Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey
Cartoonist: Edel Rodriguez
Publisher: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company
Publication Date: November 2023
There’s a classic American story of the immigrant who leaves home to come to the U.S. for better opportunities, safety, or freedoms. We’ve all heard it before. It’s as classic as burgers at the backyard barbeque, and, unfortunately, as common as the rhetoric used to demonize these same groups of immigrants. Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez adds its unique voice to this varied, beautiful, and essentially American storytelling.
Edel Rodriguez is a designer, artist, and activist whose work can be found on Time Magzine covers as well as a plethora of book covers. His work became somewhat famous during Trump’s first presidency as Rodriguez used art as a form of protest. One of his most well known pieces depicts Trump holding the decapitated head of Lady Liberty and can often be found at protests. With Worm, Rodriguez turns this art towards telling the story of his childhood and his family’s eventual escape from Cuba, though his career as a visual artist and activist can be felt throughout the entire book.
The story follows a pretty straightforward construction of a graphic memoir; we focus on Rodriguez’s childhood then move forward as he ages and eventually leaves Cuba. The very beginning of this book changes that organization slightly. It starts with a historical accounting of the Cuban revolution. This choice contextualized a lot of the tone of the book as well as the historical moment he was living in. Typically, these moments can seem shoehorned in by editors afraid that a “general audience” won’t understand the historical context of the situation. In Worm’s case, it read more as a setting of the position that Rodriguez takes on his birth country; a realistic accounting of what it was like for many people on this island.
This account, as we go through the book, is never explicitly anti-Cuba as a lot of American propaganda has been, nor does it support the communist regime. Often, the book pushes against a government that treats its most vulnerable populations with derision, fear, and distrust. The stories of Rodriguez’s father finding cameras to make a living, the trips to the doctor to get rid of a parasite, the constant scrambling and fighting to find food or medicine gives the book a dramatic, frantic energy. Interspersed with moments of familial joy, this story is explicitly Cuban but is immediately recognizable by anyone who lives without.
As the book moves forward and his family decides to leave the country when Castro opens the Mariel port, the book’s energy continues to ripple. The journey to the boat that Rodriguez’s cousin procures and the wait to get to Florida, feels similar to stories of escaping war-torn areas. This is masterfully done by Rodriguez, as the story makes clear the connections between escaping the violence of actual war and the violence of a repressive government. The weight feels right and balanced and fair. By this point in the story, leaving Cuba is the only option we understand as readers and the only option left for Rodriguez’s family.
The thick black or white gutters throughout the book dividing the images are fascinating too. These are often filled with writing as much of the book looks similar to comics journalism or early comics that used gutter space for narration. This makes sense with Rodriguez’s background in journalism and works for much of the story. It’s also a great connection between the story being told and the art. The only places it becomes difficult is in the design of word balloons along with the narration. There are a few times where it isn’t clear which dialogue is coming first or there is dialogue happening that is responding to something we read afterwards. These moments are few but noticeable in an otherwise tight comic, especially one with such close attention to the art.
As expected from a professional visual artist, the art throughout the book is stunning. The drawings at times take on a propaganda-like style, but the images are turned to criticize rather than support an oppressive regime. At other times, the work is representative of the moods of characters, their fear or worry, and of the events taking place. The shadows get darker when it’s a difficult part of the journey, things become obscured when there is suspicion or hiding.
With communism being such a distinct focus in the book, it is unsurprising that bright red, along with a camo green, are utilized throughout. What is surprising is how Rodriguez uses the color to connect with Cuban identity in beautifully complex ways. Most of the time it is easy to see the connections between the color red and what is happening in the text like when members of the military come to arrest someone in El Gabriel and they are colored red while Rodriguez and his mother are not. The connection between the communist party and the military is obvious here. Other times, though, that color connection is less clear. Rodriguez’s mother wearing a red bandana and skirt with the rest of her clothing either not colored in or green stands out as a good example. Here, it feels more like the color is a shield rather than an identity, something being used to keep suspicion off the family. Whole scenes are colored in red like the sunrise before landing in America and other times small parts of the world like a bike, apple, or flag are colored with the only bright color used in the book.
This is the most powerful and lasting visual addition that Rodriguez uses in the book. It permeates most pages making pages without red stand out more explicitly. The color shifts meaning and presentation as something that is inviting to dangerous to memory given the context of the page and the images inside. This use of color is gorgeous as it continuously plays with a reader’s expectations and understanding of space. It also suggests that things aren’t as straightforward as we sometimes want to make them. Immigration is hard and being away from a home is heart breaking and standing up to a government that is trying to oppress you is even more complicated.
The last thing I’ll mention about the use of red is a specific scene later in the book when an adult Rodriguez has a run in with undercover police officers in New York. The use of red here that connects back to his experience as a child in Cuba is striking. He doesn’t need to explicitly make connections between the oppression he is experiencing in New York and the memories of being in Cuba, but allows the art to do so instead. Its subtle but clear and gorgeously effective.
The end of the book deserves a special shoutout because the narrative arc takes a stark shift away from the story of Rodriguez’s immigration into the U.S. As many memoirs of immigration end, we see what Rodriguez has done with his time in America. He has become an artist and visual designer, but the end of the book decides to focus primarily as a conversation about the art and resistance he did during Trump’s first presidency. This move mirrors the beginning of the book which gives us a historical background by giving us a reflection of the historical moment Rodriguez is living in while creating the book. This choice to focus on ways in which he is resisting oppression and hate, connects to the ways that Cuba transformed just before his birth. Then the final chapter has Rodriguez’s father explain the true reason they had to leave Cuba and the kinds of resistance his father did in Cuba to the kinds of resistance he is performing now, combine together in powerfully prescient ways.
This ending leaves the reader with options for how to push against a tide of rising fascism, hatred, division, and violence. Edel Rodriguez’s Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey, pushes us to see the parasite that has gotten into our blood stream, slowly snaking up our legs to take over everything. He tells us that it’s too late to just pull it out, we have attack it at its source. This is the story of one American’s life as he tries to make sense of where he came from, his family, and what responsibility that leaves him today. It’s about trying to keep a family together, about loosing everything to survive. It’s about all of us, now, as we look at the failures of spaces that have promised to keep us safe in the past. It’s about resistance. It’s an American story, one that some want to pretend doesn’t exit. But Edel Rodriguez’s story is all of ours and he tells it fearlessly. We should listen.
Verdict: Buy and Resist
Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey is available now
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