In 'Keeper of My Kin,' Ada Ferrer struggles with being her mother's "chosen one"
In 'Keeper of My Kin,' Ada Ferrer struggles with being her mother's "chosen one"
In 'Keeper of My Kin,' Ada Ferrer struggles with being her mother's "chosen one"
Ada Ferrer reflects on the family separation that shaped her life, her brother’s painful childhood letters, and the burden of being the child who was chosen to leave Cuba.
In this episode, Ada Ferrer discusses how being taken from Cuba while her nine-year-old brother remained behind shaped her identity, her relationship to guilt, and her memoir Keeper of My Kin. Letters written by her brother reveal the pain of a separation their mother believed would be temporary. Ferrer also connects her family’s story to the wider experience of immigrant families separated across borders and considers the questions she still wishes she could ask her mother.
02:45
02:45
“I felt guilty for being the chosen one.”
05:36
05:36
Happiness that turns into sadness
07:58
07:58
Would she have made the same choice?
