Rights in a Foreign Land: Women, Domestic Violence, and Migration
Araceli Calderón González
Melissa Sánchez writes in the Yakima Herald-Republic about Araceli Calderón González and her book published last year in Mexico, Rights in a Foreign Land: Women, Domestic Violence, and Migration. You can read the entire article, which I recommend, at this link. Calderón, a writer who currently makes her home in Greeley, Colorado, has collected stories and poems from 17 women from Mexico who have migrated to Yakima, Washington. The women have all been served by La Casa Hogar, which has helped roughly 4,500 immigrant women since it was started in 1995.
The article notes: She had come in 2006 to collect stories from immigrant children for a book to be published in Mexico. But Calderón sensed a greater story in their mothers and in the other women she met here.
"It made me cry to wonder why these immigrants come to Yakima," said Calderón, a children's book author and literacy advocate. "Why do they leave home? Their communities may be poor, but they're so beautiful."
What Calderón discovered upon returning over the next two years was a narrative of domestic abuse that follows Mexican women into the United States, and the healing process they would begin inside a yellow house on South Sixth Street. It's an issue that receives little attention either here in the United States or in Mexico.
"Here and now, she tells them time and time again. She teaches them that life is worth living. She opens the way for them so that they may open the way for their children."
I don't know if this book is available in the United States. I would appreciate any information about the book and the author.
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John Phillip Santos
Viking, April
[publisher's blurb]
In his acclaimed 1999 memoir Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation, John Phillip Santos told the story of one Mexican family- his father's-set within the larger story of Mexico itself. In this beautifully written new book, he tells of how another family-this time, his mother's-erased and forgot over time their ancient origins in Spain.
Every family has a forgotten tale of where it came from. Who is driven to tell it and why? Weaving together a highly original mix of autobiography, conquest history, elegy, travel, family remembrance, and time travelling narration, Santos offers an unforgettable testimony to this calling and describe
Lalo seems to have had a great influence on many literary types in Denver. But his poems reached across many states - I was in Utah, in the migrant stream, and was inspired to keep on with school - although it was very difficult - becasue of people like Lalo. Maybe we can all collectively tell his story