Waiting For Snow In Havana Summary

Waiting for Snow in Havana is a memoir by Carlos Eire. When Eire is 11 years old, he and his brother Tony are sent by themselves to the United States to escape the oppression of Fidel Castro. He is among 14,000 other Cuban children who are exiled without their parents. Children do not need security clearances, so they can get in quickly. For the parents, it takes months or sometimes years. It will be three-and-a-half years before Carlos' mother finally gets to America. His father never will.
The book opens on New Year's Day of the year Eire is 8. Batista has fled that morning, and Castro is in power. For the next few years, Eire will continue to live in Cuba, but nothing is the same after that. The memoir is an account of his life in Cuba for