heading onwards reminiscing about her past with Rufino.

Pilar begins reading to the family from a book of Chinese Astrology and while most of the family doesn't care for it, Celia is simply thrilled to have her granddaughter around -- so much so that it's almost as though she's been rejuvenated. Ivanito takes Pilar to Herminita on her request and the two of them learn about their mothers in great detail. At Celia's house, Pilar is told to paint her grandmother as a flamenco dancer and she realizes the power of the colour blue, the shades of which she'd never realized before coming to Cuba. Nevertheless, while Pilar admits she meshes well with Cuban life, she knows New York is more her home than Havana.

In the night, Lourdes brings Ivanito to the embassy in Havana with a bag of clothes and a note written in English naming her as his sponsor. She tells him that she will meet him in Brooklyn and sends him on his way. Pilar and Celia find out the following morning and rush to the embassy where Pilar finds her cousin but she lets him go. She doesn't tell her Grandmother.

When Celia returns home she heads directly to the sea and takes off her boots. Wading in she submerges herself below the surface and removes her pearl earrings, letting them float out to sea to be extinguished. In her final letter to Gustavo written in 1959, Celia wrote that she had turned fifty and her granddaughter had been born. She would no longer write as Pilar would remember everything.