The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing
My parents always told me I was Mexican. I was Mexican because they were Mexican. This was sometimes modified to “Mexican American,” since I was born in California, and thus automatically a U.S. citizen. But, my parents said, this, too, was once part of Mexico. My father would say this with a sweeping gesture, taking in the smog, the beautiful mountains, the cars and houses and fast-food franchises. When he made that gesture, all was cleared away in my mind’s eye to leave the hazy impression of a better place. We were here when the white people came, the Spaniards, then the Americans. And we will be here when they go away, he would say, and it will be part of Mexico again.

Thus begins a lyrical and entirely absorbing collection of personal essays by esteemed Chicana writer and gifted storyteller Kathleen Alcalá. Loosely linked by an exploration of the many meanings of “family,” these essays move in a broad arc from the stories and experiences of those close to her to those whom she wonders about, like Andrea Yates, a mother who drowned her children. In the process of digging and sifting, she is frequently surprised by what she unearths. Her family, she discovers, were Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition who took on the trappings of Catholicism in order to survive.

Although the essays are in many ways personal, they are also universal. When she examines her family history, she is encouraging us to inspect our own families, too. When she investigates a family secret, she is supporting our own search for meaning. And when she writes that being separated from our indigenous culture is “a form of illiteracy,” we know exactly what she means.

After reading these essays, we find that we have discovered not only why Kathleen Alcalá is a writer but also why we appreciate her so much. She helps us to find ourselves.
1140779589
The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing
My parents always told me I was Mexican. I was Mexican because they were Mexican. This was sometimes modified to “Mexican American,” since I was born in California, and thus automatically a U.S. citizen. But, my parents said, this, too, was once part of Mexico. My father would say this with a sweeping gesture, taking in the smog, the beautiful mountains, the cars and houses and fast-food franchises. When he made that gesture, all was cleared away in my mind’s eye to leave the hazy impression of a better place. We were here when the white people came, the Spaniards, then the Americans. And we will be here when they go away, he would say, and it will be part of Mexico again.

Thus begins a lyrical and entirely absorbing collection of personal essays by esteemed Chicana writer and gifted storyteller Kathleen Alcalá. Loosely linked by an exploration of the many meanings of “family,” these essays move in a broad arc from the stories and experiences of those close to her to those whom she wonders about, like Andrea Yates, a mother who drowned her children. In the process of digging and sifting, she is frequently surprised by what she unearths. Her family, she discovers, were Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition who took on the trappings of Catholicism in order to survive.

Although the essays are in many ways personal, they are also universal. When she examines her family history, she is encouraging us to inspect our own families, too. When she investigates a family secret, she is supporting our own search for meaning. And when she writes that being separated from our indigenous culture is “a form of illiteracy,” we know exactly what she means.

After reading these essays, we find that we have discovered not only why Kathleen Alcalá is a writer but also why we appreciate her so much. She helps us to find ourselves.
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The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing

The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing

by Kathleen Alcalá
The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing
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The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing

The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing

by Kathleen Alcalá

Overview

My parents always told me I was Mexican. I was Mexican because they were Mexican. This was sometimes modified to “Mexican American,” since I was born in California, and thus automatically a U.S. citizen. But, my parents said, this, too, was once part of Mexico. My father would say this with a sweeping gesture, taking in the smog, the beautiful mountains, the cars and houses and fast-food franchises. When he made that gesture, all was cleared away in my mind’s eye to leave the hazy impression of a better place. We were here when the white people came, the Spaniards, then the Americans. And we will be here when they go away, he would say, and it will be part of Mexico again.

Thus begins a lyrical and entirely absorbing collection of personal essays by esteemed Chicana writer and gifted storyteller Kathleen Alcalá. Loosely linked by an exploration of the many meanings of “family,” these essays move in a broad arc from the stories and experiences of those close to her to those whom she wonders about, like Andrea Yates, a mother who drowned her children. In the process of digging and sifting, she is frequently surprised by what she unearths. Her family, she discovers, were Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition who took on the trappings of Catholicism in order to survive.

Although the essays are in many ways personal, they are also universal. When she examines her family history, she is encouraging us to inspect our own families, too. When she investigates a family secret, she is supporting our own search for meaning. And when she writes that being separated from our indigenous culture is “a form of illiteracy,” we know exactly what she means.

After reading these essays, we find that we have discovered not only why Kathleen Alcalá is a writer but also why we appreciate her so much. She helps us to find ourselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780816547968
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Publication date: 03/15/2022
Series: Camino del Sol
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 216
File size: 648 KB

About the Author

Kathleen Alcalá is the author of a short-story collection, Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist, and a trilogy of novels set in the Southwest and nineteenth-century Mexico: Spirits of the Ordinary, The Flower in the Skull, and Treasures in Heaven. Born in Compton, California, to Mexican parents, she now lives near Seattle, where she teaches creative writing.

Table of Contents

[FMT]Contents[\] Acknowledgments I My Week as a Mexican My Week as a Mexican 000 Día de los Muertos en Tepotzl n 000 Fandango 000 Climbing the Pyramid 000 II On Family and Culture When Do You Sing? 000 My Mother's Vase 000 Vipiniguat-Ru 000 More about My Great-Grandmother and the Opata Your Grandmother Might Have Been Mayor or Why Write? 000 Pancho Villa Doesn't Sleep Here 000 Francisco's Library 000 A True Story 000 III A Star of David The Skeleton in the Closet 000 A Star of David on Christmas 000 A Thread in the Tapestry 000 Unveiling the Spirits 000 Spirits of the Ordinary IV Found in Translation Found in Translation 000 A Woman Called Concha 000 Reading the Signs 000 The Madonna in Cyberspace 000 Against All Odds 000 Introduction to Fantasmas 000 The Transforming Eye of Kathleen Alcal , by Rob Johnson 000 V 9/11 Words That Heal, Words That Bind 000 The Stone House 000 Dear John 000 Present in Our Space 000 VI The Woman Who Loved Water Among the Living 000 The Woman Who Loved Water 000 The Girl in the Tree 000 The Desert Remembers My Name 000 Notes 000
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