The Social Concept of Self-Awareness as Relate to Ana Menendez’s Traveling Madness
Ana Menendez is a journalist and an ardent scholar. She was born in 1970 and grew up in Florida after her parents had fled from Cuba in 1964 during the Cuban Revolution. Her family having first settled in Los Angeles, California, Menendez could not speak any other language apart from Spanish until she enrolled in Kindergarten. However, she later moved with her family to Florida where she attended high school and thereafter joined Florida International University from where she graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts in 1992. Her story Traveling Madness basically involves four main characters who are all “dreamers”. The story is based on and highlights the plight and disillusionment visited on the Cuban population by the communist party and the ways in which different people dealt with the economic and social adversities that typified the era of communism in Cuba. Self-aware of the dangers that confronted them, some wished to fly away to the moon; others desired to set sail and vanish; and others actually thought they could drill a hole from Havana to Miami (Delbanco and Cheuse) From the foregoing, while self-awareness is a critical aspect of personal development and self-exploration, it does not always bear positive fruits – sometimes it acts as a source of frustration, conflict and stress.
In spite of her age, Menendez has proven herself to be a prolific fiction writer; a fact attested to by her works of fiction such as In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd, Loving Che, and Adios, Happy Homeland. Borrowing from her Cuban heritage, Menendez employs a repertoire of literary tools to underscore the then emerging concept of social awareness among the deprived Cuban populace. Traveling Madness is basically about dreams and the perils inherent in both pursuing and not pursuing one’s ambitions – regardless of how unrealistic they seem. The story however seems biased, albeit implicitly, toward the importance of pursuing one’s dreams than living with the frustration and reproach of never having made an attempt (Delbanco and Cheuse). In order to achieve this, however, people must possess a strong sense of determination and resolve that essentially feeds on self-awareness. In addition, Menendez’s story admires self-reliant dreamers who depend on themselves to accomplish their dreams. Essentially, Menendez suggests that individuals are masters of their own destinies as well as happiness. The entire plot of the story acknowledges the need for an individual to explore life and one’s self and for believing in that which seems impossible. In any case, the author contends that individuals are defined by their dreams, hence the need for being self-conscious. From a more political viewpoint, the author seems to suggest that Cuba’s communist party was more sensitive to the individual and/or maybe more effective at the national level when in the real sense it was “nothing but a party of dreamers” (Menendez 592).
The author, with an enviable literary flair, paints a clear image of the hardships that ravaged Cuba at the height of Fidel Castro’s communist administration. During this era, the dark cloud of plight and disillusionment that hovered dangerously over the Cuban population ignited a strong sense of self-awareness among the Cubans about myths that shaped their culture, language, family, and about the strong urge to escape from Cuba, from dark memories, and, ultimately, from the self (Francis and Jones 405-406). However, before the ascendancy of Castro to power, Cuba was not the paradise that many exiles would later conjure; neither was it the “American brothel” that many ardent supporters of the Cuban Revolution believed it was – a small island inhabited by a deprived people, whose national pastime was to serve American holidaymakers at the Capital’s magnificent hotels, casinos and beaches. Rather, Cuba ranked high among the most advanced and prosperous nations in Latin America (Horowitz and Suchlick35-40).
For starters, Havana was a radiant, dynamic city. From early in the 20th century up to the birth of communism, Cuba’s economy thrived progressively mainly from the proceeds of exporting sugar to the United States. In terms of per capita income, Cuba was ranked 5th in the region, 3rd in life expectancy, 2nd in per capita ownership of telephones and vehicles, 1st in the number of TV sets for every inhabitant. Its literacy rate (76%) was the 4th highest in the entire Latin America. In addition, before the rise of communism, Cuba with regard to the ratio of doctors to population, Cuba ranked 11th worldwide. Income distribution was favorable in comparison to other Latin American countries (Horowitz and Suchlicki 45-56). From whichever angle you looked at it, Cuba had a fast growing middleclass that portended social prosperity and mobility. However, when communism took root in Cuba, the population was, as the story implicitly suggests, almost immediately sent hurtling down the recesses of poverty, misery and disillusionment. All the dreams that the populace had were shattered, their shining star extinguished. This occurrence gave rise to a huge wave of self-awareness that compelled individuals to leave their homes in search for greener pastures; some wanted to fly away while others desired to sail away, far from Cuba (Francis and Jones 405-406). According to the story, for instance, uncle Panchito holds the dream of flying all the way to the moon. However, unable to realize this ambition, he dies an angry, probably alcoholic man. His undoing is that he depended on external forces (the communist party) in his futile endeavor to fulfill his dream. Similarly, Grandfather Solomon has a dream of drilling a hole from Havana to Miami, but his dream is frustrated by the neighbors, law enforcers, and miscalculations. Grandfather Solomon never gets over his disappointment (Menendez 592).
Although times and circumstances have greatly changed, the nature and substance of self awareness is still as essential as it was during the era of the nascent communist party in Cuba. Self awareness provides a medium for individuals to explore their personalities, beliefs, value systems, natural inclinations as well as tendencies. Individuals are different in the way they respond to situations, learn, and process information. Consequently, occasional self-reflection is vital in order for individuals to acquire better insight into their selves. In the story, although most of the characters (“dreamers”) their sense of self awareness has inspired them to set goals that will motivate and empower them to change their lives radically. Some of these goals are however incredibly impossible, but a man has got to dream and dream big. Self awareness is therefore as important today as it was centuries ago, if not more.
According to the modernist self awareness theory, when individuals focus their attention on their selves, they are able to evaluate and relate their current behavior to their internal values and standards. It is only then that they become self-conscious that they are evaluating their selves from an entirely objective angle. As emphasized in the story, human beings are as complex as they are diverse (Menendez 592). Therefore, to strengthen their sense of self awareness, individuals ought to develop a deep understanding of themselves in many areas. The characters used by the author – including Uncle Panchito, Grandfather Solomon, Severino, and Matias – all seem to place high value upon self-reflection on such areas as personal values, personality traits, emotions, habits, and the psychological desires that drive their behavior. Though they ultimately come out as just “dreamers”, self awareness has enabled them realize that abilities, desires and circumstances vary so that each one of them sticks to his cause (Delbanco and Cheuse).
The author furthermore uses the “dreamers” to stoke self awareness in her audience by highlighting the fact that people do not normally change their personalities, needs and values on the bases of whatever they learn about themselves (Demetriou and Kazi 306-310). Rather, a good understanding of one’s personality helps him or her scan for situations in which they thrive, besides helping them avoid potentially stressful situations and being misled by others of supposedly nobler opinions. Self awareness also enables, fir instance, a highly introverted individual to avoid applying for a sales position and instead seek a position that suits his or her personality. In her story, Menendez suggests that every person can identify with one or more habits that decrease his or her interpersonal effectiveness. In the corporate world, managers who have a habit of never consulting their junior staff prior to making work-related decisions may find themselves unable to build the staff’s commitment to the already made decisions. Their decision making skills will most likely suffer too because of poor self-reflection on the part of the negligent manager’s habit. In the story, the four “dreamers” hardly consulted and the end result of their schemes and dreams was illogical, almost unrealistic ambitions.
Maslow and a legion of other social scholars identified an array of psychological needs that direct people’s behaviors, including the need for self esteem, belongingness, affection, achievement, power and control, and self-actualization. The importance of knowing the strongest needs with regard to behavior modification is that people are able to know exactly how such needs impact on their interpersonal relationships. During, the communist revolution in Cuba as alluded to in Menendez’s story, some people portrayed a high hunger for power and anything that symbolizes status (Menendez 592). The story is inundated with people who demand to be respected, and want privileges that people of lower social statuses cannot have. The characters in the story are driven by the need to leave home and pursue things that they can never have back at home. Eventually, when they fail to satisfy their needs through their various schemes, they frustrated, conflicted and stressed out; some even end up dead. What they fail to realize is that each great man is unique (Demetriou and Kazi 318-322).
Ana Menendez story underlines the proposition that self-awareness, though utterly integral in personal progress, is not always desirable. Admittedly, the author presents her main characters as knowledgeable of the fact that all people are different, with different dreams and fates. Nonetheless, none of the character is able to use his sense of self-awareness to redeem himself from the throes of destitution that communism has plunged him.

Works Cited
Menendez, Ana. In Cuba I was a German Shepherd (Traveling Madness). Harper
Collins, 2001.
Delbanco, Nicholas and Cheuse, Alan . Traveling Madness. Accessed 05 November,
2013, from Demetriou, Andreas and Kazi, S. Self-awareness in g (with processing efficiency and reasoning). Intelligence, 34, 297–317, 2006.
Francis, L., & Jones, S. Social class and self-esteem. Journal of Social Psychology,
136,405-406, 1995.
Horowitz, Irving-Louis and Suchlicki, Jaime. Cuban Communism: 1959-2003 Transaction Publishers, 2003.