Why a Booktrail?
2000s – Two lands contrasted through the eyes of an American Chica – Marie Arana, a so called ‘hybrid American’
American Chica
What you need to know before your trail
Caught between two cultures Marie Arana felt the best and the worst of both. From her father’s Peruvian side, she was taught how to be a proper lady, to act well, to do what was expected of her. From her mother’s American side, she learned skills such as how to snap a chicken’s neck ready for dinner, and to shoot a gun.
Arana accepted this contrast of cultural heritage easily, not knowing any different. But it was when the family moved to Wyoming in the USA, she understood what it meant to be a cultural hybrid and that was when she started to examine both sides to her identity.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
A cultural mix of North and South AMerica as seen and experienced through the eyes of Marie Arana who has parents from both sides of the border.
Caught in the middle or a blend of both? A story of a mixed marriage, a mixed childhood and the culmination of both
Peru
Peru is Marie Arana’s homeland and the place where she forms her earliest memories, habits and a life akin to an earthquake where the fault lines of your identity keep changing.
Peru is also a main character -a country in turmoil for its identity and its past. It has many problems such as a class system which prevents it from adapting to the more modern times. Marie’s mother never really feels at home here – in this complicated yet fascinating country.
There is a lot to discover about the culture and belief systems of the Peruvian people. Pachamama was a fascinating concept in particular. There are the boom days for the sugar crop. Their home in Cartavio –
Cartavio was surrounded by fields of sugarcane, fringed by a raging Pacific and life in it was an eerie mirror of Peru’s Conquistador past.
USA
Where her mother reinvents herself completely and where Arana really gets her eyes opened to how America is different when actually in America – and not just what you have experienced having an American mother.
This America is one made up across the years of segregation, of international politics which makes it “an America which was getting too cocky for its latin american neighbours”
She is an american chica – a bridge – and finds it easy to move between two cultures that why shouldn’t she be able to forge a third?
Wyoming could not be further removed from her Peruvian life if it tried.
Streetview Maps
C) Peru - Lima - Plaza de Armas
F ) USA - Rawlins Wyoming
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:
Destination: Lima, Rawlins Departure Time: 2000s
Two cultures, two ideals, one truth
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