Dancing Home

author: Alma Flor Ada

author: Gabriel M. Zubizarreta

Atheneum / Simon & Schuster, 2011 

grades 3-5 

Mexican, Mexican American

Dancing Home utilizes elements of “A Margarita” (“To Margarita”), a lovely poem penned by the great Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Darío, and skillfully interpreted in English by Rosalma Zubizareta.

In alternating third-person narratives, readers learn the perspectives of fifth-graders Margie, born in Texas of Mexican parents; and Lupe, Margie’s Mexican cousin, newly arrived in the US. Margie, whose voice predominates, is proud to be “American,” does not speak Spanish, and is embarrassed by her cousin’s Mexican ways that seem to invite negative attention.  At the same time, Lupe, whose voice is clearly secondary, does not speak English, knows that her cousin is uncomfortable with her and is embarrassed at not knowing what is expected of her in this new place—“What she really wanted was to crawl under the desk, or better yet, to run all the way back to Mexico.” Meanwhile, Margie, who sees her life as becoming more difficult, is resentful of her parents’ positive relationship with their niece, with whom they communicate in “enthusiastic Spanish.”

In order to portray Lupe as sufficiently grateful that she is here with her “American” relatives, there is a long description of Mexican family life that contains just about every stereotype there is: Lupe’s school is regimented and uninteresting, her family is impoverished, her undocumented father abandons them, her depressed and emotionally distant mother neglects her, and her new stepfather is drunk and abusive.

Yet, as a secondary character, Lupe does not express any particular needs. Rather,

Lupe felt so grateful for this new home she had that she could not bear the thought of her own joy causing anyone else pain. She hoped that Margarita knew that in sharing her own parents, she was not losing anything. If need be, Lupe would find a way to help her see that.

Later, while Margie comes to enjoy speaking Spanish and learning about Mexican foods, dances and holidays, Lupe puts her own interests aside and selflessly adapts:

Having to be constantly moving forward, faster than she could take in all of the new experiences coming her way, was not a good feeling. Yet Lupe smiled. Even bad feelings got better when you understood where they were coming from. 

In case readers hadn’t realized that Margie’s voice is more important than Lupe’s, the final chapter practically shouts that the story is, indeed, all about her: “As the poem ended with the poet saying goodbye to the girl to whom he had dedicated the poem, it seemed to Margie as though the words were being addressed directly to her, as though she herself were the Margarita in the poem.”

Lupe’s father reappears towards the end of the story, describing the horrible life of an undocumented worker, “acknowledging his own errors, making a sincere effort to free her from carrying the burden of his own mistakes, and encouraging her to be fully in charge of her own life. Standing before her as a brave and fallible human being, he was doing his best to make amends.”

In one of their many digressions from the story, the authors describe the US Bracero Program in this distorted way:

The program had started when many of the old family farms were bought up by large agricultural enterprises. These new factory farms needed many seasonal workers. Since few people in the United States were willing to do this kind of low-wage work, laws were passed allowing growers to bring men from Mexico to do farmwork in the United States and then return to Mexico.

The reality was that there was no shortage of domestic seasonal workers. Rather, The Bracero Program brought in men from one poverty-stricken group (low-paid Mexican farm workers) to compete against another poverty-stricken group (low-paid domestic farm workers) for the benefit of the agricultural corporations, which greatly profited from the impoverishment and desperation of both groups.

The story lacks subtlety; its messages of acceptance and uniqueness are heavy-handed and didactic, telling young readers what to think rather than showing them how to develop critical thinking skills. Margarita’s acquisition of Spanish and respect for her cultural heritage, and Lupe’s linguistic and cultural adaptation to her new country come all too easily to engage young readers, especially young readers who may have similar issues. Dancing Home is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

 (published 9/20/15)

Love, Amalia

author: Alma Flor Ada

author: Gabriel M. Zubizarreta  

Atheneum / Simon & Schuster, 2012

grades 3-5 

Mexican American

When sixth-grader Amalia’s best friend, Martha, announces that she and her family are moving to California, the girl is so upset she doesn’t even want to say good-bye. But she receives solace and advice from her wise and gentle abuelita. As they cook together, she takes in Abuelita’s family stories about life, about change, about loss, about grieving. 

And then, suddenly, Abuelita is gone, too. There’s not even a chance to say good-bye; and, as Amalia’s large family comes together to celebrate Abuelita’s life, the pain seems unbearable.

Later, when Amalia’s mother gives her Abuelita’s treasured olive-wood box—full of cards, letters, and drawings from family members over the years—Amalia sees a way to hold on to her memories, deal with Abue’s passing and, finally, say good-bye to Martha. 

Unfortunately, the cultural content in Amalia’s story is clumsily presented. Although the authors attempt to weave in some Spanish words and phrases, their efforts appear contrived and stilted. Here, for instance, Amalia discusses one of her mother’s dichos:

She wouldn’t even finish listening to the latest possible disaster before simply repeating one of her favorite sayings: No hay que morirse la víspera, which means the same as “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” but it sounded so much more graphic in Spanish: “Don’t die the day before your death.”

Actually, a more idiomatic interpretation might be, “Don’t die before your time.” The quote above implies that Amalia’s mother is using dichos—a tradition in many Latin American cultures—to instruct her daughter. It also implies that Amalia’s mother learned dichos at her own mother’s lap. Yet this is the only dicho in the story, and it’s called a “saying,” rather than a dicho. Apparently Amalia—whose attitude is dismissive and disrespectful—doesn’t recognize the value of traditional teaching, probably because her abuela, the one person whose wisdom guides her, doesn’t teach through dichos.

In addition, the authors use some code switching that is also contrived, and dialog in which English translations immediately follow the Spanish. This technique is not meaningful to English readers, it’s confusing to Spanish readers, and besides, nobody talks like this:

She heard over and over, people telling her, “¡Ay, querida! Oh, sweetheart.” Her aunt and uncles hugged her, and Tía Graciela insisted on kissing her. “Lo siento tanto. I’m so sorry.” “Lo sé. I know,” she would say to remove herself from almost any situation.

Love, Amalia also minimizes the real struggles of the most exploited, most impoverished workers both in the US and in Mexico:

… Abuelito’s father, our great-grandfather Nicolás, had arrived as a farmworker but then decided to open a store. Abuelito’s mother, María, had been working in a garment factory. But it was hard work in those sweatshops, and Abuelito felt that if they worked together in the store they could make it succeed. And they truly did.

And the story contains too much info-dumping, extraneous information that takes the reader out of the story. For instance, there’s a very long sentence that describes Martha’s “new understanding of the plight of recent immigrants, who like immigrants of the past, contributed with their hard labor to develop and support this country, but unlike them are not received by a Statue of Liberty with a flaming torch and the words she had memorized for her history class: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

In another place, after a mention of Zapata’s mustache, there’s an unnecessary explanation: “Emiliano Zapata was the leader of the Mexican Revolution whose photo Amalia had seen in a book about the history of Mexico.” And there’s an almost two-page description of the history, geography and population of Mexico City that reads like it was plucked from a travelogue.

Finally, the authors rely on platitudes that “tell” rather than “show,” such as: “It all seemed very unjust, and it filled her with anger just to think about it,” “Her eyes were still moist with tears, but there was a new warm feeling in her heart,” and “Moments like this made their friendship so special.” Love, Amalia is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 9/16/15, revised 9/22/15)

I Love Saturdays y domingos

author: Alma Flor Ada

illustrator: Elivia Savadier

Atheneum/ Simon & Schuster, 2002

preschool-grade 3 

Mexican American

In this winner of an Américas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature, a little girl recounts her weekend visits with her grandparents: Saturdays with her father’s English-speaking European American parents and Sundays with her mother’s Spanish-speaking Mexican American parents. With her Saturday visits illustrated and described on the left of each spread y los domingos en la derecha, this youngster—as bilingual children do—effortlessly code-switches. Although the author and illustrator have set the Spanish words and phrases in a clear context so that young English-speaking readers can extrapolate their meanings, some of the writing remains clunky. For instance, “Abuelita is very proud of her Indian blood because the Indians really know how to love the land.”

Savadier’s bright watercolor cartoon illustrations show the joy of the little girl’s weekends. Recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 4/7/13)

Gold Coin

author: Alma Flor Ada

translator: Bernice Randall

illustrator: Neil Waldman

Athenium / Simon & Schuster, 1991

kindergarten-grade 3 

Central American

Juan has been a thief for many, many years; for so long that he can’t remember what it’s like to work alongside someone, to have a conversation with someone, to share a home cooked meal with someone, to be out in the sunshine with someone. He’s even forgotten how to laugh. One day—a day that will begin to change his life—he crouches at the window of an old woman who has a coin in her hand. “I must be the richest woman in the world,” she says to herself, and Juan decides to steal her wealth.

As he follows Doña Josepha around the countryside, Juan learns of the kindness and generosity of this curandera, and he meets many people she has helped. And when the thief finally does catch up with her, he finds that he has been changed as well, both physically and emotionally. The Gold Coin is a beautiful story of generosity and reciprocity that youngsters will want to hear over and over. 

In Waldman's art nouveau-style watercolors, the forms sit on varying backgrounds of mostly pale blues and pinks, each page tinted in a rainbow wash, with land and people that only hint at somewhere in Central America as the location. I don't particularly like this art style, which I see as diminishing what is unique about particular lands and peoples. But the story itself is highly recommended.

 

—Beverly Slapin
(published 4/7/13)

Sonia Sotomayor: a judge grows in the Bronx/ la juez que creció en el Bronx

author: Jonah Winter

translator: Argentina Palacios Ziegler

illustrator: Edel Rodriguez

Atheneum / Simon & Schuster, 2009

kindergarten-grade 3 

Puerto Rican

“You never know what can happen,” Winter writes. “Sometimes the most beautiful moonflower blossoms in an unexpected place—on a chain-link fence, near broken glass, next to an abandoned building—watered by someone whose name you might not even know. And sometimes the most amazing person blossoms in just such a place as well. So it was with a little girl named Sonia. Her blossoming began with her mother’s love and hard work.”

Sonia Sotomayor’s mother and her large extended family worked very hard to see their children thrive in an environment that was both materially poor and culturally wealthy. “Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances,” Sotomayor said, “I consider my life to be immeasurably rich.”

The beautiful, hardy moonflower, the flower of Puerto Rico, is a visual highlight in this pictorial biography for children; Rodriguez’s artwork—rendered in pastels, acrylics, spray paint, and oil-based ink on a palette of mostly warm yellows and oranges—is luminous.

Jonah Winter is a talented writer who, except for an occasional condescension (“‘justice’ is a fancy word for a judge”), knows how to write for children. However, as an observer looking from the outside in, he has minimized or left out important historical and cultural truths about Puerto Rico and her people.

• Economically depressed neighborhoods—“bad” neighborhoods—are created, not born. Sonia Sotomayor’s neighborhood was an end result of “Operation Bootstrap,” a US government program that did away with Puerto Rico’s agriculture-based economy and produced one centered on industry and the military. “Bootstrap” impoverished hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican people, who were driven to the mainland, where they found only marginal employment—if any. In fact, there are now more Puerto Ricans living in New York than there are in Puerto Rico.

• Most Latinas work hard, and many still wind up with low-wage jobs or on the streets or in prison or in other impossible situations through no fault of their own. Winter doesn’t take into account the problems that result from impoverishment and discrimination; the hardships—including racism and sexism—that Latinas in this country have to deal with.

• Yet Sonia Sotomayor’s neighborhood has created poets, artists, playwrights, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and revolutionaries. Parents in economically marginalized neighborhoods, as much as anyone else, love and nurture their children. To assume that a value system of respect, honor, dignity, and humility—the cornerstone of Boriqua culture—doesn’t exist in a barrio in El Bronx, is wrong.

Poverty is insidious; it grinds people down. It’s economic, not cultural. To raise a child to grow up healthy and whole takes more than personal will. It takes a “village” to raise a child, and in Sonia Sotomayor’s life, that village was her large extended family, who instilled in her the love and nurturing—el orgullo de Puerto Rico—that enabled her to navigate the road that was chosen for her.

It’s a perceived notion in this country that people need only to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” in order to succeed, and that the dominant society’s measure of “success” is a universal benchmark. But every marginalized society has a family structure that has within it inherent strengths and values that may be said to be measures of success. To imply that individualism is what motivated Sonia Sotomayor and her mother, as Winter does here, diminishes—no, negates—their real lives and struggles. What a terrible message to send to children.

Children need all the heroes they can get and Sonia Sotomayor is certainly a role model for young Puertorriqueñas. And it is, in fact, on the shoulders of all of the Puertorriqueñas orgullosas that Sonia Sotomayor grew up. She continued to thrive within her world, within her culture, not despite it. That’s the story that is absent in Sonia Sotomayor: a judge grows in the Bronx/ la juez que creció en el Bronx.

Also problematic is the Spanish translation, which, in most places, is strictly literal rather than grammatical. This takes away from the reading experience, leaving bilingual readers confused and wondering why the text doesn’t flow.

This book had great potential, and I really wanted to like it. There needs to be a good, honest children’s book about Sonia Sotomayor’s life, her family, and the values with which she was raised—that molded and shaped her into una mujer orgullosa. But Sonia Sotomayor: a judge grows in the Bronx/ la juez que creció en el Bronx is not that book. Not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin (Míl grácias to my sister, Magdalena Nieves, for help with this review.)

(published 4/6/13)

If you’re writing about a particular culture, you have to get the cultural markers and the historical details right. Here are some examples of what Winter got wrong:

• “Her mother and father were from Puerto Rico, and Sonia grew up surrounded by the tastes and sounds of Puerto Rican culture. A favorite meal was Spanish rice and beans.”

Mexican food is very different from Puerto Rican food. Spanish rice is a popular dish in the Southwest, not in New York or Puerto Rico. Persons invited into a Puerto Rican home—despite the level of poverty—will be offered arroz con gandules (pigeon peas) or arroz con habichuelas (green beans), delicious traditional Puerto Rican meals; but they won’t be offered “Spanish rice.”

• “She had grown up as a “Nuyorican”—a child of Puerto Rican parents.”

Nuyoricans are people who came to the mainland and settled in New York, or people whose parents or grandparents did. Having been brought to the concrete jungle created a new identity; coming to or growing up in such neighborhoods in New York and the Bronx became an extension of being Boriqua.

• “People she’d grown up with were poor. And many of them weren’t as lucky as she had been: They’d had trouble learning to speak English, trouble finding jobs.”

That people continue to have difficulty with language barriers, difficulty with finding jobs—is an external measure of poverty, not a reason for it. The reason for the impoverishment of the Nuyorican community is colonization, the role that was created for Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans still migrate from the island to New York to work at minimum-wage jobs—if they can get them. It’s unfair to call Sonia Sotomayor “lucky” because her mother worked hard to acculturate, to learn to speak the language, to take the jobs, to go to school.

• “Unlike many judges, she knew firsthand what prejudice was—what it was to be judged for your background. In the world of judges, this made Sonia very special.”

The word “special,” used in this context, trivializes Sonia Sotomayor’s experiences. A more respectful way of describing how Sotomayor’s life experiences aid her role as a judge might have been written this way: “Unlike many judges, she knew firsthand what prejudice was—what it was to be judged for your background. This real-life experience gave Sonia an understanding of poverty, racism and inequality that most judges have never seen.”

• “A district attorney is a lawyer who prosecutes criminals.”

No, a district attorney is a lawyer who prosecutes persons accused of criminal offenses. “Innocent until proven guilty” is an important concept that children should know.

• “Like most project tenants, Sonia’s family did not have a lot of money, but still she knew they were more fortunate than her cousins and aunts and uncles back in Puerto Rico, whom she visited every summer. Home in America, Sonia attended good schools…”

This is both an outsider’s value judgment and a socio-historical misstatement. Sonia Sotomayor’s extended family members in Puerto Rico probably did not have much in the way of material possessions, but it’s unlikely that the young Boriqua child ever felt “more fortunate” than the rest of her family. Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States and, as such, it is inseparable (for now) from “America.”

Labels: Argentina Palacios Ziegler, Atheneum / Simon & Schuster, Edel Rodriguez, Jonah Winter, Puerto Rican, Reviewer: Beverly Slapin, Sotomayor