In Garcia's debut novel, Dreaming in Cuban, three generations of a Cuban-American family are torn apart by their differing views on topics ranging from the Cuban revolution and Fidel Castro to their new life in Brooklyn.

Similar to Garcia, Julia Alvarez explores the ties and divisions within families as they adapt to a new culture while reflecting on their past in their homeland. In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, four young sisters leave the Dominican Republic with their parents, attending prep school before building their lives in a new world.

Gabriel García Márquez's renowned novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, chronicles a family's history where extraordinary events occur alongside everyday happenings in the fictional town of Macondo. As a master of magical realism, Márquez weaves tales of a town afflicted by insomnia and a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry.

Cuban-American author Oscar Hijuelos focused on music in his exploration of the immigrant experience. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, follows two young Cuban musicians who journey from Havana to New York in 1949, aiming to become mambo stars in the United States. Both Hijuelos and Garcia are fascinated by music's ability to evoke emotions and moods such as nostalgia and longing.