 "A beautifully written memoir of cultural dissonance and marital politics" | 2007-01-31 |
| - Reviewed By entertrance |
What a generous offering from a talented writer with a keen eye for the nuances of family life! Yes, she writes her own story, but she also writes her mother's and father's stories. And her siblings, though more sparingly drawn, also command her careful observation.
She and her immediate family are described as they came up against the cultural norms, first in Peru in the 1950s, where the family spent 12 years, and then in the United States in the 1960s. Arana is a descendant of Peru's upper class, and while the story is one of growing up with economic 'privilege', we also see how that same class privilege imposes social restraints.
One of my favorite passages describes Arana's observation that it is mothers who lovingly mold their sons into "machos", the archetype of the Latin male.
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| "A beautifully written book" | 2006-06-17 |
| - Reviewed By yardley11 |
This is a heartfelt book; I can't think of another book that spells out the bicultural life so clearly. Arana has cut a new path here. This is not so much about being Hispanic American as being a new and different kind of American: split, with differing loyalties, and with all kinds of doubts along the way.
I've just read the galleys of her new book, "Cellophane," which make me think that she's building something something new in her opus. This is a strong American writer with a great deal to say about what it means to be a person of the hemisphere. There is much inclusiveness here. I am struck by the largeness of her world. |
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 "Spanish deserves as much respect as English" | 2006-06-10 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2N9BM4ZPRN3KS |
As a native Spanish speaker and ESL/bilingual education
teacher I was surprised to find so many
Spanish mistakes in "American Chica." Given Ms.
Arana's claims of bilingualism, I don't understand how
this could have happened. A Spanish speaker, for
example, knows that the word for an indigenous person,
regardless of gender, is always indÃgena. Also, no
fluent Spanish speaker would omit 'te' from "Te tengo
a ti..." Nor write "proprio," "creatura," or
"estranjera." And the problems with written accents
throughout the book are serious! This is not
nit-picking. As students and speakers of Spanish
know, an accent's presence or absence can completely
change the meaning of a word.
While these mistakes were probably corrected in the
paperback edition, I find it somewhat disrespectful
that Ms. Arana took such a cavalier attitude with
Spanish, particularly in a memoir about biculturalism.
This sloppiness, as well as the author's rigid,
outdated observations about Latin America vs. North
America and all that made-for-gringos exoticism was
very irritating to this particular American chica.
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| "A Pretentious Family Memoir" | 2006-06-04 |
| - Reviewed By cluallen2 |
My wife grew up in Ecuador and moved to the United States 8 years ago, at age 31. I am always interested in better understanding her cross-cultural transition and that's why I picked up "American Chica". But actually this book is more of a family memoir, describing the difficult marriage of Arana's parents. The majority of the book is about her early childhood years growing up in Peru with her father's aristocratic family. The last couple of chapters do recount her family's move to New Jersey. But, while her father was miserable living the "gringo" lifestyle, Marie and her siblings appeared to make the transition quite easily - as children often do - despite facing racism as the only latino kids in their school system.
I prefer my non-fiction to be straightforward, with clear and concise writing. But Arana tends toward artsy pretentiousness, with descriptions and details that I found to be flowery and overly wordy. Obviously, many folks like her style of writing, as demonstrated by the numerous positive reviews. But, for me, it just didn't work. |
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| "Lyrical Indeed" | 2005-12-27 |
| - Reviewed By lisa8715 |
I looked forward every night to reading Arana's way with words. Not only was the subject matter a great story -- duality on many levels, and she explored all the layers -- but she told her story with excellent prose.
Having studied Latin America for years I've always been envious of my follow classmates & friends who have multiple identities...this book opened my eyes to the deeper challenges of multicultural identity, beyond the obvious racism/segregation to the more internal challenges; Arana's description of how she developed not just her gringa identity, or her Peruvian identity but her "faking it" identity fascinated me.
I hope to see more of her work.
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| "Impostors" | 2001-09-26 |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
| This wonderful bio of the author's early years in Peru and the States describes a situation that so many of us find ourselves in these days when we sense that we belong to more than one culture. It is a situation that makes the participant feel like an impostor, always having to somehow fake belonging to one or the other; but it also provides tremendous wealth for we are thus able to get more than just one puny opening to the universe. The style is rich and the descriptions seem authentic. But what makes the book quite special are the situations the young Marie gets into as she tries with humor and imagination to penetrate the different worlds she comes into contact. Bien vale la pena. |
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| "More than just a memoir" | 2001-09-07 |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
| Marie Arana's story is so much more than her account of growing up between two continents--North and South America. She contextualizes herself within a particular historical time--both in Peru and in the United States, showing how the "goings on" in the wider culture of both continents affected her own particular development. How she navigates both worlds is what American Chica is all about. Particularly enlightening to me was Arana's discovery of a theory at the British University of Hong Kong "claiming that bilingualism can hurt you...The bicultural person seems so thoroughly one way in one language, so thoroughly different in another. Only an impostor would hide that other half so well." Since I also grew up "bilingual," Arana's discovery at the British University resonated with my own experience. Just exactly who am I and where is it that I belong? Language is so much more than a vehicle to transmit information. With language we create the "self" and name our environment. That "self" and that environment will look different depending on what language I use. Sometimes the footing is as unsteady as walking the earth after one of those Peruvian earthquakes. Great job! |
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| "A symphony of words" | |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
| What a joy to read. Little pieces of information about characters, surroundings, history and culture are put in place like parts of a growing poetic jigsaw puzzle. Although no child this young could be so insightful, the framework enables the author to use the innocence of childhood to view the world in a questioning, accepting way, opening up her world in Peru to the reader like a flower opening slowly petal by petal in the morning. Very mature insights and descriptions of those around her are presented in a very gentle way. The vivid description of the depraved treatment by overseers of the Peruvian natives who were used to gather rubber from the trees tore at this reader's heart by the magnificence of the writing rather than by gory heavyhanded writing. Fragments of the jigsaw puzzle of life are blended together as the author moves between individual backgrounds, current insights, historical information, explanations of cultural patterns, vivid descriptions of personalities and a storyline that tells how a mother, father and three children see their ongoing lives as viewed thru the eyes of a very mature child. The book whispers rather than shouts, a rare thing these days. |
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| "A stunning amount of critical acclaim" | |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
What drew my attention to this book was the critical acclaim it was receiving. I've not seen anything like this in a long time: A National Book Award Finalist, a PEN Memoir Award Finalist, winner of Books for a Better Life. The American Library Association (very picky people) chose it as one of the top ten nonfiction books of the year. Philadelphia News picked it as THE BEST book of the year. And then the New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune, not to mention lots of other newspapers around the country picked it as one of the best books of the year. As a book lover, and someone in the book business, I tend to keep an eye on this sort of thing, so, as I say, it drew my attention.
It took reading "American Chica" to make me see why it was so loved by so many readers and critics coast to coast. This is ground-breaking stuff. A marvelous mirror on the new America. More important, it captures something about all of us Americans: Us mutts, mongrels, multicultured people who live on bridges of our own. |
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| "An Important Work for Our Time" | |
| - Reviewed By Anonymous |
| Without the prompting of my book club, I would not have read American Chica, and I would have missed this honest, thoughtful and absolutely captivating insight into a bicultural family. I would have missed one of the best books that I've read this year. I was surprised to discover how much I related to Marie Arana's experiences even though I was the daughter of two white-bread American parents. Her lush descriptions of the Peruvian gardens revived memories of my early childhood in Puerto Rico. I remembered the difficult adjustment when we moved from Puerto Rico to Canada. I wanted to shout "I'm an American!" every time I would overhear teachers and other students referring to me as the "Puerto Rican girl." I remember being embarrassed when fellow students would ask me to "say something in Spanish" and then later the culture shock when we moved to Texas and I became known as "the Canadian." As our world becomes smaller, travel more accessible, and bicultural families more common, Arana's work becomes meaningful to all of us. The only way to counter our human inclination toward prejudice is by learning about each other and sharing our stories, the priceless gifts of our culture and experiences. I applaud Arana for her beautifully written and engaging work and for sharing this gift with us. |
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