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 A Memoir Summary
- A Cup Of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir Pdf
- A Cup Of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir
Overview
In 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.
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.
A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A 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. Her 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 I bow deeply in admiration and gratitude.” GUEST: Daisy Hernandez has written for Ms. Magazine and In These Times. For six years she was an editor at Colorlines.com.
A Cup Of Water Under My Bed A Memoir Summary
A Cup Of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir Pdf
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.
A Cup Of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir
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.