Read Native Country of the Heart A Memoir edition by Cherríe Moraga Politics Social Sciences eBooks

Product details File Size 3154 KB Print Length 243 pages Page Numbers Source ISBN 0374219664 Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 2, 2019) Publication Date April 2, 2019 Sold by  Digital Services LLC Language English ASIN B07D6MKF9J

Native Country of the Heart A Memoir edition by Cherríe Moraga Politics Social Sciences eBooks Reviews

• Native Country of the Heart by Cherríe L. Moraga is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in early April.
  
  Despite its seemingly wishy-washy title (this is from someone who just read a book called A Song for the Stars, mind), opening this book and poring over it was like visiting and being around my maternal grandparents, as well as reading the book Borderlands by Gloria E. Anzaldúa in college. However, this is a memoir shared between the author and her mother Elvira, both in the border area between California & Mexico and in South Pasadena & L.A. And, oi, it really rang true to me when Moraga described a kind of DNA denial of being distantly related to Mexican slavery and poring over the shade of your skin to cue you into being Mayan or Aztec royalty, rather than subservience, figuring out gossip & held grudges by mentally translating the mix of Spanish and English that her mother speaks (I’m totally with ya there, sister), and believing she is committing flagrant sin against the Catholic Church by having impure thought of being anything but heteronormative.
• A memoir mostly pertaining to her mother, but Moraga interspersed some of her life in it as well. It was very interesting to read the span of her mother's life and snippets from her father's family. Most of the book is devoted to her mother's eventual decline and struggles with Alzheimer's and how it impacted the entire family. It's a touching telling of a woman whose life spanned many decades and who grapples with just the daily task of living. Thanks to NetGalley for the early read.