A Cup of Water Under My Bed

July 1, 2014
A journalist's account of growing up between cultures and learning to embrace both her ethnic and bisexual identities.Former ColorLines magazine executive editor Hernandez (co-editor: Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, 2002) was raised as the first-generation American child of a working-class Colombian mother and Cuban father. For her, "everything real"-from family conversations to the observations of her beloved aunts to favorite TV shows-happened in Spanish. However, her family wanted their daughter to achieve more in life than they could, so learning English "to become white" and Americanized became the goal they impressed upon their daughter. Yet as Hernandez came to understand, learning a language that was hers by nationality but not by ethnicity meant growing away from her family and adopting the attitude that she had "no history, no past, no culture." The break was not easy; so much from her colorful dual heritage formed the bedrock of her identity. In her parents' world, saints performed miracles, and cups of water could carry messages between the living and the dead. In that world, too, women married (or avoided) certain kinds of men. As Hernandez grew into adulthood and sexuality, she fulfilled her parents' desire to find a "gringo" boyfriend. At the same time, she discovered a desire for lesbian and transgender women. Her family castigated Hernandez for her bisexuality but also lauded their daughter for finding middle-class success as a New York Times reporter. Striving to be true to herself as a queer (rather than queer and whitewashed) Latina, she eventually took a chance writing for a social justice magazine in San Francisco. Warm and thoughtful, Hernandez 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.

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August 1, 2014
Journalist, feminist, and first-time memoirist Hernndez presents a coming-of-age story that dives into the complexities of language, sexuality, and class. From English lessons at her Catholic school in New Jersey to Spanish lessons at Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan, Hernndez renders in picture-perfect detail the somber habits of her schoolteacher nuns, her Cuban father's persistent drinking, and her Colombian mother's opinionated sisters (characterized by their preference for 99-cent lip glossstrawberry, pomegranate, peach). Like her mother, Hernndez finds herself drawn to new destinations and, as she gains exposure to women's studies and queer communities, begins to evaluate her own sexual orientation. Her writing is at its finest when Hernndez defuses awkward tension with humor, as when she considers using Frida Kahlo's famous painting, The Two Fridas, to explain lesbian relationships. She maintains a lively pace by flashing back-and-forth between childhood and adulthood, personal and professional lives, with an emphasis on her ascent from New York Times intern to regular columnist at Ms. An accessible, honest look at the often heart-wrenching effects of intergenerational tension on family ties.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)