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Southern Connections and the Jewish Experience
Fernandez believes Cuban-American literature can be more closely associated with Jewish American literature as well as Southern literature than other Latino literature. He says in an interview, “We're talking about people here who came from certain social/economic strata in the first waves. The used to be the people in control, and so their aim was to someday be in control again, and so their whole perception was not that they felt they were oppressed or anything like that. All the things about Cuban American lit—longing for a place, the nostalgia—is probably closer to the Jewish experience than anything else. There's a sense of loss in Judaism, you know, so that's probably the closest.” Fernandez also says, “And by the way, I like the Southern [U.S.] writers too—Southern and Jewish writers—I guess because of the sense of displacement in their work.