Making an American Family: A Recipe in Five Generations

Review\n"Keep the family together" were the parting words of Janet Rodriguez's grandmother. And Rodriguez has done just that with her luminous account of five generations of her family-she has kept the family together. Through their beginnings in Mexico, to building a new life in California's Central Valley, and reckoning with a rapidly changing national landscape, Rodriguez's account of her family truly tells the story of every American family, one steeped in sacrifice, hope, and love. Part memoir, part oral history, and part personal exploration on the part of a bi-ethnic woman who never felt Mexican enough, Making an American Family is a love letter to those who have gone, and a prayer for those still to come. Elizabeth Gonzalez James, author of Mona at Sea\nMaking an American Family: A Recipe in Five Generations, the progressive story of one family is told through five generations, beginning with their journey into the United States during the Mexican Revolution, and culminating with their posterity, attending school online during the COVID19 pandemic. A family memoir, told through a chorus of voices, invites the reader into the multi-sensorial experience of memory and story.\nAt first glance, Rodriguez’s family memoir is a unique culinary journey, but upon closer examination, it's a picture of erasure and homogenization through generations, as illustrated by the faded pictures in the cover. Rodriguez is faithful to show how her immigrant family, like most families who came from Mexico in the early 20th century, were systematically stripped of their language, heritage, culture, and their given names, all for the price of “becoming American” in the USA. With passion and precision, Rodriguez serves the reader a family feast of memories, a microcosm of the American family.