Editing Lydia Cabrera (section)

==Coming to the United States==

She left the country in 1960 shortly after the revolution and never returned. She left as an [[exile]], first going to Madrid and later settling in Miami, FL., where she remained  the rest of her life. Ms. Cabrera received several honorary doctorate degrees, including one from the University of Miami in 1987. Cabrera describes her stories as "transpositions," but they went much further than a simple retelling. She recreated and altered elements, characters, and themes of African and universal folklore, but she also modified the traditional stories by adding details of Cuban customs of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Toward the last years of her life, Lydia Cabrera worked diligently to edit and publish the many notes she had collected during more than thirty years of research in Cuba.

The real reason why she left is still unknown. Some claim that she left because of the lifestyle the revolution was trying to instill. For many years, Cabrera had stated her dislike for the revolution and its [[communist]] ideology.<ref>Rodríguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 14.</ref> Others claim she left because members of the Abakuá were hunting her down since she had made their [[secret society]] public.<ref>Rodríguez-Mangual, E. "Introduction," 15.</ref> Although the reason why she left is unknown, she never returned and spent the rest of her life living in Miami until her death on September 19, 1991.