“Mi’ja belongs on your bookshelf between I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The House on Mango Street. Pure passion, pure life, pure New York City. We thrill watching the narrator survive, thrive and tell her tale. Brilliant!”
—Lisa Aronson-Fontes, PhD; psychologist, professor, Fulbright scholar, global speaker and author of Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship and Child Abuse and Culture: Working with Diverse Families. |
"From deep in the South Bronx comes a voice that must be heard. It is a voice that cannot be muffled. It is the voice of a little Latina girl - Mi’ja - who grew up to become a poet, playwright and author. Those who already know the works Magdalena Gómez will be surprised because this piece of non-fiction, this recollection of a life on the edge, is meticulous and rich with detail and color like she’s never written before.
Gómez pours it all out, letting readers understand the distended underbelly of her life growing up with a sadistic mother (Mami) and a jovial father (Papi) and a shortage of love. It took every breath for her to endure as a first generation child in an economically oppressed area. Gómez carves out a road map for survival that should be followed word-for-word. For if she could overcome all of the impediments and roadblocks on her way to becoming a world-class playwright and Poet Laureate, so can others, mostly by finding the humor where you would least expect it.
Gómez’s first 19 years are riddled with contradictions, but she is up to the task. Time is on her side and she bides it like a champ, grabbing independence so direly needed to assert her true self and ultimately free her from her captors, the two people who would ultimately define her whether she liked it or not. A masterpiece of memoir writing, this book belongs on shelves far and wide…"
-Steve Bloom, co-author Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness and author of Video Invaders
Gómez pours it all out, letting readers understand the distended underbelly of her life growing up with a sadistic mother (Mami) and a jovial father (Papi) and a shortage of love. It took every breath for her to endure as a first generation child in an economically oppressed area. Gómez carves out a road map for survival that should be followed word-for-word. For if she could overcome all of the impediments and roadblocks on her way to becoming a world-class playwright and Poet Laureate, so can others, mostly by finding the humor where you would least expect it.
Gómez’s first 19 years are riddled with contradictions, but she is up to the task. Time is on her side and she bides it like a champ, grabbing independence so direly needed to assert her true self and ultimately free her from her captors, the two people who would ultimately define her whether she liked it or not. A masterpiece of memoir writing, this book belongs on shelves far and wide…"
-Steve Bloom, co-author Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness and author of Video Invaders
" The language dances.The stories sing. My heart broke and was mended, over and over again. Magdalena, the wise elder, offers healing to Magdalena, the wiser child, and in turn opens a path, brimming with love and compassion, to heal all our child selves. Mi'ja is for those who have endured much suffering at the hands of those who couldn’t or wouldn’t love us in the ways we needed and, more importantly, in the ways we deserved to be loved. Her stories are hers, particular in time and place: various parts of New York City in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The stories are also universal in the best ways; they travel the world, speak many languages, weave connections, and show us how empathy, courage, and creativity are deep wells from which we all can draw as we soldier through this maddening world. Gracías a Magdalena por tus palabras y tu corazón tiernisimo."
—Priscilla Maria Page, MFA, PhD; University of Massachusetts, Amherst Multicultural Theater Certificate Director, Dramaturgy Faculty
—Priscilla Maria Page, MFA, PhD; University of Massachusetts, Amherst Multicultural Theater Certificate Director, Dramaturgy Faculty
“At once irreverent and true, Magdalena Gómez writes with the prose of a poet and the soul of a survivor. You’ll find yourself savoring each playful phrase and philosophical rumination. By excavating and writing her coming of age story, Gómez gives her younger self that voice and full humanity the adults in her life too often denied her growing up. Mi’ja is thus a masterclass in the art of reparenting one’s inner child. Heartbreaking and hopeful, this memoir stays with you long after the final page.”
-Dr. Li Yun Alvarado, PhD, author of Words or Water
-Dr. Li Yun Alvarado, PhD, author of Words or Water
"I was lucky enough to hear Magdalena read from her book at The Longfellow House in Cambridge this past Sunday.
THUNDER-STRUCK! Unbelievable and magnificent. Can't wait to read the book and hope to hear her live again."
-Nina Lydia Olff, M.Ed; author of American Heritage: Many Tribes, Many Nations
Painting of Magdalena by Rosa Ibarra.
THUNDER-STRUCK! Unbelievable and magnificent. Can't wait to read the book and hope to hear her live again."
-Nina Lydia Olff, M.Ed; author of American Heritage: Many Tribes, Many Nations
Painting of Magdalena by Rosa Ibarra.
A Recent Review, 2024:
In reading “Mi’ja,” Magdalena Gomez’ singularly affecting memoir, I found an inspiring testament to a young person’s undimmed spirit locked in a struggle for dignity. In it, we witness an innocent’s search for words, concepts, and expression, in the effort to contain unrelenting neglect. All of this is achieved without a note of self-pity.
“Mi’ja” made me think of many things. One of them being my own old hurts. Some of those were very real and quite strong, though some of what I held up as my own childhood martyrdom pales greatly in comparison to the daily onslaught she describes. Another is the hope that, as I found affirmation for my own struggles, many others who experienced difficult childhoods will find the same affirmation. That they may take heart from her reaching for the masters of poetry and other literature to rise above the storm. The language in “Mi’ja” conveys uniformly lively humor and snappy cleverness. It conveys poetry. This includes actual poems, as part of the narrative. The absence of a calendar as an organizing principle (‘When I was nine, in “X” grade, this happened; when I was 10, this other thing happened…,’ may seem unusual. Although these markers receive occasional mention, the timeline remains foggy.) The good news: this accentuates the sense of a long march; a march in which anything could happen. A part of Magdalena’s journey was the language frontier. As a young Puerto Rican woman residing in an underclass environment, young Magdalena spoke fluent Spanglish. She uses it liberally in her text. Though I don’t know how some English Speakers might handle Spanglish, it worked quite well for me. As a native Spanish speaker whose family immigrated to New York when I was 10, I not only understood it, but took color and realism from it. Somewhere in the early part of “Mi’ja,” I believe, I also found a trivial moment that touched me personally. There, on the page before me, I saw Magdalena and her peers using the word “hua” (Spanish Phonetics come into play, here). I did a double take. Not since 1964 had I come across the word. I read it over, a few times. The word was spoken; the participants, in thrall to the word’s titillation; its “impoliteness,” and the trouble it caused, tittered and reveled in some commotion over it. You don’t know the word “hua”? I heard it from one of my classmates, when I was still in my first year of residence in this country, and not a master of the English language. My classmate directed it, during recess, at a girl in our class. Due to his very ‘round’ pronunciation: “WHO-aah,” the word really perplexed me. It sounded like an absurd made-up word. The only thing clear to me was the disdain on the speaker’s face. Of course, it would take some time for me to learn that my friend was saying “whore,” when I still barely understood what this meant. To a native Spanish speaker, this silliness constituted the tip of the iceberg of the immigrant’s struggle with the host country’s language. Though Magdalena didn’t experience the same language barrier I did, we navigated the same seas. In her acknowledgements section, at the end, Magdalena goes to the trouble to thank a great many people. That shows a humility and gratitude I found arresting and truthful, giving a full measure of acknowledgement to the good connections in her life. And, of course, few, if any of us, really achieve and conquer in a vacuum. There are always those who open the doors we walk through under our own steam. That gift of gratitude is greatly underrated, and it is another of Magdalena Gomez’ great strengths. Magdalena Gomez is to be commended for a very brave and revealing first installment of a memoir taking us from her beginnings to the point of departure from home at age 19. A departure from East Berlin, so to speak, toward freedom in The West. I can’t wait to see what freedoms and challenges she finds in her second installment. Manuel Alejandro Macarrulla ~ Artist Manuelalejandromacarrulla.com |
Assemblage by: James J. Lescault
As I immersed myself in the exploration of this amazing literary contribution, I feel extremely fortunate and awestruck. This is a woman of rare courage who heals the reader through her own intimate painful confessions. It is a work that we will help the reader to revisit the memory lane of their personal past, and to rediscover who they were, who they are and why. We have all had experiences in our developmental years that we would rather keep hidden. The author, however, invites you to courageously re-examine and heal from them. She truly delivers the message that we are stronger and more powerful than we can ever hope to imagine. Kudos to this extraordinary woman and all she endured to be the amazing role model she is today. She truly is awe inspiring.
-Dr. Gloria Caballer-Arce; Visual Artist; Educator; Springfield, MA |