Joie Davidow
Las Mamis:
Favorite Latino Authors Remember their Mothers
Edited by Joie Davidow and Esmeralda Santiago
Alfred A. Knopf, 2000
Spanish Edition, Vintage, 2001
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From Library Journal:
"The book becomes a bridge between the shores, so far well delineated, of Latin world authors and hyphenated-American writers. The editors, Santiago (When I Was Puerto Rican) and Davidow (founder of the Latino magazine Sí), correctly disregard origins and pseudo-measurements of latinismo and, as a result, offer a triumph of community and a valuable manifestation of what it is to be Hispanic. We see how definitions of identity are best off in the hands of artists. For this reason and for the very powerful prose, this work belongs in every library."
Joie Davidow's mother, Florence Schwartz Davidow circa 1941
Excerpt
From the Foreword:
The anthology came together while I grieved for my own mommy. In the acuteness of sorrow, as I read the memoirs of all the sons and daughters who contributed to this book, I understood why writing about Mami was so hard. I saw that all of us live, not standing alone, a solitary tree in the wilderness, but in the shadow of the older tree that begot us. No matter how far away we plant ourselves, we are destined to exist in relation to our mothers, to the very source of our lives. Our achievements are their achievements. Our failures are their failures. Our dreams are only variations of those our mothers dreamed for us. We reject their expectations, or strive to live up to them, but we live our lives forever in the shadow of theirs.
I Wouldn't Leave
Rome to Go
to Heaven
Marked for Life
Infusions of Healing
Las Mamis
Las Christmas