DCG Book Club – “Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter” by Ada Ferrer 2026-Non fiction

Brown bag lunch 12:30 – Book discussion begins 1:00 in the Genealogy library

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From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cuba: An American History comes an “intimate” (Time) memoir about migration, separation, and the love of one family forcing its way through the fissures of history.

In 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power, Ada Ferrer’s mother made the agonizing decision to flee Cuba with her infant daughter, Ada, and to leave behind her nine-year-old son, Poly. That moment was but a ripple in a much larger story of a world historical revolution. Yet, in another more intimate family history, that choice was a crossroads, ultimately inseparable from who and what they all became.

In this “stirring” (The New York Times Book Review) and “beautiful” (NPR), memoir, Ferrer masterfully shifts between her roles as historian and family member, weaving a multigenerational tale that reaches into the past to understand the circumstances and choices that led to the present. We see key historical events through the eyes of the family: the grandmother who raised Poly after Ada’s departure, a Black woman born a year after the end of slavery in Cuba; Ada’s parents, forced to invent themselves anew in a foreign land; and two brothers left behind—Poly and another, once-secret brother named Juan José, both of whose lives were marked irrevocably by revolution and family separation.

From Cuba to the United States and then back again, the book unpacks the experience and emotion of migration, in the moment and over the long-term, for those who left and those who stayed. Using a treasure trove of letters written across the gulf of family separation and found after the death of Ada’s parents, as well as government documents acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests, Ferrer offers us a profound reflection on belonging, memory, and the lasting imprint of history.

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To find a copy of the book, we recommend a public library, audible.com, Amazon, local bookstores, eBay, AddAll.com, betterworldbooks.com, thriftbooks.com and other locations for used books.

During the Book Club Meeting, the next book will be selected. Click here for a list of what’s been suggested and what has already been discussed. Suggestions welcome. Email Suzanne.SPeterson at gmail.com.