Native country of the heart :

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Title :

Native country of the heart : a memoir / Cherríe Moraga.

Title:

Native country of the heart :

Author:

Moraga, Cherríe

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

viii, 242 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

ISBN:

9780374219666

9781250251176

Production / Publication Information:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, [2019]

Contents:

Prologue: una salta pa'tras -- Coyote's daughter -- Something better -- Little rascals -- What ever happened to Norman Rockwell? -- The other side of the tracks -- Just eat your chicken -- Body memory -- Martin -- Mission girls -- Mind-field -- Don't ask, don't tell -- Nothing México couldn't cure -- Training ground -- Old school -- A rolling stone -- Like the heron -- The mother of the bride -- "A very nice man" -- Halloween shuffle 2003 -- A mother's dictum -- Elvira's country -- Sweet locura -- Send them flying home -- Sibangna -- Reunion -- Por costumbre -- Expressions -- Some place not home -- Now and zen -- When they lose their marbles -- The wisdom of dolphins -- Soft spots -- Sola con los dioses -- Coyote crossing -- Roundhouse -- For the record: an epilogue.

Summary:

"Writer and activist Cherríe Moraga's love letter to her 'unlettered' mother is also an intimate understanding of the U.S.-Mexican diaspora by the celebrated coeditor of the groundbreaking anthology This bridge called my back. Moraga's memoir begins with her mother, Elvira Isabel Moraga, who as a child, along with her siblings, was hired out by her own father to pick cotton in California's Imperial Valley. The lives of Cherríe and her mother, and of their people, are woven together in a story of critical reflection and deep personal revelation as Moraga charts her own coming to consciousness alongside the heartbreaking story of her mother's decline. As a young woman, Elvira left California to work as a cigarette girl in glamorous late-1920s Tijuana, where an ambiguous relationship with a wealthy white man taught her life lessons about power, sex, and opportunity. As Moraga charts her mother's journey--from impressionable young girl to battle-tested matriarch to, later on, old woman suffering under the yoke of Alzheimer's--she traces her own self-discovery of her queer body and lesbian identity, as well as her passion for activism and the history of her pueblo. As her mother's memory fails, Moraga unearths shards of what it means to be Mexican in the United States, of her diaspora's Indigenous origins, and of an American story of cultural loss. "--Dust jacket.

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-240).

Language:

English

Genre:

Biography.

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Personal Subject:

Moraga, Cherríe-Family.

Subject Term:

Mexican American women authors -- Biography.

BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	BIOGRAPHY MORAGA, CH.	31330008791133	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Chelmsford Public Library	BIOG/MORAGA	31480011252613	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Lawrence Public Library	BIO MOR	31549004958285	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Manchester-by-the-Sea Public Library	B MORAGA 2019	32124002014454	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Newburyport Public Library	BIOGRAPHY MORAGA C	32128003744365	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

"This memoir's beauty is in its fierce intimacy." --Roy Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review

One of Literary Hub 's Most Anticipated Books of 2019

From the celebrated editor of This Bridge Called My Back , Cherríe Moraga charts her own coming-of-age alongside her mother's decline, and also tells the larger story of the Mexican American diaspora.

Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir is, at its core, a mother-daughter story. The mother, Elvira, was hired out as a child, along with her siblings, by their own father to pick cotton in California's Imperial Valley. The daughter, Cherríe Moraga, is a brilliant, pioneering, queer Latina feminist. The story of these two women, and of their people, is woven together in an intimate memoir of critical reflection and deep personal revelation.

As a young woman, Elvira left California to work as a cigarette girl in glamorous late-1920s Tijuana, where an ambiguous relationship with a wealthy white man taught her life lessons about power, sex, and opportunity. As Moraga charts her mother's journey--from impressionable young girl to battle-tested matriarch to, later on, an old woman suffering under the yoke of Alzheimer's--she traces her own self-discovery of her gender-queer body and Lesbian identity, as well as her passion for activism and the history of her pueblo. As her mother's memory fails, Moraga is driven to unearth forgotten remnants of a U.S. Mexican diaspora, its indigenous origins, and an American story of cultural loss.

Poetically wrought and filled with insight into intergenerational trauma, Native Country of the Heart is a reckoning with white American history and a piercing love letter from a fearless daughter to the mother she will never lose.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Activist Moraga (coeditor, This Bridge Called My Back) tells the story of her mother, Elvira, in this compassionate memoir that explores family and cultural legacies. Moraga weaves her coming-of-age as a queer Mexican-American woman with the story of her mother, who spends her final years battling Alzheimer's. At the center of the narrative is Moraga's attempt to resurrect her family's Mexican and indigenous cultural legacies, both of which she and her mother came to distance themselves from in order to assimilate. Elvira came of age as a young woman in 1930s Tijuana, where she worked as a cigarette girl in casinos; in 1952, she gave birth to Moraga and followed the "dream of Suburban America" by moving the family to San Gabriel, Calif. In 1977, Moraga, who had become involved in women's and gay rights activism, moved to San Francisco. Two decades later, however, Moraga embraced her ancestry by falling in love with a Chicana woman named Celia, "allowing my return to the love of a Mexican woman in my life." During this time, Elvira reached the late stages of Alzheimer's, and Moraga prepared for her mother's death hoping she would finally embrace her own ethnicity. Moraga's captivating and perceptive memoir successfully conveys her belief that "we are as much of a place as we are of a people." (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

A queer Latina feminist focuses on her ferocious, survivor mother from Tijuana.In her moving portrait, Moraga (English/Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings, 2000-2010, 2011, etc.), the founder of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, examines her close but tortured relationship with her now-deceased mother. Elvira Isabel Moraga, who came of age in Tijuana's golden era in the 1920s, "was not the stuff of literature." The daughter of an "illusive trickster who shuttle[d] between worlds" and "rode the counterfeit borders of the Southwest with a vaquero flare of Mexican independence and macho bravado," Elvira and her numerous siblings, born on the American side of the border, were hired out by their father for menial labor, essentially limiting her education ("her inability to read and write well remained an open wound"). As a teenager, Elvira secured work until the mid-1930s as a hat-check-and-cigarette girl at a high-stakes gambling room in Tijuana, eluding the advances of the casino's predatory owner. Ultimately, she met and married a man named Joseph, a "functionary" who operated the South Pasadena Santa Fe Railroad station. Together, they and their children moved east of Los Angeles, embracing the suburban dream that characterized much of post-World War II America. Born in 1952, author Moraga offers mesmerizing details of growing up there and in San Gabriel, a mixed-race community, near her grandmother, who served as the locus of myriad visits by relatives. Coming to terms with her sexuality during a progressive social era almost derailed the author's relationship with her strict, volatile mother, but in the end, her mother assured her, "how could you think that there is anything in this life you could do that you wouldn't be my daughter?" The author's determination to learn Spanish and visit Mexico helped the two bond in her mother's later years, which were marked by Alzheimer's.A sympathetic portrait of Mexican-American feminism (both in mother and daughter) delivered in a poignant, beautifully written way. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Moraga remembers her difficult mother in a memoir that transcends chronology and the personal. An unlikely matriarch who picked cotton in the Imperial Valley as a child, Elvira supported her family by working in a casino in Tijuana during the Depression. After the family moved back to Southern California, Elvira married Moraga's father, a white man. Coeditor of the classic women of color feminist essay collection This Bridge Called My Back (1981) and a poet, playwright, academic, and queer activist, Moraga expands her narrative to explore her ethnic legacy, which extends to the lost Native legacy of the state of California. The strand threading throughout the tela (fabric) of this narrative is Elvira's Alzheimer's. With short chapters, a little poetry, and a little Spanish, Moraga weaves her and her mother's lives and spirits together in four sections devoted to the broad themes of becoming; family and carnal love; spirits and ghosts; and dementia, dreams, and dying. Moraga's determination to honor her mother while encouraging Mexican Americans to uncover and rescue their own forgotten legacies is a tour de force recommended for every collection.--Sara Martinez Copyright 2019 Booklist

Author's Note	p. ix
Prologue-Una Salta Pa'tras	p. 3
Part I Coyote's Daughter	p. 9
Something Better	p. 21
Little Rascals	p. 27
What Ever Happened to Norman Rockwell?	p. 31
The Other Side of the Tracks	p. 41
Just Eat Your Chicken	p. 48
Body Memory	p. 55
Martin	p. 58
Mission Girls	p. 64
Mind-Field	p. 71
Don't Ask, Don't Tell	p. 82
Part II Nothing México Couldn't Cure	p. 89
Training Ground	p. 100
Old School	p. 103
A Rolling Stone	p. 108
Like The Heron	p. 123
The Mother of the Bride	p. 127
"A Very Nice Man"	p. 133
Halloween Shuffle 2003	p. 139
A Mother's Dictum	p. 148
Part III Elvira's Country	p. 161
Sweet Locura	p. 165
Send Them Flying Home	p. 169
Sibangna	p. 174
Reunion	p. 182
For Costumbre	p. 186
Expressions	p. 188
Some Place Not Home	p. 192
Now and Zen	p. 197
When They Lose Their Marbles	p. 201
Part IV The Wisdom of Dolphins	p. 209
Soft Spots	p. 213
Sola Con Los Dioses	p. 220
Coyote Crossing	p. 223
Roundhouse	p. 230
For the Record an Epilogue	p. 235
Selected Bibliography	p. 239
Acknowledgments	p. 241

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Table of Contents