Bio

Elena Aguilar was born in London, England in 1969. She is the daughter of a Jewish-American woman and a Costa Rican man who could not live in their respective countries because of the Cold War politics of the 1960s. She was raised in a working-class suburb amongst immigrants from Jamaica, India, and Pakistan. After the military coups in South America in the mid-1970s, Aguilar’s mother became involved in the solidarity movement and their house filled with the music, stories, and foods of Chilean and Argentinian exiles.

In 1979, Aguilar moved to California with her mother and younger brother. She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she majored in History and Latin American Studies.

After graduating, she moved to Cuba where she worked for Radio Havana from January 1993 to March 1994. A Hard Rain: A Memoir of Revolution, Romance, and a Radio Station is about how this year transformed Elena’s life.

Since 1995, Aguilar has taught in the Oakland Public Schools. From 1998 to 2000 she also attended the University of California, Berkeley, and received a Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology. Aguilar lives in Oakland with her husband and son.