Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet and author. Her mom is from Cuba and dad from California. She spent many summers in Cuba so she was introduced to Spanish poetry. Born September 2, 1951 in Pasadena California. Before her writing career, she was a tenured professor of agronomy at California polytechnic university. Human rights advocate. She also is a winner if many, many awards. Margarita Engle raises awareness about the Three Wars of Independence through her works The Surrender Tree, Firefly Letters, and Tropical Secrets. Engle’s text The Surrender Tree tells you a different side of the wars. Rosa is a nurse that helps people that are hurting from the wars. She can't go to the camps so she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her. Rosa does her best to heal as many as possible, but who can heal a whole country torn apart by war? Rosa: “The little war? How can there be a little war? Are some deaths, smaller than others, leaving mothers who weep a little less? Josè is hopeful that soon there will be another chance to gain independence from Spain, and freedom for slaves. But all I see is death, always the same, always enormous, never less, no matter how many women come to help me, asking …show more content…
With her slave Celia, who lost her family in Africa. (The Firefly letters). “Spanish sea captains and Arab merchants are not the only men who think of girls as livestock.” (Pg 2, Margarita Engle). In this time girls and women would be sold just like livestock, they would do whatever there owner told them to do. Women and girls had no rights or freedoms. Women were slaves in Cuba. In this story Engle tells about a person that went to Cuba to find out how they work and there early women's