Gringa

A Contradictory Girlhood

Author: Melissa Hart
ISBN: 9781580052948

Torn between the high socioeconomic status of her father and the bohemian lifestyle of her mother, Melissa Hart tells a compelling story of contradiction in this coming-of-age memoir. Set in 1970s Southern California, Gringa is the story of a young girl conflicted by two extremes. On the one hand there’s life with her mother, who leaves her father to begin a lesbian relationship, taking Hart and her two siblings along. Hart tells of her mom’s new life in a Hispanic neighborhood of Oxnard, California, and how these new surroundings begin to positively shape Hart herself. At the opposite extreme is her father’s white-bread well-to-do security, which is predictable and stable and boring. Hart is made all the more fraught with frustration when a judge rules that being raised by two women is "unnatural” and grants her father primary custody. Hart weaves a powerful story of fleeting moments with her mother, of her unfolding adoration of Oxnard’s Latino culture, and of the ways in

Publisher: Seal Press
Publish Date: 2009

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General, Biography & Autobiography / Medical, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, MEDICAL / Neuroscience, Psychology / Neuropsychology

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: Essays)