Adrianna Cuevas ’97 Writes to Preserve

ADRIANNA CUEVAS ‘97 Writes to Preserve Family’s History

WITH A MATILDA-ESQUE FASCINATION

FOR READING, ADRIANNA CUEVAS WOULD

MARVEL AT HER PARENTS’ BOOKSHELF.

ADORNED WITH NOVELS SEVERAL YEARS

ABOVE HER PRESUMED READING LEVEL,

SHE’D SCAN THROUGH THE COLLECTION

WITH HUNGRY, CURIOUS EYES AS HER

FINGERS INNATELY GRAVITATED TOWARDS

EDGAR ALLEN POE AND JACK LONDON.

Cuevas recalls that her father, Gilberto Jose Cuevas, a math professor at the University of Miami, and her mother, Peggy

Cuevas, a science teacher at Westminster

Christian School, intentionally filled their home with all things books, reading and storytelling. Dinners were always followed by anecdotes, family trips to the library were habitual, and the desire to travel and discover new places was instinctive.

“Both my mom and my dad were very curious people by nature. They always wanted to learn new things and have new experiences,” said Cuevas.

Consumed by the same curiosity, when she wasn’t inspecting the peculiar illustrations of Edgar Allen Poe’s 1980 anthology, Cuevas says she was being transported to Jack London’s snowy Yukon.

“As a kid growing up in sunny Miami, it seemed odd that I would want to read Jack London’s stories, but I think that his writing was my first clue of how books can take you to other places and show you new experiences,” explained Cuevas.

She described her young mind as a hyperactive one that was always conjuring up stories. Her fourth-grade teacher at Westminster Christian School, Mrs. De Vos, was an author, and it was during one of her lessons that Cuevas says she learned how to transfer those stories to paper.

“Mrs. De Vos would play Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’, give us blank pieces of paper, and have us draw the images that came to mind as we listened to the music,” described Cuevas. “It was the first time that my hyperactive imagination had been encouraged to take all those images and stories that were going on in my brain and put them down on paper.”

Cuevas graduated from Westminster in 1997 and fondly remembers her years at the school.

Cuevas’ parents, Peggy and Gilberto Jose Cuevas, pose for a photo.

Anne Fitz ’97 and Fayoola Eustache Wilson ‘97 smile for the camera on campus as Adrianna Cuevas lies on a bench reading a book. (Circa 1996)

“I was always reading. There’s even a picture of me on campus with my friends, Anne and Fayoola. It’s probably from 1996. They’re smiling at the camera and I’m lying on a bench reading a book,” she recalled warmly. Cuevas’ mother also taught 7th and 8th grade science at Westminster from 1982 to 2000. After 15 years of working as a teacher herself, she says she finally gained the courage to write her first book. Her debut novel, The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez,

was published in 2020 and, only months after its release, received the Pura Belpre Honor, an award for Latino/a writers and illustrators whose works best portrays the Latino culture.

The novel is a contemporary fantasy about a Cuban-American boy named Nestor Lopez who must use his secret ability to communicate with animals to save the inhabitants of his town when they are threatened by a tule vieja, a witch that transforms into animals. For this story, Cuevas says she drew inspiration from her son and his love for zoology as well as a myriad of personal experiences. The novel is also brimming with Cuban-American elements which Cuevas describes as an homage to her family history. She hopes this aspect of her writing will inspire young Hispanic readers.

“I think kids need more books about the joys of their culture. It’s important for students to see themselves in a story and for those characters to be portrayed as heroes of that story,” she added.

Cuevas further explained that it is equally as important that her writings work to preserve her family’s culture and history. “When my dad and his family arrived in the United States from Cuba, all they had with them was their language, their recipes and their stories. They couldn’t take anything with them when they left so we do not have, for example, family relics that have been passed down for generations. That’s why I’m always putting some aspect of my family in my writing,” said Cuevas.

Her second novel, Cuba in My Pocket, is scheduled to be released on September 21, 2021, and is based on her father’s solo journey to the United States at just 12 years old. In the novel, Cumba’s family makes the difficult decision to send him to Florida alone after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 solidified Castro’s power in Cuba.

Cuevas says she draws on personal experiences for ideas for her books, including memories with her husband and son, pictured here. “It was very interesting to take someone’s real life and put it in a fiction book because I did change some elements of his story, but I constantly had my father fact-check the important details because I wanted to remain faithful to his experiences,” explained Cuevas. “It means a lot to me now that I was able to preserve his history in this way.”

Cuevas’ father passed away last year, shortly after reading the final version of Cuba in My Pocket.

“I wanted him to see it published, but that’s not the case so I was really glad that he at least got to read it,” said Cuevas.

Her hope now is that her father’s story inspires others to welcome and care for people in need, that it takes them on a journey through her family’s Cuban-American history and, most importantly, that they enjoy reading it as much as her father did.

“He cried after reading it. He was so proud.”

Cuevas’ 1997 senior portrait.