A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A Memoir



A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A Memoir

  • A Cup of Water Under My Bed weaves stories organized into three sections: growing up as the child of immigrants in New Jersey, experiencing sexuality with power and peril, and living race amid US racism in the twenty-first century.
  • This is the opening to A cup of water under my bed, the memoir of one Colombian-Cuban daughter's rebellions and negotiations with the women who raised her and the world that wanted to fit her into a cubbyhole. From language acquisition to coming out as bisexual to arriving as a reporting intern at the New York Times as the paper is rocked.
  • Daisy Hernandez' new memoir is entitled, 'A Cup of Water Under My Bed.' The acclaimed Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros called Hernandez's memoir, 'A wonderful, breathtaking, necessary story.
Memoir

A CUP OF WATER UNDER MY BED A MEMOIR. In her parents’ world, saints performed miracles, and cups of water could carry messages between the living and the dead.

As a memoirist, journalist and cultural activist, I’ve been speaking at colleges, conferences and organizations for the past twelve years on feminism, race, immigration, queer issues, and spirituality. I love sharing with audiences the lessons I’ve learned and the ways that we can create inclusive and racially just communities.

Though I knew I wanted to be writer when I was a teenager, I didn’t know where to start and my parents who worked in factories had no idea either. Luckily a mentor pushed me during my college years to apply for publishing internships, and I landed at Ms., the iconic feminist magazine. At 25, the magazine invited me to become a columnist, and then with my comadre, the author Bushra Rehman, I co-edited the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. That first edition came out in 2002. USA Today calls the book 1 of the “27 Things To Read If You Care About Women Of Color” and Buzzfeed says it’s 1 of “19 Books On Intersectionality That Taylor Swift Should Read.” I’m thrilled to share that a new edition of Colonize This! will be published in early 2019.

My work with Ms. magazine and my master’s degree from NYU’s journalism school took me to the New York Times where I reported for the Metro desk on fires, the flagging economy, community gardens and how undocumented immigrants decide whether to file tax returns. At ColorLines, a newsmagazine on race and politics, I spent six amazing years as an editor working with a virtual, multi-racial newsroom of reporters, activists, and bloggers. During my tenure as managing editor, ColorLines was awarded UTNE’s General Excellence Award in 2007. My ColorLines article “Becoming a Black Man” about how transgender people of color experience race when they transition was nominated for a 2009 GLAAD Media Award.

Description

A coming-of-age memoir by a Colombian-Cuban woman about shaping lessons from home into a new, queer lifeIn this lyrical, coming-of-age memoir, Daisy Hernández chronicles what the women in her Cuban-Colombian family taught her about love, money, and race. Her mother warns her about envidia and men who seduce you with pastries, while one tía bemoans that her niece is turning out to be 'una india' instead of an American. Another auntie instructs that when two people are close, they are bound to become like uña y mugre, fingernails and dirt, and that no, Daisy's father is not godless. He's simply praying to a candy dish that can be traced back to Africa. These lessons--rooted in women's experiences of migration, colonization, y cariño--define in evocative detail what it means to grow up female in an immigrant home. In one story, Daisy sets out to defy the dictates of race and class that preoccupy her mother and tías, but dating women and transmen, and coming to identify as bisexual, leads her to unexpected questions. In another piece, NAFTA shuts local factories in her hometown on the outskirts of New York City, and she begins translating unemployment forms for her parents, moving between English and Spanish, as well as private and collective fears. In prose that is both memoir and commentary, Daisy reflects on reporting for the New York Times as the paper is rocked by the biggest plagiarism scandal in its history and plunged into debates about the role of race in the newsroom. A heartfelt exploration of family, identity, and language, A Cup of Water Under My Bed is ultimately a daughter's story of finding herself and her community, and of creating a new, queer life.

Product Details

$18.00$16.56
Beacon Press

A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A Memoir

September 08, 2015
200

A Cup Of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir Pdf

5.4 X 0.7 X 8.4 inches | 0.6 pounds
English
Paperback
A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A Memoir
9780807062920
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About the Author

Daisy Hernández is the coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism and the former editor of ColorLines magazine. She speaks at colleges and conferences about feminism, race, and media representations, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Ms. magazine, CultureStrike, In These Times, Bellingham Review, Fourth Genre, and Hunger Mountain, and on NPR's All Things Considered.

A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A Memoir Summary

Reviews

A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A Memoir Pdf

'Warm and thoughtful, Hernández writes with cleareyed compassion about living, and redefining success, at the intersection of social, ethnic and racial difference. Personal storytelling at its most authentic and heartfelt.'
--Kirkus Reviews'Gorgeously written from start to finish.'
--Boston Globe'Journalist, feminist, and first-time memoirist Hernández presents a coming-of-age story that dives into the complexities of language, sexuality, and class. ... An accessible, honest look at the often heart-wrenching effects of intergenerational tension on family ties.'
--Booklist'This book is a compelling glimpse into the life of a young Latina struggling to hold onto her background and make her way in a world she often finds difficult to embrace. Hernandez's use of language is often poetic, especially when intermingling Spanish and English, with the cultural tones of each.'
--Windy City Times'By the end of this beautiful book, Daisy Hernández, a queer American Latina, has threaded Spanish and English together to create an inimitable new language in a brave and brilliant negotiation of a multilingual world.'
--Los Angeles Review of Books'With wit and respectful grace, Hernández shares stories of love for family, of strong (despite herself) roots, and of assimilation and claiming who you are without losing who you were.'
--Dallas Voice

'During a time in history when so much is said about women of color, working-class folks, immigrants, Latinas, poor people, and los depreciados but seldom from them, Hernández writes with honesty, intelligence, tenderness, and love. I bow deeply in admiration and gratitude.'
--Sandra Cisneros, author of TheHouse on Mango Street

'A striking and illuminating memoir of stark beauty that challenges our notions of identity and feminine power; absolutely riveting and unforgettable.'
--Patricia Engel, author of It's Not Love, It's Just Paris

'Hernández writes with grace and clarity about the singular joys and unique pains of growing up in two worlds. ... A marriage of power and poetry.'
--Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits 'Hernández is a stone-cold truth teller, and her talent is eclipsed only by her fearlessness. If this debut is a sign of what's to come, plan to have your heart and head broken wide open. Again and again.'
--John Murillo, author of Up Jump the Boogie

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