Returning To Me: A Cuban-American Woman's Journey - Softcover

Ibis Lezcano lived a happy and comfortable life in beautiful Havana, Cuba. The daughter of a popular politician and a beautiful socialite mother, she wanted for nothing. She married her sweetheart and had a son she named Raul, after her father. But soon Ibis’s charmed existence darkened. Caught up in the thick of the Cuban Revolution, her family fled the country to avoid persecution under Fidel Castro’s political regime. Ibis stayed behind in Cuba with her son and her husband, who was an ardent communist and Castro supporter. After several years separated from her parents and siblings, Ibis planned a solo trip to the United States to visit them—a trip that would change her destiny. Trapped in the United States by the Bay of Pigs invasion and the ensuing embargo, Ibis could not return to her beloved homeland—or to her son Raul. In order to carry on, she immersed herself fully in her American life, marrying an American man, starting a new family, and building a successful career. But not one day passed when she didn’t think about Raul, left behind in Cuba, and wonder if she would ever see him again. Ibis’s story richly captures an émigré’s achievement of the American dream and her subsequent reconnection to the Cuban culture she thought she had lost long ago. It is a story of unwavering love, the power of family and cultural roots, and a quest to return to one’s truest self—a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever been separated from a loved one, a homeland, or even their own identity.

Ibis Lezcano Kramer was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. In 1961, destiny brought her to the United States, where she has lived ever since. She spent over two decades in a successful career in cosmetics. She is also the author of a novel, Love, Destiny, and Gardenias. She currently lives in Florida.