Days of Awe

   The protagonist in Days of Awe, Alejandra San Jose, struggles with her identity and her self-belonging. She grew up believing she and her family were Catholic. After revisiting Cuba as an interpreter, she discovered that her family was not Catholic but instead Jewish. Her family was known as "converses" which were Jews that converted to Christianity in order to survive. After learning this, Ale struggled with a bit of an identity crisis. Who was she? She was now faced with the truth of being Cuban and American and Catholic and Jewish.
   I can somewhat relate to this "identity of crisis" in a way because I am adopted. Luckily I was never faced with the "crisis" because I grew up always knowing that I was adopted. My parents read me books ever since I was a baby. There was never a day that went by that I did not know I was adopted and I grew up never thinking anything about it. I thought it was completely normal. I had a friend who did not find out she was adopted until she was 15. She had always known that I was adopted because I was always open about it. I remember one day when she called me and told me that her parents had just told her that she was adopted. I mean talk about identity crisis.
   In the beginning, Ale says that being Cuban was just an accident of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel like that could be true for some people, depending on the circumstance but I feel like you are whoever you want to be. No matter what the circumstance or where you are born. However, I do feel that it is important to at least acknowledge where you came from and appreciate the culture for what it is.
   Just like finding out you are adopted after believing that you came from your mom's stomach for your whole life, learning that you are a different faith can be just as rattling and cause you to question everything about yourself.
   I enjoyed this book, I did think it was a little too in detail for me though. I like how I could compare and contract this book with The Farming of Bones. They both had a lot of the same themes such as "self-belonging" and memories. I found it interesting how they both ended with water playing a significant, ironic role.