Welcome to Litsy!

#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.

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.

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

Learning something new everyday.

#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.

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.

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.

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.

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

TBRTuesday, post #2.

"Woman of the air..."

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* 😍❤️

"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."

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