CWRU Common Reading

Growing up in a New Jersey factory town in the 1980s, Daisy Hernández believed that her aunt had become deathly ill from eating an apple. No one in her family, in either the United States or Colombia, spoke of infectious diseases. Even into her thirties, she only knew that her aunt had died of Chagas, a rare and devastating illness that affects the heart and digestive system. But as Hernández dug deeper, she discovered that Chagas--or the kissing bug disease--is more prevalent in the United States than the Zika virus.  After her aunt's death, Hernández began searching for answers. Crisscrossing the country, she interviewed patients, doctors, epidemiologists, and even veterinarians with the Department of Defense. She learned that in the United States more than three hundred thousand people in the Latinx community have Chagas, and that outside of Latin America, this is the only country with the native insects--the "kissing bugs"--that carry the Chagas parasite. Through unsparing, gripping, and humane portraits, Hernández chronicles a story vast in scope and urgent in its implications, exposing how poverty, racism, and public policies have conspired to keep this disease hidden. A riveting and nuanced investigation into racial politics and for-profit healthcare in the United States, The Kissing Bug reveals the intimate history of a marginalized disease and connects us to the lives at the center of it all.

The PEN Literary Award-winning author "writes with honesty, intelligence, tenderness, and love" about her Colombian-Cuban heritage and queer identity in this poignant coming-of-age memoir (Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street) 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.

This landmark anthology offers gripping portraits of American life as seen through the eyes of young women of color It has been decades since women of color first turned feminism upside down, exposing the feminist movement as exclusive, white, and unaware of the concerns and issues of women of color from around the globe. Since then, key social movements have risen, including Black Lives Matter, the transgender movement, and the activism of young undocumented students. Social media has also changed how feminism looks for young women of color, generating connections and access to audiences in all corners of the country. But we remain a country divided by race and gender. Now, a new generation of outspoken women of color offer a much-needed fresh dimension to the shape of feminism of the future. InColonize This!, Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman have collected a diverse, lively group of emerging writers who speak to the strength of community and the influence of color, to borders and divisions, and to the critical issues that need to be addressed to finally reach an era of racial freedom. With prescient and intimate writing,Colonize This!will reach the hearts and minds of readers who care about the experience of being a woman of color, and about establishing a culture that fosters freedom and agency for women of all colors.

En esta reveladora novela de no ficción Daisy Hernández hace un recuento de lo que las mujeres de su familia colombo-cubana le enseñaron acerca del amor, el dinero y la raza. Al final de este hermoso libro, Daisy Hernández, una latinoamericana queer, ha acercado el inglés y el español hasta crear un nuevo e inimitable idioma, como parte de una valiente y brillante negociación de un mundo multilingue.
Varios artistas han dicho que "el arte es un espejo" y en efecto, la literatura de Daisy Hernández nos entrega un espejo mestizo desde el cuál podemos entender nuestros conflictos sin sentirnos juzgados bajo el lastre del subdesarrollo o cualquier etiqueta que nos defina. En Radiónica celebramos las estéticas diversas y este es arte para sentirnos más libres con lo que somos. Diversos, mezclados y latinos. ~ from Amazon.com

In this revealing nonfiction novel, Daisy Hernández recounts what the women in her Colombian-Cuban family taught her about love, money, and race. At the end of this beautiful book, Daisy Hernández, a queer Latin American, has brought English and Spanish together to create a new and inimitable language, as part of a brave and brilliant negotiation of a multilingual world. Several artists have said that "art is a mirror" and in effect, Daisy Hernández's literature gives us a mestizo mirror from which we can understand our conflicts without feeling judged under the burden of underdevelopment or any label that defines us. At Radionica we celebrate diverse aesthetics and this is art to feel freer with who we are. Diverse, mixed and Latin. ~ translation by Google Translate