“Are you a cubanita?” Papi asked me. I was twelve, and it was a summer in the early 1970s. We were on the sidewalk in front of my grandmother’s house in southwest Miami, la souwesera as Cubans call it. Papi and my uncle leaned on the chain link fence chatting about Cuba, reminiscing. I stopped outlining my hopscotch squares in chalk to contemplate Papi’s question. I was fairly certain the right answer was, yes. But perhaps they would correct me, tell me the answer was, no. How could I be a cubanita if I didn’t live in Cuba? Even though my parents called it home, it didn’t seem we would ever get back there. Home was Pittsburgh. 442 Winton Street. I finally answered my dad. “Sure.” But I didn’t believe it. I didn’t know what I was other than a technician, stepping in and out of two cultures and two languages with a flip of a mental switch.

Miami was home briefly in 1962 after our exile, and then we moved north. We visited Miami every summer, but it was Cuba that lived on in our home and grew in my heart. Today, an old map of Havana I found on eBay hangs on my wall, an address circled in red: Libertad 279. It was my parents’ address when Castro came to power. I still shake my head at the irony of living on a street named Liberty when communism came to town.

After Papi passed away, my mom moved to Miami Beach. Royal palm trees, the sea, the lively chatter of Spanish, her sister; she’s surrounded by all things that evoke home. Her friend Raquel told me the city is the elephant burial ground for Cubans. As they age, the craving for their homeland grows stronger and Miami is as close as they can get to Havana, a substitute for the real thing lying just beyond their reach.

My concept of home remains slippery. Pittsburgh stopped being home a long time ago. Our current home is in South Carolina, and we hope Oregon, where our sons live, is our future home. I daydream our next house will be white on the outside with a turquoise front door. Inside, I’ll use the colors of a Cuban parrot – red, orange, green and splashes of blue to represent the sea that surrounds the island. The essence of Cuba is portable.