When we go to Starbucks today and ask for “caramel,” we know exactly what that means: some fancy, sweet, nutty thing melted to perfection, drizzled on foam, costing eight dollars and requiring a name on the cup that’s never spelled right. But when we were kids? Caramelo meant everything. “¿Quieres un caramelo?” Sí… pero that could mean anything. Here.....take a Naranjita, that little orange gummy with sugar crystals that stuck to your molars for three business days. Or a PE-TER—pronounced PE-tear—a chocolate bar that lived somewhere between a Hershey’s and a prayer. Or chicle, as in Chiclets, because to us that wasn’t a brand, that was a food group. To a non-Cuban, this language sounded like it came from another planet. But we knew. Our mothers knew. Our grandmothers invented it. Halloween was serious business. Those plastic costumes with the sharp-edged masks that cut into your face, the rubber band snapping your ears, and the smell of suffocation mixed with excitement. We went ...