American chica
Subtitle: two worlds, one childhood
By: Marie Arana.
Publisher: Delta Trade Paperbacks
Published: 2002
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 309
ISBN-13: 9780385319638
Subjects: Arana, Marie; Journalists -- United States -- Biography; Hispanic American journalists -- Biography
Genres: Biography.
Other titles: Center for Educational Pluralism Collection.
Description: For years, Arana shuttled easily between her father's aristocratic Peruvian family and her mother's American family. Only when she immigrated to the United States as an adolescent did she come to understand that her cultural identity was split in half. She was a hybrid Hispanic American: a north-south collision, a New World fusion. An American Chica. In her father's Peruvian family, Marie Arana was taught to be a proper lady, yet in her mother's American family she learned to shoot a gun, break a horse, and snap a chicken's neck for dinner. Arana shuttled easily between these deeply separate cultures for years. But only when she immigrated with her family to the United States did she come to understand that she was a hybrid American whose cultural identity was split in half. Coming to terms with this split is at the heart of this graceful, beautifully realized portrait of a child who was a north-south collision, a New World fusion. An American Chica. Here are two vastly different landscapes: Peru-earthquake-prone, charged with ghosts of history and mythology-and the sprawling prairie lands of Wyoming. In these rich terrains resides a colorful cast of family members who bring Arana's historia to life. Her proud grandfather who one day simply stopped coming down the stairs; her dazzling grandmother, clicking through the house as if she were making her way onstage. But most important are Arana's parents: he, a brilliant engineer, she a gifted musician. For more than half a century these two passionate, strong-willed people struggled to overcome the bicultural tensions in their marriage and, finally, to prevail.
Notes: Originally published: New York : Dial Press, 2001.

Available at the Center for Educational Pluralism, located in Miller Hall 250.