Reaction: Becoming Maria by Sonia Manzano

Book Cover for Sonia Manzano's memoir

I remember being a little girl and watching Sesame Street with my eyes glued to the television while my mouth sung out loud in the living room, ABC's, 123's.  My grandma would walk in and sit with my grandpa and smile when Maria would come on.  She'd say, "Mira esta muchacha Puerto Riqueña tan bonita."  My grandma thought Maria was a  beautiful Puerto Rican young lady.  "Como la Lola Beltran, verdad Salazar?"  Beautiful like Lola Beltran!

Maria's accent was like grandma's and tia Cecilia's and Mama Mary's and grammo Rita's. Our television was saturated in Spanish because grandma's favorite shows were on Telemundo and Univision.  Spanish was constantly flowing through our home.  When the television wasn't on, Paulino Bernal was ranting and raving over Spanish radio.  It was enough to drive all us cousins out of the house and into the yard while grandma was left inside to her limpiezas.

I couldn't wait to read, "Becoming Maria" because she was the first Latina that I saw on television. She was the first woman who spoke like all the other women in my family.  We were all on television through Maria. Although, as a child I did not know about Puerto Ricans.  I thought everyone who spoke Spanish was like us Mexicans.

From surviving an alcoholic and abusive father growing up in the South Bronx to being unafraid to stand up to ridiculousness to being aware of racism hidden in people's pockets to becoming the representation of a body of people on a stage in the public's eye.  This book held me until the last page.

Can you tell me how to get...how to get to Sesame Street?  Getting to a place of acknowledgement comes with a great price and the journey is difficult.  I absolutely recommend this book and love that it lives on my bookshelf for the rest of time.  I hope that she writes another.

I hope one day to meet this muchacha tan bonita como la Lola Beltran!

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Sometimes it begs to be told in different colors.

Writing everyday.

Reaction: The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

"I was a little girl and then I wasn't. I was a bacha posh and then I wasn't. I was a daughter and then I wasn't. I was a mother and then I wasn't."

There were moments in the course of reading this book that had me paralyzed.  This was more often a sobering read than it was a tragic one.  I followed Rahim(a) with an attentive eye, finding connections with her bacha posh life and mine as a young tomboy.  When she was changed back into a girl, it was with a heavy heart that I read the lines and understood that it was only because she and her sisters were to be married off in exchange for money to further fuel her father's opium addiction which soon became their mother's.  

I cannot imagine putting a price on the body of my young daughter - Ages 12, 13, and 14 Rahima and her sisters were married off into the life of a warlord family to bear children, to lose life, to lose the blindness of a sheltered life, to taste the richness of an open window at the seat of parliament.  Often, I would close the book and exhale loudly.   I would press my hands onto the pages wanting one of them to reach out and not have to endure the life of a young Afghan girl in war torn Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Following Shekiba through her early 20th century life, the great great grandmother of Rahim(a), I admired her skill, her endurance and her hope.  She often reminded me of my grandmother in her incessant will to survive and her faith in God.  Also, a bacha posh for a time, Shekiba knew the importance of her life in guarding the king's harem.  

Through a mighty tragic event she was spared a stoning, but the concubine she was to be protecting did not.  Hashimi describes in artful detail the stoning of this young woman and with each stone that belted the life out of her, I almost could not read on.  Stoning was (and is) true for so many woman that stood outside of the box of rules ordered of them.  Shekiba could be described as a mighty warrior woman who found her place, at last, among the backdrop of an impossible journey.  

Although, this was a work of fiction, it still brought me to my knees to read of these women.  I admired their hope and their courage.  I recommend this book.  Don't give up.

The Fabric Of Books In Our Lives

Often, I find that literature bridges a divide between me and someone with which I might not otherwise have anything in common.  Books have always been my escape yet, in recent years, they have become a platform of understanding between someone of a different world view or a different country altogether. 

This weekend I noticed a woman pronouncing her W’s as V’s and wondered if she was Russian or German or if she was just pressing through a speech impediment.  My mind became hooked on how we say Volkswagen, but it is really pronounced Volksvaguhn.  From there, my mind darted off into thinking she was maybe Romanian and that she grew up in Germany and made her way to the states as an adult becoming a teacher of cultural studies.  Her hands and how she carefully placed her eyes on things told me otherwise.  Maybe she was Slavic. 

I am enraptured by language.  This has only come about because of a Linguistics course I took in college years ago where I couldn’t stop finding ways to use fricatives, labiodentals, glottal stops, interdentals, and nasals in sentences.  For years, after the course, I analyzed ways of forming words in my mouth only to tell people that what I was saying had a Gaelic or Germanic root.  It was the most fun I had ever had with words.  A lot of what I learned in that class has been lost; however, I can refer to certain file cabinets in my mind and remember some of the more exciting elements of this linguistics creature.

I could spend hours listening to this woman speak or trying to decipher from what country was her accent.  This is where forming a bridge from one world to another is all the result of reading.  I approached her gently.

I imagined she may have been sitting in a garden, curious and timid.  The years pressed into her skin and her stories far hidden in her throat.  With each swallow she pushed one story down to bring to the surface another story – her arm outstretched to her blind daughter. 

“May I ask what country your accent is from?”  I never dare to ask, what country are you from? because I think it to be terribly rude to assume someone is not from America just because of their accent.  Her eyes lit up as if someone was asking her to dance.  Indeed, we would dance, but not with our feet.   

“Iran.  I am from Iran.”

“From Tehran?” I pressed.

Joy overtook her face.  The fluorescent lightbulbs from the ceiling were now visible in her eyes. “Yes, but vy?  Howv do you know?  You have been there?  I am surprised you know this place.”  A connection.

“No, I have not been there.  I read a book by Nafisi.  Reading Lolita in Tehran.  It is the only exposure I have had to Iran.”  A book she had surely heard of.  I hoped.

“Dr. Nafisi!  Yes!  Such a good book.”   I had now entered her curious garden and if she offered tea, I would joyfully oblige.

We continued our talk and my husband joined us as did his aunt whom informed us on how she had met this incredible woman.  She offered me stories as a friend would offer tea.  I humbly accepted.  I feel inclined to share her stories with you, but it is not rightfully my place quite yet.  I hope it is not the last of our encounters.