Description
Book SynopsisMexican American author Josie Méndez-Negrete's memoir of how she and her siblings and mother survived years of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of her father.
Trade Review“
Las hijas de Juan breaks new ground in the literature of Chicano/a autobiography by taking on the shameful issue of paternal incest at the same time that it demonstrates the process of healing through speaking, writing, and remembering. This book is the genuine song of the survivor, and the narrator’s personal story is also a political reality of the Chicano/a and Latino/a community, an ugly beast fed on silence that must be both contained and confronted. More than anything,
Las hijas de Juan shows us the imperative need to speak the secrets that, unfortunately, bind and damage so many mujeres in our communities.”—
Alicia Gaspar de Alba,
Latino Studies“
Las hijas de Juan is a searching and searingly honest portrayal of struggle, survival, and
corage! This is a woman’s story that has lessons for the entire community.”—
Louis Gerard Mendoza, author of
Historia: The Literary Making of Chicana and Chicano History“To tell this story took an inordinate amount of courage; to have survived it makes me marvel at the power of the human spirit. As a reader, one feels deeply grateful for the privilege of being granted into its confidence. Josie Méndez-Negrete writes that the healing is not in the telling, but perhaps it resides in us, the listeners. May this story, then, travel far.”—
Sandra Cisneros
“
Las Hijas de Juan is a tale of female triumph, justice and hope. . . . To its great merit this true story, written in the tone of a novel, exposes unflinchingly some of the tragic realities faced by many children worldwide who end up living as illegal immigrants and unaccounted for. It breaks the silence about incest within a poor Mexican-American family with such brutal candor that it has been hailed as a feminist survival story. By depicting the deep prejudices that persist in so many Mexican males, it candidly lays bare the cruelty and discrimination faced by their women, especially those who remain in limbo on both sides of the border picking up the pieces for their errant men.” -- Georgina Jiménez * Latin American Review of Books *
Table of ContentsAbout the series xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Author's Note xv
Prologue:
Sin padre 1
México lindo y querido: Dearest and beloved Mexico 3
A donde iran los muertos? Quién sabe a donde iran: Where will the dead go? Who knows where they will go 41
Buscando abrigo y no lo encontraran: Searching for shelter they will never find 81
Que lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido: So far from the land that gave me birth 139
She kept her head in a jar by the door:
Mantuvo su cabeza el el jarrón junto a la puerta 159
Epilogue: Purging the Skeletons, Bone by Bone 185
Songs Quoted in Text 191
Glossary 201
