What are the motifs in Waiting for Snow in Havana - Confessions of a Cuban Boy by Carlos Eire?

According to Carlos, denial is his survival mechanism of choice. While the world is changing around him, his classmates are disappearing from the country one by one, bombs are falling around him, and supplies are being rationed, he believes that he can stay unchanged. Sooner or later, he says, "denial can deny even itself." One day, after he arrives in Florida, as he's being interviewed by a family that is considering taking him in until his mother arrives, he starts sobbing and cannot stop. He misses his parents, his grandparents, his comic books, and the Cuban sun. He misses everything and everybody, and he cannot stop crying.