Last week, an article in the Huffington Post https://huff.to/1I0A0fj To The Lady Who Called my Toddler a Thug, written by Rachel Garlinghouse, a white mother who adopted a black boy, got my attention. Particularly because of her concern that her little boy, just because of his appearance was, innocently and not so innocently stereotyped by people whom she knew. It’s the US, I thought, and it’s a dangerous, racialized ...
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In the past few blogs I’ve written about wanting to love my birth mother Rosa, a woman I did not get to know. The mother who raised me, however, I knew and loved dearly.
She was 50 when she decided to keep me. her name was Esther, but I called her Mutti, for she was German. She was born in 1888, while Queen Victoria still ruled in England. Picture being raised by a Victorian woman! I could ...
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In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:
The night I finished reading Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, the wind blowing outside my window ushered messages into my dreams.
I was Annie John, and had ...
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 In Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:Guatemala City is only 15 degrees north of the Equator, but at five thousand feet above sea level the altitude allows ... |
“None of us is getting any younger, and if we should meet again in this life, you need to come visit soon,” Anita, my dearest friend had said over Skype. It’s not that urgent, I thought, but fate might have something else in store. I booked my flight to arrive in Munich in time for the first Sunday in Advent, when the festive season begins and Christmas markets start popping up on Rathaus Plätze, and the scent ...
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During my second year at the Academy, the Mexican delegation at the International Handicrafts Fair in Munich engaged me as the interpreter for English, Spanish, and German. The dark interpreter intrigued those who had come to admire Mexican handy crafts. On April 24, 1962, an image of me smiling next to an intricately crafted Mexican silver mirror appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and included a few details about me. I was causing a slight sensation as the only ...
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In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:
Established in 1858 and perched on a wide hilly expanse, the school was a dominating U-shaped two-story construction. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the minute I ...
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In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:
My German mother and I boarded a busy ...
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In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:
And so, I learned that no woman in the world, “not even the Queen of England,” was spared a situation that would continue for a few days ...
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In writing my recent book, Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity (Kindle) or Split at the Root: A Memoir of Love and Lost Identity, I tell the story of growing up within a culture and a race that was different to my own. Here’s an excerpt:
I was passing by Vati’s room one afternoon; we still ...
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