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Erasmo Guerra
Once More to the River: Family Snapshots of Growing Up, Getting Out and Going Back
Once More to the River: Family Snapshots of Growing Up, Getting Out and Going Back
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"Like the howl of an accordion--half sorrow and half joy, wondrous and exquisite. These stories squeezed my heart--me apretaron el corazón."
--Sandra Cisneros, author of THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET.
From the Introduction:
Many nights my mom stood on the front porch and hollered at my sister, brother and me to get home after we spent the day wandering the neighborhood. She called us desvalagados. Not exactly lost, but loose.
She didn't like us spending too much time in "borrowed houses."
"There's nothing like your own home," Mom said. "No hay más como tu propia casa."
And there never will be. Although I've lived in New York City for nearly two decades, when I sit down at my writing desk I still hear my mom's echoes and return to that stretch of the Texas-Mexico border along the Rio Grande River where I grew up.
Each of the stories here is about home. These essays first appeared in magazines, online journals and literary anthologies, but I wanted to gather them together in a proper collection of their own.
"Childhood's End," about my teenage sister's murder, was originally published in Texas Monthly. "Freedom Ride," about a bus ride out of the borderlands, and "Once More to the River," about a ferry ride across the Rio Grande into Mexico with my mom, appeared in The Texas Observer. "Once More to the River" was also included in Hecho en Tejas, edited by Dagoberto Gilb. I chronicle another bus ride, this one bound for the border, in the story "Tex-Mex Express," which ran in ColorLines. "Recuerdo: My Sister Remembered," a short family memoir, was in the collection Fifteen Candles: Fifteen Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles, and other Quinceañera Stories, edited by Adriana Lopez.
--Sandra Cisneros, author of THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET.
From the Introduction:
Many nights my mom stood on the front porch and hollered at my sister, brother and me to get home after we spent the day wandering the neighborhood. She called us desvalagados. Not exactly lost, but loose.
She didn't like us spending too much time in "borrowed houses."
"There's nothing like your own home," Mom said. "No hay más como tu propia casa."
And there never will be. Although I've lived in New York City for nearly two decades, when I sit down at my writing desk I still hear my mom's echoes and return to that stretch of the Texas-Mexico border along the Rio Grande River where I grew up.
Each of the stories here is about home. These essays first appeared in magazines, online journals and literary anthologies, but I wanted to gather them together in a proper collection of their own.
"Childhood's End," about my teenage sister's murder, was originally published in Texas Monthly. "Freedom Ride," about a bus ride out of the borderlands, and "Once More to the River," about a ferry ride across the Rio Grande into Mexico with my mom, appeared in The Texas Observer. "Once More to the River" was also included in Hecho en Tejas, edited by Dagoberto Gilb. I chronicle another bus ride, this one bound for the border, in the story "Tex-Mex Express," which ran in ColorLines. "Recuerdo: My Sister Remembered," a short family memoir, was in the collection Fifteen Candles: Fifteen Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles, and other Quinceañera Stories, edited by Adriana Lopez.
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