Yale GALA Book Club Reading Native Country of the Heart by Cherrie Moraga
Event Information
About this Event
Join Yale GALA, Inc. for a virtual book club on Thursday, 3/18/21 8-9:30 PM EST (5-6:30 Pacific)
Enjoy a lively and engaging discussion with old and new friends, about the book Native Country of the Heart -A Memoir(2019) by Cherrie Moraga. Yalies and friends are warmly invited; everyone is welcome.
Native Country of the Heart -A Memoir is a mother-daughter story that also tells of the Mexican American disapora.
From Moraga's website: "Native Country of a Heart - Geography of Desire, began with the scribbling of a middle-aged daughter, in awe and broken-hearted wonder, documenting the last years of her mother's life with Alzheimer's. But in that microcosm of her mother's private amnesia, Cherrie Moraga uncovered the remnants of the grand story of a people. Hers is a Mexican pueblo and an American story of loss: the loss of land, the loss of language, the loss of history; and most critically, the loss of the memory of loss itself.
"In this literary, political and contemplative memoir, Moraga revisits the sore spots of her past in the definitive effort to make peace with them; to understand as she writes, "within the context of [her] ethnicity and culture, what Mexican & American/ Indian & Catholic/ rape & racism had to do with sexual desire and a contrary gender." These are not new themes for Moraga, first introduced in her now classic work, Loving in the War Years, nearly thirty-five years ago. What is new is Moraga's firm grasp on the 'old,' which finds its spiritual and political grounding in an indigenous recollection of land/ geography/ place."
1. Cherríe Moraga’s website: About our book - summary and reviews:
https://cherriemoraga.com/index.php/books-1/native-country
2. Los Angeles Times book review. (Great vintage photos from the book, too):
https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-cherrie-moraga-native-country-review-20190418-story.html
3. NBC Book Review: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/cherr-e-moraga-s-memoir-native-country-heart-centers-her-n993441
"Heart-wrenching and heartwarming, Moraga’s memoir delivers new insights into the acclaimed writer’s creativity, and introduces readers to another of her significant muses: 'I made a commitment to depict my mother honestly, as a woman full of complexity, contradictions, and paradoxes,' Moraga adds. 'But what I wrote, I wrote out of love.'
4. Wikipedia entry (plot spoilers alert): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Country_of_the_Heart:_A_Memoir
5. Publisher's Page: Plot summary, excerpt, reviews. (No reader's guide / discussion questions) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374219666
6. Interview with Cherríe Moraga (June 5-6, 2005), from the Voices of Feminism Oral History Project (Smith College, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History) - 90 pages.
https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/Moraga.pdf
RSVP: RSVP for the Zoom link and password. (Optional sending of suggestions for future readings). You will also receive optional book study and discussion materials.
Cost: FREE.
More event info: http://www.yalegala.org/article.html?aid=677
