American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood

Amazon.com Price: $9.92 (as of 10/11/2019 12:55 PST- Details)

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

Description

In her father’s Peruvian circle of relatives, Marie Arana was once taught to be a proper lady, yet in her mother’s American circle of relatives she learned to shoot a gun, break a horse, and snap a chicken’s neck for dinner. Arana shuttled easily between these deeply separate cultures for years. But only when she immigrated with her circle of relatives to america did she come to needless to say she was once a hybrid American whose cultural identity was once split in half. Coming to terms with this split is at the heart of this graceful, beautifully realized portrait of a kid who “was once a north-south collision, a New World fusion. An American Chica.”

Here are two vastly different landscapes: Peru—earthquake-prone, charged with ghosts of history and mythology—and the sprawling prairie lands of Wyoming. In these wealthy terrains resides a colorful cast of members of the family who bring Arana’s historia to life…her proud grandfather who sooner or later simply stopped coming down the stairs; her dazzling grandmother, “clicking through the house as if she were making her way onstage.” But most important are Arana’s parents: he a brilliant engineer, she a gifted musician. For more than half a century these two passionate, strong-willed people struggled to conquer the bicultural tensions in their marriage and, after all, to prevail.

Related products

Home » Shop » Books » Subjects » Politics and Social Sciences » Social Sciences » Specific Demographics » Hispanic American Studies » American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood

Recent Products