A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir

Amazon.com Price: $13.43 (as of 10/11/2019 12:34 PST- Details)

Categories: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Description

A coming-of-age memoir by a Colombian-Cuban woman about shaping lessons from home into a new, queer life
 
In this lyrical, coming-of-age memoir, Daisy Hernández chronicles what the women in her Cuban-Colombian circle of relatives taught her about love, money, and race. Her mother warns her about envidia and men who seduce you with pastries, even as one tía bemoans that her niece is turning out to be “una india” instead of an American. Another auntie instructs that when two people are close, they’re bound to turn out to be like uña y mugre, fingernails and dirt, and that no, Daisy’s father isn’t godless. He’s simply praying to a candy dish that may be traced back to Africa. 

These lessons—rooted in women’s experiences of migration, colonization, y cariño—define in evocative detail what it means to grow up female in an immigrant home. In one story, Daisy sets out to defy the dictates of race and class that preoccupy her mother and tías, but dating women and transmen, and coming to identify as bisexual, leads her to unexpected questions. In another piece, NAFTA shuts local factories in her hometown on the outskirts of New York City, and she begins translating unemployment forms for her parents, moving between English and Spanish, in addition to private and collective fears. In prose that may be both memoir and statement, Daisy reflects on reporting for the New York Times as the paper is rocked by the biggest plagiarism scandal in its history and plunged into debates about the role of race in the newsroom.

A heartfelt exploration of circle of relatives, identity, and language, A Cup of Water Under My Bed is in the long run a daughter’s story of finding herself and her community, and of creating a new, queer life.

Related products

Home » Shop » Books » Subjects » Politics and Social Sciences » Social Sciences » Specific Demographics » Gay and Lesbian » Nonfiction » Bisexuality » A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir

Recent Products