Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

Cepeda, Raquel

Paperback

Biographies GeneralLatino Studies

Publisher Price: $18.99

ISBN10: 1451635877
ISBN13: 9781451635874
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: Feb 4 2014
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.30
Language: English
In 2009, Raquel Cepeda embarked on an exploration of her genealogy using DNA testing to uncover the truth about her family and the tapestry of races and ethnicities that came together in an ambiguous mix in her features, resulting in a beautiful story of reconciliation and redemption (HuffPost) and what it means to be Latina.

Digging through memories long buried, Cepeda journeyed not only into her ancestry but also into her own history. Born in Harlem to Dominican parents, she was sent to live with her maternal grandparents in the Paraíso (Paradise) district in Santo Domingo while still a baby. It proved to be an idyllic reprieve in her otherwise fraught childhood. Paraíso came to mean family, home, and belonging. When Cepeda returned to the US, she discovered her family constellation had changed. Her mother had a new, abusive boyfriend who relocated the family to San Francisco. When that relationship fell apart, Cepeda found herself back in New York City with her father and European stepmother: attending tennis lessons and Catholic schools; fighting vicious battles with her father, who discouraged her from expressing the Dominican part of her hyphenated identity; and immersed in the 80s hip-hop culture of uptown Manhattan. It was in these streets, through the prism of hip-hop and the sometimes loving embrace of her community, that Cepeda constructed her own identity.

Years later, when Cepeda had become a successful journalist and documentary filmmaker, the strands of her DNA would take her further, across the globe and into history. Who were her ancestors? How did they--and she--become Latina? Her journey, as the most unforgettable ones often do, would lead her to places she hadn't expected to go. With a vibrant lyrical prose and fierce honesty, Cepeda parses concepts of race, identity, and ancestral DNA among Latinos by using her own Dominican American story as one example, and in the process arrives at some sort of peace with her father.

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