Love in the Time of Aftershocks

Arteaga, Alfred

Biographies & Memoirs

Chusma House

Las hijas de Juan shatters the silence surrounding experiences of incest within a working-class Mexican American family. Both a feminist memoir and a hopeful meditation on healing, it is Josie Méndez-Negrete’s story of how she and her siblings and mother survived years of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of her father.Méndez-Negrete was born in Mexico, in the state of Zacatecas. She recalls a joyous childhood growing up in the midst of Tabasco, a vibrant town filled with extended family. Her father, though, had dreams of acquiring wealth in el norte. He worked sun-up to sun-down in the fields of south Texas. Returning home to Mexico, his pockets full of dollars, he spent evenings drinking and womanizing.
When Méndez-Negrete was eleven, her father moved the family to the United States, where they eventually settled in California’s Santa Clara Valley. There her father began molesting his daughters, viciously beating them and their mother. Within the impoverished immigrant family, the abuse continued for years, until a family friend brought it to the attention of child welfare authorities. Méndez-Negrete’s father was tried, convicted, and imprisoned.
Las hijas de Juan is told chronologically, from the time Méndez-Negrete was a child until she was a young adult trying, along with the rest of her family, to come to terms with her father’s brutal legacy. It is a harrowing story of abuse and shame compounded by cultural and linguistic isolation and a system of patriarchy that devalues the experiences of women and girls. At the same time, Las hijas de Juan is an inspiring tale, filled with strong women and hard-won solace found in traditional Mexican cooking, songs, and storytelling.

Las hijas de Juan: Daughters betrayed

MeÌndez-Negrete, Josie

Community & Culture

Patrisia Gonzales, Fort Worth native and syndicated columnist, takesreaders on a spiritual, political journey to Mexico in her recentlypublished book, The Mud People, Chronicles, Testimonios andRemembrances.One strand follows the dignity and strength of the common Mexicans'struggle against governmental repression and poverty. Another drawson indigenous creation stories that tell how people emerged from theearth, colored in muddy hues, and drew strength from its healingpowers.Mexican curanderas -- natural healers -- taught her Aztec and Mayancures and rituals that helped her to overcome her own emotionaltraumas from childhood sexual molestation, adult rape and a cripplingautoimmune disease.Blending Buddhist teachings with practical, indigenous survivalskills of hard work, land use, resiliency and frugality, she learnedthat we can control our destinies.Despite the terrors of torture, abductions and murder that she claimsthe Mexican government perpetrated in the "dirty wars' againstdissidents and Indians in the last century and today, the mud peopleraised their voices and named their abuse and abusers.In a book loaded with examples of anonymous Mexican women whocouldn't weep anymore for their abducted husbands and sons, Gonzalestells heroic stories of their purification of fear and sheddingshackles of silence.Seldom seen by the tourist class, Mexican mothers and wivesorganized, marched and petitioned the federales for democracy,justice and the return of their disappeared love ones. They displayedtheir photos in public squares for all to remember.

The Mud People: Chronicles, Testimonios & Remembrances

Patrisia Gonzales

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