Social Justice Task Force Heritage Book Club Discussion Group

SJTF HERITAGE BOOK CLUB FOR SEPT/OCT

*HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH (SEPT 15-OCT 15)*

My Broken Language: A Memoir

Quiara Alegría Hudes

Written by best known for writing the book for the musical In the Heights, and screenplay for its film adaptation, Quiara Alegria Hudes in this novel shares her family’s story through the music, memories and love that shaped their lives. This book has been on several lists for best books of the year during 2022 by NPR, New York Public Library, BookPage, BookRiot. It was also longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

BOOK SUMMARY:

Quiara Alegría Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced their defiance in a tight North Philly kitchen. She was awed by her mother and aunts and cousins, but haunted by the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio—even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish, bodies and books, Western art and sacred altars. Her family became her private pantheon, a gathering circle of powerful orisha-like women with tragic real-world wounds, and she vowed to tell their stories—but first she’d have to get off the stairs and join the dance. She’d have to find her language.

Weaving together Hudes’s love of music with the songs of her family, the lessons of North Philly with those of Yale, this is a multimythic dive into home, memory, and belonging—narrated by an obsessed girl who fought to become an artist so she could capture the world she loved in all its wild and delicate beauty.

-From the publisher’s website

Join us Sunday October 20th at 11:30am for a discussion on this insightful book. Please rsvp for the zoom in advance.

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElce2grz4oHN2DlCziGMPOkC20gPpgJxuC