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In Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set in Tampa's Ybor City in 1929, there's an exchange between the lector, who has come from Cuba to read to cigarmakers in a factory, and two women. Juan Julian is the lector. Ofelia is the factory owner's wife, and Marela is her youngest daughter.
Ofelia: How do you like Tampa so far, Juan Julian?
Juan Julian: Well, I . . . I . . . It's very . . . It seems like it's a city in the making.
Ofelia: That it is. We are still trying to create a little city that resembles the ones we left back in the island.
Juan Julian: It's curious, there are no mountains or hills here. Lots of sky I have noticed . . . And clouds . . . The largest clouds I've ever seen, as if they had soaked up the whole sea. It's all so flat all around. That's why the sky seems so much bigger here and infinite. Bigger than the sky I know back home. And there's so much light. There doesn't seem to be a place where one could hide.
Marela: One can always find shade in the park. There's always a hiding place to be found, and if not, one can always hide behind light.
Juan Julian: Really. And how does one hide behind light?
(The women laugh nervously.)
Marela: Depends what you are hiding from.
Juan Julian: Perhaps light itself.
Marela: Well, there are many kinds of light. The light of fires. The light of stars. The light that reflects off rivers. Light that penetrates through cracks. Then there's the type of light that reflects off the skin. Which one?
Juan Julian: Perhaps the type that reflects off the skin.
Marela: That's the most difficult one to escape.