Stories of transplantation

Cultural collisions with life in the United States

By:Susan Van Dongen

border="1" align="center" width="267" height="350" alt="Storyteller Carmen Deedy is one of those people who hears music in language, dialect and even in accents.">

size="-1" color="black"> Storyteller Carmen Deedy is one of those people who hears music in language, dialect and even in accents.

   There are some things about the American South that Northerners will just never understand — salted grits, the obsession with college football and certain curious expressions. Take, for example, the vernacularism storyteller Carmen Deedy uses to describe her harried state of mind:
   "We’re a bubble shy of plum," she says.
   This strange expression — which has something to do with construction — rolls out of her mouth like she was born in the Land of Cotton. But she wasn’t.
   Ms. Deedy was born in Cuba and in the early ’60s fled her native land along with 50 or 60 other Cuban families, to settle in Decatur, Ga. This is where she embarked on the "journey from ‘hola’ to ‘hey, y’all.’ "
   "There’s a part of me that’s Cuban, that I’ll never lose," she says. "But my heart and sensibilities are Southern."
   Carmen Deedy will bring a trunkful of her unique tales to the 8th Annual James Hess Folklore and Storytelling Festival, at the East Brunswick Public Library Dec. 2 and Dec. 3.
   The Dec. 2 performance — "Mi Casa Es Tu Casa" — will take the audience of adults and older teens on a fanciful journey from Havana to small-town Southern life in Decatur. Ms. Deedy’s hilarious stories are populated largely by her colorful family and their cultural collisions with life in the United States. The Dec. 3 program is geared to families with children ages 7 and over.
   The Peachtree State seems like a strange place for a community of Cuban refugees to settle, but Ms. Deedy said they were generously aided by a number of churches and synagogues there.
   "The First Baptist Church sponsored us," she says. "They found us a place to live and furnished it with beautiful things. Decatur has always been a little bit of a blue-blood town because of the university."
   Ms. Deedy — who came to the U.S. at age 3 — says her father had been a successful accountant in Cuba but, like many from that first generation of refugees, left his professional career behind for blue collar work.
   "My father went to work at the steel mill, first steel then plastic," Ms. Deedy says. "You had to leave your ego behind and do whatever you had to do. When you lose everything except your family, your priorities change. We were just happy that we were alive, we were together, we were able to eat, to find work and to rebuild our community."
   Ms. Deedy eventually discovered that the Cuban tradition of telling high-spirited stories around the dinner table mixed perfectly with Southerners’ yarn-spinning and tall tales.

border="1" align="center" width="280" height="325" alt="Ms. Deedy is the author of five children’s books, including her latest, "The Yellow Star," which recently won the Parents Choice Gold Award for literature.">

size="-1" color="black"> Ms. Deedy is the author of five children’s books, including her latest, "The Yellow Star," which recently won the Parents Choice Gold Award for literature.

   "It’s a little quirky, especially the ‘Southern gothic’ tradition," she says. "But it’s a wonderful oven to bake in."
   She began telling stories in 1989 at her daughter’s elementary school.
   "I just sat down and told stories off the top of my head," she says. "The teachers had left a pile of books for me to read aloud, but I didn’t even notice them."
   The kids — who can be her toughest audiences — loved her. A teacher friend at the school heard about Ms. Deedy’s engaging talent and encouraged her to do more, as well to try writing children’s books.
   Ms. Deedy has become quite the bard in the past decade, charming audiences across the country and in Canada. She was the hit of the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenn., and is a regular contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. Her 1995 collection Growing Up Cuban in Decatur, Ga., won accolades from Publishers Weekly. Ms. Deedy is also the author of five children’s books, including her latest, The Yellow Star, which recently won the Parents Choice Gold Award for literature.
   Ms. Deedy is one of those people who hears music in language, dialect and even in accents.
   "It fascinates me to hear different intonations of the same word," Ms. Deedy says. "For example, when I was in Maine I was ‘Caaa-maaan.’ Here in the south it’s ‘Cuh-muhn.’ "
   One of the highlights of her storytelling career was to do a prose version of King Lear at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
   "Here I am, a refugee, but with a passion for Shakespeare," she says. "I don’t want to seem like a braggart, but I love Shakespeare. I didn’t understand the Elizabethan language, but I heard music in it. After that performance (at the Folger), I thought ‘I can die happy.’ "
   About the only thing American that still makes Ms. Deedy sad is winter. She says if she’s not careful, the cold, short days can make her a little despondent. However, her family’s first experience with snow is a classic story Ms. Deedy loves to tell.
   "My father was so heroic," she says. "The snow was a little scary. We were not to touch it, he would touch it first. It’s such a poignant memory — my father was holding us back. But I often use snow as a metaphor in my stories."
   "Being Cuban, we were very loud, not shy at all," she says. "At first the American Southerners seemed so reserved. They appeared cold and distant compared to us. But like snow, they melted on contact."
   Carmen Deedy appears at the James Hess Folklore and Storytelling Festival at the East Brunswick Library, 2 Jean Walling Civic Center, East Brunswick, Dec. 2 at 8 p.m. and Dec. 3 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $15 for Dec. 2, $3-$7 for the Dec. 3 family matinee. For information, call (732) 390-6789. On the web: www.ebpl.org.