American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood

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,... Read Full Review

Arana's memoir is poetic, colorful and powerful. The book is a moving account of Arana's childhood, split between Peru and Wyoming. She weaves father's rich Peruvian family history into the evolution of Peru and counters it with her American mother's reticence to abide by the rules of the Peruvian society. The reader is split between which society is better: family-centered traditional Peru or independent adventurous America... Read Full Review

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... Read Full Review

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... Read Full Review

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... Read Full Review