Dreaming with Mariposas

Powerful, concise, and poetic, this novel in vignettes tells the coming-of-age stories of two sisters, butterflies in a family of dreamers in southern CA during the late 70s and 80s. I honestly thought this was a memoir most of the way because the details were so rich and real and accurate to me as someone who also grew up in So Cal during this time. I really enjoyed the charm and strength of these sisters, second generation immigrants from Mexico, who, despite facing inequality, racism, violence and poverty, not only refused to be victims but became impossible to ignore. Charming, humorous, and, at times, harrowing, it’s a story of an American family you won’t forget. Definitely worth a read.

The precision of language continues to offer even after the covers are closed, the way books have their ways. Where a family has a conversation about taking home a guayaba tree, to make it part of their of their family, it is like the reader making the tree, this book, all ideas and images, part of them. Some Polydorus stuff—Chicanx—in the use of Spanish and English, a grafting of cultures: two different branches growing out of shared bark. I feel like I know these characters, have laughed with them, have been brought into their world. Playful.

Las historias deceste libro son tan reales que uno se transporta a sus propia cultura y recuerdos.

This is a very relatable book for me, because I am an immigrant. I especially recommend a spec for those who have direct impact on young Chicano students. This book elucidates the mentality, the hard work, and the desire for progress along with its challenges.Many students are lost due to the challenges, especially the cultural challenges and this book helps bring a little late to those challenges.

What I loved about this book--written as a linked series of short vignettes--was that it was about coming of age as a writer/artist. Some definite nods to Cisneros's classic House on Mango Street, but Martinez makes the form her own with gorgeous description of houses, yards, food, family cuentos, and a wrenching climax when Chofi and Paloma finally flee their family home, with triumph and sadness, to realize the mariposa dreams embodied by parents and grandparents, tíos y tías.

Beautifully written, amazing story, and unforgettable moments. ;)

I realized, based on the end credits, that the vignettes here are fictional. Yet they read like memoirs, so perhaps real life influenced some of them? The narrator relayed her youth mainly in California, early 1970s (drive-in movies and rabbit-ear TVs), with family ties in Michoacán. I found this book enjoyably easy to escape into, and I deem the reading level suited for an audience in their late teens and older.The wares and aromas of a busy marketplace in Mexico comprised my favorite story. The heartbreaking theme to another tale here, nearly superior, was hinted by its epigraph -- a few lyrics from "El gran varón," popularized by musician Willie Colón. Additional themes: Low-income resourcefulness; conflicts of English at school vs. Spanish at home; and cultural expectations and impositions upon Chicana/Latina women.I'll admit, my eyebrows shot up at a description here of old-school discipline -- more a bizarre form of humiliation intended to drill home a lesson. Incidentally, if other adults take offense to the bluntness in the revelation of a predator at a babysitter's home, I instead deem that tale a form of empowerment-- confronting cycles of shame and silence, so as to break patterns that have enabled such abuse.

Both beautiful and disturbing, this testimonial novel is filled with hope. Very much worth a read.