Matthew, perhaps because of your own and your family's experience of needing to move so often, you bring to your reading of this memoir a sharp understanding of the effects of dislocation, ably translating for those who have been and are rooted to a single place (a characteristic of some of the people I know in the Midwest who grew up in and never left their birthplaces) what it means to encounter a kind of erasure of the self.
I wonder how different this memoir might have been had it been written by a man. Women whose cultures are defined by their gender and a difference in, if you will, geography (Puerto Rico v South America, for example; Hispanic v Puerto Rican) face different kinds of obstacles than men from those same cultures. That said, I am deeply struck by all-encompassing the author's dislocation is.
We live now in a period when dislocation and displacement, including their internal forms, have reached extraordinary numbers, and much of that movement is forced - that is, the result of persecution, loss of human rights, hunger, violence, war or other forms of conflict, the simple desire to give children a better life. The author, in writing of the most profound sense of loss, that of self, which transcends most everything else in one's experience, has done something important, which is open her readers' eyes to what the readers themselves, at least in this country, will probably never face. That you so ably focus in on that, that is, find in yourself what you can relate of your experience to some of what the author describes but also see well beyond it, see what it means to be "other" through the author's eyes, is praise-worthy. That's what it means to read with empathy and compassion and understanding. I don't think this author could have encountered a better reader-reviewer than you.
Memoir is not my preferred reading but I am very much interested in a theme of changing/changed identity. How that works/is perpetrated by a need of self preservation.
You write about a stability in roots, the use of tense in Esmeralda Santiago's, When I Was Puerto Rican. What is being offered by Santiago is not necessarily beautiful, but an emotional touch point a reader can come to understand. A reflective pause for readers to try and think beyond their own perspective, beyond the emotionally charged moments.
My roots, too are unstable, meaning I don't stay in any one place long. The seven year itch is real, I move to explore, to learn more. But I get that I can. It is unforced. What it would mean to me, despite living in so many different communities, is to feel whole in any one place. One that accepts and embraces.
I've added this to my - never going to get any shorter - bookstack.
Matthew, you do an admirable job here, as you always do, of integrating your analysis of the novel with considerations of your own life and experience, which is always what makes reading literature most valuable. I would conclude from what you write of a book I haven't yet read but which seems vital and compelling, that life when lived in the only direction it truly flows entails transformation, voluntary and not, and that then entails, as you observe, both gain and loss, both of which become a part of us. We live in that gain and loss -- unless we deny its inevitability and attach ourselves determinedly, resistantly to those roots we had or only wished for. Many people build whole lives around that resistance -- a lot of people, I'd say -- some very successfully, too, in the cultural and familial edifices they manage to construct, sometimes intergenerationally, against the waves of change and the wear of time. They manage to persuade themselves that this short-term persistence is a long-term truth of human existence. Some even try to bring back worlds and modes of existence centuries gone. All this I think not unrelated to what has riled your stack over the past few weeks.
I found this, and the thoughts that followed, particularly resonant: “Transformation is real. Loss is real. The girl who ate guavas in Macún is gone.”
Matthew, perhaps because of your own and your family's experience of needing to move so often, you bring to your reading of this memoir a sharp understanding of the effects of dislocation, ably translating for those who have been and are rooted to a single place (a characteristic of some of the people I know in the Midwest who grew up in and never left their birthplaces) what it means to encounter a kind of erasure of the self.
I wonder how different this memoir might have been had it been written by a man. Women whose cultures are defined by their gender and a difference in, if you will, geography (Puerto Rico v South America, for example; Hispanic v Puerto Rican) face different kinds of obstacles than men from those same cultures. That said, I am deeply struck by all-encompassing the author's dislocation is.
We live now in a period when dislocation and displacement, including their internal forms, have reached extraordinary numbers, and much of that movement is forced - that is, the result of persecution, loss of human rights, hunger, violence, war or other forms of conflict, the simple desire to give children a better life. The author, in writing of the most profound sense of loss, that of self, which transcends most everything else in one's experience, has done something important, which is open her readers' eyes to what the readers themselves, at least in this country, will probably never face. That you so ably focus in on that, that is, find in yourself what you can relate of your experience to some of what the author describes but also see well beyond it, see what it means to be "other" through the author's eyes, is praise-worthy. That's what it means to read with empathy and compassion and understanding. I don't think this author could have encountered a better reader-reviewer than you.
Such a good article. Thank you.
Memoir is not my preferred reading but I am very much interested in a theme of changing/changed identity. How that works/is perpetrated by a need of self preservation.
You write about a stability in roots, the use of tense in Esmeralda Santiago's, When I Was Puerto Rican. What is being offered by Santiago is not necessarily beautiful, but an emotional touch point a reader can come to understand. A reflective pause for readers to try and think beyond their own perspective, beyond the emotionally charged moments.
My roots, too are unstable, meaning I don't stay in any one place long. The seven year itch is real, I move to explore, to learn more. But I get that I can. It is unforced. What it would mean to me, despite living in so many different communities, is to feel whole in any one place. One that accepts and embraces.
I've added this to my - never going to get any shorter - bookstack.
Matthew, you do an admirable job here, as you always do, of integrating your analysis of the novel with considerations of your own life and experience, which is always what makes reading literature most valuable. I would conclude from what you write of a book I haven't yet read but which seems vital and compelling, that life when lived in the only direction it truly flows entails transformation, voluntary and not, and that then entails, as you observe, both gain and loss, both of which become a part of us. We live in that gain and loss -- unless we deny its inevitability and attach ourselves determinedly, resistantly to those roots we had or only wished for. Many people build whole lives around that resistance -- a lot of people, I'd say -- some very successfully, too, in the cultural and familial edifices they manage to construct, sometimes intergenerationally, against the waves of change and the wear of time. They manage to persuade themselves that this short-term persistence is a long-term truth of human existence. Some even try to bring back worlds and modes of existence centuries gone. All this I think not unrelated to what has riled your stack over the past few weeks.
I’m enjoying this series and your essays. Thank you very much.