Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Black Dove: Mama, Mi'jo, and Me
Black Dove: Mama, Mi'jo, and Me | Ana Castillo
14 posts | 4 read | 1 reading | 28 to read
Growing up as the intellectually spirited daughter of a Mexican Indian immigrant family during the 1970s, Castillo defied convention as a writer and a feminist. A generation later, her mother's crooning mariachi lyrics resonate once again. Castillonow an established Chicana novelist, playwright, and scholarwitnesses her own son's spiraling adulthood and eventual incarceration. Standing in the stifling courtroom, Castillo describes a scene that could be any mother's worst nightmare. But in a country of glaring and stacked statistics, it is a nightmare especially reserved for mothers like her: the inner-city mothers, the single mothers, the mothers of brown sons. "Black Dove: Mama, Mi'jo, and Me "looks at what it means to be a single, brown, feminist parent in a world of mass incarceration, racial profiling, and police brutality. Through startling humor and love, Castillo weaves intergenerational stories traveling from Mexico City to Chicago. And in doing so, she narrates some of America's most heated political debates and urgent social injustices through the oft-neglected lens of motherhood and family."
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
quote
Reggie
post image

#heatinjuly #ikissedagirl This is from the memoir of Ana Castillo where she discusses living with the woman she loved for 3 years in the mid-80‘s.

Cinfhen 💕💕💕 6y
Suet624 That‘s so yummy. 6y
63 likes2 comments
review
theshrinkette
post image
Pickpick

This is a gorgeously written memoir by Ana. It covers her childhood growing up in Chicago as a brown kid on the South side, experiencing systemic racism and misogyny, coming into her sexual identity and her feminist values, and her relationship with her mother and her son. The chapters about her son's arrest and stint in prison, particularly their correspondence, was touching. A must read.

18 likes4 stack adds
blurb
theshrinkette
post image

See, this is why I never leave home without a book. Time waiting for my friend to get home well spent.

cdreincarnate I know, right? 7y
34 likes1 comment
quote
theshrinkette
post image

Learning something new everyday.

34 likes3 stack adds
blurb
Reggie
post image

#whendovescry When this dove cried, she had found out her son had been arrested for robbery. The night he committed the robbery she was attending mass in Italy and was scared because she saw a man standing near her pew who had hooves for feet. Similarly the twin sister of her guide abruptly left during the service. She was found outside frantic, wanting to speak to a priest, because she had seen a devil inside the church. This had been a sign.

Cinfhen Ooooh, this sounds good! Stacked! 8y
TrishB Very interesting 👍 8y
24 likes2 stack adds2 comments
review
Reggie
post image
Pickpick

This book is a kind of an autobiography told through essays. Ana Castillo is a Chicana, a feminist, a poet, a woman who has loved both women and men, a mother, a daughter, a curandera, a writer, a fighter, a life liver. Her book was everything.

quote
Reggie
post image

Wow. This introduction was not what I was expecting. It leads into how her maternal grandfather worked on the railroad as a signalman and along with his wife had his daughter, Ana's mother, in Nebraska in 1928. Her mother would later be one of the 1/2 million-1 million repatriated to Mexico after the stock market crash of 1929. Her mother would make back to the states and raise Ana in Chicago. Wow.

17 likes1 stack add
quote
Reggie
post image

Starting this collection of essays by one of my favorite authors, Ana Castillo. Her picture is what I imagine a bruja would look like. A dark haired, enchantress. And through her writing, I have always been bewitched. I have always been under your spell Ana.

Cinfhen ❤️ 8y
19 likes1 comment
blurb
lisaschulte
post image

I don't read a ton of memoirs. Here are a few in my collection, plus the Ana Castillo one I rented from the library that I'm hoping to get to soon. Recently enjoyed Angela's Ashes audiobook narrated by Frank McCourt as well. #booktober #memorablememoirs

blurb
RebeccaH
post image

TBRTuesday, post #2.

CherylDeFranceschi I feel less guilty on Tuesdays! 8y
26 likes3 comments
quote
tkingsanchez
post image

"Woman of the air..."

Lupita.Reads Righhnhhttttt 💔❤️💔 8y
31 likes3 stack adds1 comment
review
Lupita.Reads
post image
Pickpick

Okay so I'm a little biased when it comes to this book. I have been an Ana Castillo fan for a very very long time. This is definitely one of my favorites by her! A collection of essays and semi memoir Castillo shares so much of herstory in this & I could not love it more! Oh Ana *Swoon* 😍❤️

Lupita.Reads New readers to Castillo: definitely encourage you to start with this and then weave your way into her fiction. My favorite: So Far From God 😍📚 8y
Well-ReadNeck Thanks!! Love to find new authors! 8y
Lupita.Reads @Well-Read Neck SO GOOD! 8y
See All 8 Comments
tkingsanchez Thanks, just started reading this (after seeing your blurbs) and will add, So Far From God, to my reading list. 8y
OliverDepp I love feminist press! Will read 8y
Lupita.Reads @tkingsanchez what did you think?! 8y
Lupita.Reads @OliverDepp 💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾👯 8y
tkingsanchez @Lupita.Reads I haven't finished, but what I've read so far, is personal and raw. It's her vulnerability and the willingness to expose it, what makes this book engaging. 8y
36 likes4 stack adds8 comments
quote
Lupita.Reads

"From that loneliness, I went to a relationship where I was anything but-or at least that was what I thought at first. In time, I would finally accept that loneliness was integral to being alive. Nobody makes you feel that way and, likewise, nobody takes it away."

30 likes1 stack add
quote
Lupita.Reads

"The tradition of la tortilla linking us, past to present, living on and on."