The Prince of Los Cocuyos

Richard Blanco's childhood was split between two worlds he could never quite touch. He grew up in Miami with parents and grandparents who had fled Cuba, yet Cuba itself remained a place he'd never seen. His family spoke of it constantly—the mangoes, the beaches, the life they'd left behind—but for Blanco, these were just stories. He was American. He'd been raised in America. And yet, he didn't quite feel American either.

The memoir opens with a scene that captures this tension perfectly. Blanco's Abuela—his intimidating, fearless grandmother—had one great fear: *americanos*. She refused to shop at Winn-Dixie, the bright, air-conditioned supermarket that Blanco desperately wanted to visit. In his mind, Winn-Dixie represented everything he craved: Pop-Tarts, Ritz Crackers, Cool Whip, Easy Cheese. The foods he saw other kids eating. The foods that said "American."

Abuela, by contrast, shopped only at the dingy Cuban bodegas where she haggled over prices and complained about being shortchanged. For her, Winn-Dixie was foreign territory, a place where she didn't belong. She told Blanco flatly: "Only *los americanos* shop there."

But Abuela's stinginess eventually overcame her fear. A flyer advertised fryer chickens at an exceptionally low price, and she agreed to go—as long as Blanco came with her.

What Blanco remembers most about that first visit is the sensory shock. The store was cold, clean, and quiet. Soft violin music played from speakers in the ceiling. The floors were polished terrazzo. The air smelled like Lysol, crisp and fresh. For Blanco, stepping into that store felt like finally arriving in America. He was "in pure awe."

Abuela, on the other hand, was too anxious to speak. She clutched Blanco's hand and whispered, "We don't belong here."

The contrast between them was stark. Blanco saw wonder; Abuela saw threat. When Blanco asked her to buy him Easy Cheese, she stared at the can with suspicion: "Cheese in a can?" But she relented, marveling at "the ingenuity of Americans"—*Cómo inventan los americanos*.

Then came the miscommunication. At the checkout, something went wrong with the transaction, and Abuela became panicked and furious. She declared the employees were trying to trick her. She would never shop there again.

But she did allow Blanco to return on his own. Twice a week, he'd ride his bike to Winn-Dixie, buy two chickens and a can of Easy Cheese, and marvel at the store's cleanliness and order. "This is the way the world should be," he thought. "This was America."

At home, Abuela took the American foods Blanco brought and added Cuban ingredients. She put Easy Cheese on fried plantains and flan. She made "Cubaroni"—boxed macaroni and cheese with tomato sauce, sausage, and vegetables. Blanco was disgusted. In his mind, these combinations "just didn't belong together" because "they were from two different worlds."

This is the central problem of the memoir. Blanco believed that cultures couldn't mix. You were either Cuban or American. You couldn't be both. And yet his family lived in the space between, trying to hold onto their heritage while building a new life in a new country.

Over the course of the book, Blanco traces his journey to reconcile his overlapping identities. He recounts the notable incidents and the influential people who helped him understand who he was: a Cuban-American, a gay man, an artist. The memoir uses specific moments—a Thanksgiving dinner, a backyard farm, a trip to Disney World, a friendship with an elderly Jewish woman, a job at a Cuban bodega, a first kiss, a near-romance—to chart his slow, painful path toward acceptance.

The book's title itself points to this search. *Los Cocuyos* means fireflies in Spanish. It's also the name of the bodega where Blanco worked, a place that became his "village," his connection to the Cuban world he'd never known. The "Prince" of that village—that's who Blanco was trying to become.

But at the start, he was just a boy standing in a supermarket aisle, caught between his grandmother's fear and his own longing. Between the world he came from and the world he wanted to belong to. Between the Cuba he'd never seen and the America that didn't quite feel like his.

What does it mean to be from two places at once? And how do you find yourself when the people who raised you see the world so differently than you do?