July 2013 Conversations with Las Comadres: Teleconference Series
Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina — Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
The Death of Fidel Pérez — Outside Links: Book Author Publisher
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW Length: 00:57:52 | Size: 10.42 MB
July 2013 Book of the Month
Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina
By Raquel Cepeda
Published by Atria Books
ISBN-13: 978-11451635867
In 2009, when Raquel Cepeda almost lost her estranged father to heart disease, she was terrified she’d never know the truth about her ancestry. Every time she looked in the mirror, Cepeda saw a mystery—a tapestry of races and ethnicities that came together in an ambiguous mix. With time running out, she decided to embark on an archaeological dig of sorts by using the science of ancestral DNA testing to excavate everything she could about her genetic history.
Digging through memories long buried, she embarks upon a journey not only into her ancestry but also into her own history. Born in Harlem to Dominican parents, she was sent to live with her maternal grandparents in the Paraíso (Paradise) district in Santo Domingo while still a baby. It proved to be an idyllic reprieve in her otherwise fraught childhood. Paraíso came to mean family, home, belonging. When Cepeda returned to the US, she discovered her family constellation had changed. Her mother had a new, abusive boyfriend, who relocated the family to San Francisco. When that relationship fell apart, Cepeda found herself back in New York City with her father and European stepmother: attending tennis lessons and Catholic schools; fighting vicious battles wih her father, who discouraged her from expressing the Dominican part of her hyphenated identity; and immersed in the ’80s hip-hop culture of uptown Manhattan. It was in these streets, through the prism of hip-hop and the sometimes loving embrace of her community, that Cepeda constructed her own identity.
Years later, when Cepeda had become a successful journalist and documentary filmmaker, the strands of her DNA would take her further, across the globe and into history. Who were her ancestors? How did they—and she—become Latina? Her journey, as the most unforgettable ones often do, would lead her to places she hadn’t expected to go. With a vibrant lyrical prose and fierce honesty, Cepeda parses concepts of race, identity, and ancestral DNA among Latinos by using her own Dominican-American story as one example, and in the process arrives at some sort of peace with her father.
About the Author: Raquel Cepeda
Raquel Cepeda is an award-winning journalist, cultural activist, and documentary filmmaker. A former magazine editor, she’s contributed to The Village Voice, CNN.com, Associated Press, and many others over the last two decades. Cepeda directed and produced “Bling: A Planet Rock,” the critically acclaimed documentary about American hip-hop culture’s obsession with diamonds and its social trappings. She lives with her husband, a writer, musician and TV producer, daughter, and son in New York City.
July 2013 Additional Conversation
The Death of Fidel Pérez
By Elizabeth Huergo
Published by Unbridled Books
ISBN-13: 978-1609530952
On July 26, 2003, the 50th anniversary of the Moncada Army Barracks raid that sparked the Cuban revolution, something unexpected happens. When Fidel Pérez and his brother accidentally tumble to their deaths from their Havana balcony, the neighbors’ outcry, “Fidel has fallen!” is misinterpreted by those who hear it. That wishful mistake quickly ripples outward on the running cries of the people, and it gloriously reawakens a suppressed city.
Three Habaneros in particular are affected by the news: an elderly street visionary named Saturnina, the remorseful Professor Pedro Valle, and his impressionable firebrand of a student, Camilo. All three are haunted by the past and now, once again, are made to confront a new future, perhaps another revolution.
Their stories–so real, distressing and insuppressible–are beautifully braided into new hope as they converge in the frantic crowd that gathers in La Plaza de la Revolución.
About the Author: Elizabeth Huergo
Elizabeth Huergo was born in Havana and immigrated to the United States at an early age as a political refugee. A published poet and story writer, she lives in Virginia. The Death of Fidel Perez is her first novel.