Hyphenated Identities: The Challenges of Living in-between

Today¿s world is marked by migration and by the continuous redrawing of geographical and cultural borders. Therefore it is only natural that the stories that need to be told nowadays are those of immigrants, more than the almost outdated myths of the majority of national literatures. Dreaming in Cuban (1992) and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) are two original examples of Cuban respectively Dominican migrants, who fight for a new existence in the US. Junot Díaz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, while Cristina García has become one of the most important U.S.-Latina writers dealing with the future of multicultural America. Exile prevents the main characters of both novels from fulfilling their unnamed desires. It is only by going back to their roots that they manage to come to terms with their identity as people living in between two worlds. The analysis of topics like political regime, white supremacy, art as a means of redefining one¿s self, the relation with the mother, the role of the grandmother, magic realism demonstrates how a trip back to the homeland enables each character to create mechanisms to cope with their new identity. Migrants all around the world will sooner or later identify with the issues discussed in this study.