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, 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.

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. Arana delicately examines the two cultures in conflict through various relationships: her mother and grandmother disagree on how to raise children and treat husbands; her parents have different goals for the family and expectations of each other; and Marie's little friends, depending on what country she's in, seduce her into one culture while she struggles not to abandon the other. A sense of conflicted identity, pride in one's heritage, and confused loyalties is the result--all told while coming of age suspended between North and South America. Highly recommended.

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.

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.

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!