A Latino memoir : exploring family, identity and the common good / Gerald E. Poyo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Poyo, Gerald Eugene, 1950- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hispanic Americans--Biography.

Hispanic Americans.

United States--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.

United States.

Latin America--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.

Latin America.

Poyo, Gerald Eugene, 1950-.

Poyo, Gerald Eugene.

Poyo, Gerald Eugene, 1950---Family.

Poyo family.

Poyo, Gerald Eugene, 1950---Travel--America.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (235 pages)

Place of Publication:

Houston, Texas : Arte Público Press, [2019]

Summary:

"In a bumpy, anxiety-producing plane ride across the Straits of Florida to Cuba in 1979, graduate student Gerald Poyo knew his life would either end that day in the World War II-era prop airplane or change forever. He survived the trip, and his ten-day visit solidified his academic research and confirmed his career as a history professor. In this wide-ranging examination of his relatives' migrations in the Western Hemisphere -- the Americas -- over five generations, Poyo uses his training as a historian to unearth his family's stories. Beginning with his great-great grandfather's flight from Cuba to Key West in 1869, this is also about the loss of a beloved homeland. His father was Cuban; his mother was from Flint, Michigan. Poyo himself was six months old when his parents took him to Bogotá, Colombia. He celebrated his eighth birthday in New Jersey and his tenth in Venezuela. He was 12 when he landed in Buenos Aires, where he spent his formative years before returning to the United States for college. 'My heart belonged to the south, but somehow I knew I could not escape the north,' he writes. Transnationalism shaped his life and identity. Divided into two parts, the first section traces his parents and ancestors as he links their stories to impersonal movements in the world -- Spanish colonialism, Cuban nationalism, United States expansionism -- that influenced their lives. The second half explores how exile, migration and growing up a 'hemispheric American, a borderless American' impacted his own development and stimulated questions about poverty, religion and relations between Latin America and the United States. Ultimately, this thought-provoking memoir unveils the universal desire for a safe, stable life for one's family"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Bygone generations

Struggled in radical ways

A sense of ambiguity

Better forgotten

Aligning north

Americanization

Of economic necessity

An unexpected turn

Corporate foot soldiers

Children fuse cultures easily

The world isn't fair

Fixing the world

Turmoil of ethnic politics

Pressure cooker

Pilgrimage

Inscribing a maligned people

No longer home

The worst of times

Bread, spirit and community

We shared a sign of peace.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-5185-0567-8