Federico García Lorca arrived in New York, accompanied by Fernando de los Ríos, on June 25, 1929, after a six-day voyage on the Olympic. During the voyage he wrote to his friend Carlos Morla Lynch, depressed, nostalgic, he says: “I do not know why I left; I ask myself a hundred times a day. I look at myself in the mirror of the cramped cabin and I don’t recognize myself. I look like another Federico.
In the fourteen letters that the poet wrote from New York and Havana to his parents, the story is toned down: “Dearest parents and brothers and sisters: Here I am in New York after a delightful and easy journey, thanks to Don Fernando, who has behaved so well towards me that everyone has taken him for my father. There is no greater affection or more solicitude, and you must all be grateful to him. I am very happy, overflowing with joy, and I have no other concern than to hear from you soon”. This is the first letter, dated June 28, 1929.