If you haven’t heard the name Edel Rodriguez before, you’ve almost certainly seen his work. Think back to the bright orange cartoon of a melting Donald Trump on the cover of Time magazine in 2016, or subsequent images of the former president holding the severed head of Lady Liberty or draped in a Klan robe. Rodriguez is perhaps the most visible anti-fascist political artist working in America now. But 44 years ago, he was a Cuban refugee arriving on the Florida coast.
I’m in a generational and cultural crowd that saw The Motorcycle Diaries in arthouse theatres, attempted to read all 700 pages of the famous Che biography in college, and talked about communism and anarchy in public long before there was a “leftist” side of TikTok. My knowledge of Cuba is all broad political strokes drawn to score emblematic points against the USA’s foreign policy. I admit to not giving much thought to what the personal experiences of Cubans are like.
But that’s what Worm is about. The personal is political, as the saying goes, but the political is personal, too. In harsh tricolor panels, this graphic memoir gives us a view of how Cuba’s politics affect the daily lives of regular people, and the resulting refugee paradox–people who visit the country they fled to aid its economy.
The story of his early upbringing and his family’s flight to the US is interesting enough, but Rodriguez goes on to draw a direct line from his early life in Cuba to his loud artistic opposition to Trump’s presidency and the increasingly fascist flavors contaminating global politics now. He’s thoughtful and honest about some of the less pleasant truths about immigration, even though it’s also clear that coming to America was an enormous positive for Rodriguez and his community. There’s a lot of nuance here, which seems increasingly hard to come by in any discussion of history and politics lately.
All that and I still have no idea what I really think of this book. All I know is that it got me thinking and wondering and empathizing in a way I hadn’t before, and I appreciate the challenge.
Continued safe passage and sharp pens to Worm.
(First review of the new year, beautiful people! Welcome back! This was a nice start to the year, and if you choose to read it, remember that if you buy it here, we get paid a lil’ commission from Bookshop, and also that your local library probably has it for free. I’m excited for what 2024 has in store for us all bookishly speaking, so go and read something good! Peace!)
Equal Opportunity Reader 