History is undeniably dominated by its men, but the stories Elena Sheppard was brought up on were almost always about Cuba’s women—everyday women, whose names would be forgotten and buried along with their bones unless someone took the effort to remember them.

Cifuentes, Cuba, in the 1950s was nearly idyllic—at least that’s how Elena’s grandparents, Rosita and Gustavo Delgado, remember the Eden they left. When Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Gustavo was placed on a list of political undesirables, and by the end of 1960, the couple and their two daughters had fled to Florida, with nothing more than five dollars, and a suitcase each. The Delgados were certain they would return to Cifuentes within a few months, after Castro’s reign had run its course. But they never went back, and a piece

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