Ruth Behar

NEWBERY HONOR WINNERSYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD HONOR WINNER Spanning over five hundred years, Pura Belpr Award winner Ruth Behar's epic novel tells the stories of four girls from different generations of a Jewish family, many of them forced to leave their country and start a new life. In 1492, during the Spanish Inquisition, Benvenida and her family are banished from Spain for being Jewish. They journey by foot and by sea, eventually settling in Istanbul. Over four centuries later, in 1923, shortly after the Turkish war of independence, Reina's father disowns her for a small act of disobedience. He ships her away to live with an aunt in Cuba. In 1961, Reina's daughter, Alegra, is proud to be a brigadista, teaching literacy in the countryside. But soon Fidel Castro's crackdowns force her to flee to Miami, leaving her parents behind. In 2003, Alegra's daughter, Paloma, is fascinated by all the journeys that had to happen before she could be born. A keeper of memories, she's thrilled to learn more about her heritage on a trip to Spain, where she makes a momentous discovery. Though many years and many seas separate these girls, they are united by their desire to belong and to matter, and by the haunting beauty they find in sad Spanish songs--and each is lucky to stand on the shoulders of her courageous ancestors.

NEWBERY HONOR WINNERSYDNEY TAYLOR BOOK AWARD HONOR WINNER "As lyrical as it is epic, Across So Many Seas reminds us that while the past may be another country, it's also a living, breathing song of sadness and joy that helps define who we are." --Alan Gratz, New York Times bestselling author of Refugee Spanning over 500 years, Pura Belpr Award winner Ruth Behar's epic novel tells the stories of four girls from different generations of a Jewish family, many of them forced to leave their country and start a new life. In 1492, during the Spanish Inquisition, Benvenida and her family are banished from Spain for being Jewish, and must flee the country or be killed. They journey by foot and by sea, eventually settling in Istanbul. Over four centuries later, in 1923, shortly after the Turkish war of independence, Reina's father disowns her for a small act of disobedience. He ships her away to live with an aunt in Cuba, to be wed in an arranged marriage when she turns fifteen. In 1961, Reina's daughter, Alegra, is proud to be a brigadista, teaching literacy in the countryside for Fidel Castro. But soon Castro's crackdowns force her to flee to Miami all alone, leaving her parents behind. Finally, in 2003, Alegra's daughter, Paloma, is fascinated by all the journeys that had to happen before she could be born. A keeper of memories, she's thrilled by the opportunity to learn more about her heritage on a family trip to Spain, where she makes a momentous discovery. Though many years and many seas separate these girls, they are united by a love of music and poetry, a desire to belong and to matter, a passion for learning, and their longing for a home where all are welcome. And each is lucky to stand on the shoulders of their courageous ancestors.

The 25th-anniversary edition of the groundbreaking book that changed anthropology, asserting that ethnographers needn't exclude themselves or their vulnerabilities from their work In a new epilogue to this classic work, renowned ethnographer and storyteller Ruth Behar reflects on the groundbreaking impact The Vulnerable Observer has had on anthropology, sociology, and psychology and on scholarly writing. A pocket companion for writers, journalists, documentarians, and activists alike, this book speaks to the power of including oneself in the story, bringing deeper meaning to the relationship between writer, subject, and reader. In a move revolutionary for its time, The Vulnerable Observer proposed a new theory and practice for humanistic anthropology. No longer should ethnographers write at a distance, clad in their shroud of "objectivity." In six luminous essays, Behar calls instead for a fresh approach to ethnography, one that is lived and written more openly. Through this very personal account, readers can travel and relate to other peoples and the world around them. Eloquently interweaving ethnography and memoir, Behar encourages her readers to be open about their experiences, as open as their subjects are with them. She does so in the hope that this work will lead us toward greater depth of understanding and feeling, not only in anthropology but in all efforts to document the shared vulnerability of the observed and the observer.

Ruth Behar recibi el premio de autor Pura Belpr 2018 por Mi buena mala suerte "Un libro para cualquiera que se recupere de las heridas de la infancia". --Sandra Cisneros, autora de La casa en Mango Street En esta inolvidable narrativa multicultural sobre la mayor a de edad, basada en la infancia de la autora en la d cada de 1960, una joven inmigrante cubano-jud a se est adaptando a su nueva vida en la ciudad de Nueva York cuando su sue o americano se descarrila repentinamente. La dif cil situaci n de Ruthie intrigar a los lectores, y su poderosa historia de fuerza y ​​resistencia, llena de color, luz y conmoci n, permanecer con ellos durante mucho tiempo. Ruthie Mizrahi y su familia emigraron recientemente de la Cuba de Castro a la ciudad de Nueva York. Justo cuando finalmente comienza a ganar confianza en su dominio del ingl s y disfruta de su reinado como la reina de la rayuela de su vecindario, un horrible accidente automovil stico la deja enyesada y la confina en su cama para una larga recuperaci n. A medida que el mundo de Ruthie se encoge debido a su incapacidad para moverse, su poder de observaci n y su coraz n se hacen m s grandes y llega a comprender cu n fr gil es la vida, cu n vulnerables somos todos como seres humanos y cu n amigos, vecinos y el poder del las artes pueden endulzar incluso los peores momentos. Otros reconocimientos para Mi buena mala suerte - Honor from the Am ricas Book Award - Junior Library Guild Selection - ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) Notable Book - Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People - Notable Books for a Global Society - Finalist for National Jewish Book Award in Children's Literature (2017) ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Winner of the 2018 Pura Belpre Award "A book for anyone mending from childhood wounds."--Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative--based on the author's childhood in the 1960s--a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie's plight will intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro's Cuba to New York City. Just when she's finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English--and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood's hopscotch queen--a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie's world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

A poignant multicultural ode to family and what it means to create a home as one girl helps her T a move away from her beloved Miami apartment. When Estrella's T a Fortuna has to say goodbye to her longtime Miami apartment building, The Seaway, to move to an assisted living community, Estrella spends the day with her. T a explains the significance of her most important possessions from both her Cuban and Jewish culture, as they learn to say goodbye together and explore a new beginning for T a. A lyrical book about tradition, culture, and togetherness, T a Fortuna's New Home explores T a and Estrella's Sephardic Jewish and Cuban heritage. Through T a's journey, Estrella will learn that as long as you have your family, home is truly where the heart is.

Una conmovedora oda multicultural a la familia y a lo que significa crear un hogar cuando una ni a ayuda a su t a a mudarse de su querido apartamento en Miami. Cuando Fortuna, la t a de Estrella, tiene que despedirse de su antiguo edificio de apartamentos en Miami, The Seaway, para mudarse a una comunidad de vida asistida, Estrella pasa todo el d a con ella. Su t a le explica el significado de sus posesiones m s importantes, tanto de su cultura cubana como jud a, mientras ambas se despiden y exploran un nuevo comienzo para la t a. Un conmovedor libro sobre la tradici n, la cultura y la uni n familiar, El nuevo hogar de T a Fortuna explora la herencia cubana y jud a sefard de Estrella y su t a. A trav s del viaje de su t a, Estrella aprender que mientras tengas a tu familia, el hogar se lleva en el coraz n. When Estrella's T a Fortuna has to say goodbye to her longtime Miami apartment building, The Seaway, to move to an assisted living community, Estrella spends the day with her. T a explains the significance of her most important possessions from both her Cuban and Jewish culture, as they learn to say goodbye together and explore a new beginning for T a. A lyrical book about tradition, culture, and togetherness, Tia Fortuna's New Home explores T a and Estrella's Sephardic Jewish and Cuban heritage. Through T a's journey, Estrella will learn that as long as you have your family, home is truly where the heart is.

A poignant multicultural ode to family and what it means to create a home as one girl helps her T a move away from her beloved Miami apartment. When Estrella's T a Fortuna has to say goodbye to her longtime Miami apartment building, The Seaway, to move to an assisted living community, Estrella spends the day with her. T a explains the significance of her most important possessions from both her Cuban and Jewish culture, as they learn to say goodbye together and explore a new beginning for T a. A lyrical book about tradition, culture, and togetherness, T a Fortuna's New Home explores T a and Estrella's Sephardic Jewish and Cuban heritage. Through T a's journey, Estrella will learn that as long as you have your family, home is truly where the heart is.

Una conmovedora oda multicultural a la familia y a lo que significa crear un hogar cuando una ni a ayuda a su t a a mudarse de su querido apartamento en Miami. Cuando Fortuna, la t a de Estrella, tiene que despedirse de su antiguo edificio de apartamentos en Miami, The Seaway, para mudarse a una comunidad de vida asistida, Estrella pasa todo el d a con ella. Su t a le explica el significado de sus posesiones m s importantes, tanto de su cultura cubana como jud a, mientras ambas se despiden y exploran un nuevo comienzo para la t a. Un conmovedor libro sobre la tradici n, la cultura y la uni n familiar, El nuevo hogar de T a Fortuna explora la herencia cubana y jud a sefard de Estrella y su t a. A trav s del viaje de su t a, Estrella aprender que mientras tengas a tu familia, el hogar se lleva en el coraz n. When Estrella's T a Fortuna has to say goodbye to her longtime Miami apartment building, The Seaway, to move to an assisted living community, Estrella spends the day with her. T a explains the significance of her most important possessions from both her Cuban and Jewish culture, as they learn to say goodbye together and explore a new beginning for T a. A lyrical book about tradition, culture, and togetherness, Tia Fortuna's New Home explores T a and Estrella's Sephardic Jewish and Cuban heritage. Through T a's journey, Estrella will learn that as long as you have your family, home is truly where the heart is.

Pura Belpr Award Winner Ruth Behar's inspiring story of a Jewish girl who escapes Poland to make a new life in Cuba, where she works to rescue the rest of her family The situation is getting dire for Jews in Poland on the eve of World War II. Esther's father has fled to Cuba, and she is the first one to join him. It's heartbreaking to be separated from her beloved sister, so Esther promises to write down everything that happens until they're reunited. And she does, recording both the good--the kindness of the Cuban people and her discovery of a valuable hidden talent--and the bad: the fact that Nazism has found a foothold even in Cuba. Esther's evocative letters are full of her appreciation for life and reveal a resourceful, determined girl with a rare ability to bring people together, all the while striving to get the rest of their family out of Poland before it's too late. Based on Ruth Behar's family history, this compelling story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the most challenging times.

La inspiradora historia de una joven jud a que escapa de Polonia para rehacer su vida en Cuba, mientras trabaja para rescatar al resto de su familia. La situaci n se est poniendo terrible para los jud os en Polonia en v speras de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El padre de Esther ha huido a Cuba y ella es la primera en seguir sus pasos y reencontrarse con l en la isla. Vivir separada de su querida hermana es desgarrador, por lo que Esther promete escribirle cartas cont ndole todo lo que le suceda hasta el d a en que se vuelvan a reunir. Y lo hace, manteniendo un registro tanto de lo bueno - la bondad del pueblo cubano y su descubrimiento de un valioso talento oculto - como de lo malo: el hecho de que las garras del nazismo se han arraigado incluso en Cuba. Las evocadoras cartas de Esther est n llenas de su aprecio por la vida y revelan a una ni a ingeniosa y decidida, con una habilidad nica para unir a las personas, mientras se esfuerza por sacar al resto de su familia de Polonia antes de que sea demasiado tarde. Basada en la historia familiar de Ruth Behar, esta impresionante historia celebra la resiliencia del esp ritu humano en los tiempos m s desafiantes. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Pura Belpr Award Winner Ruth Behar's inspiring story of a young Jewish girl who escapes Poland to make a new life in Cuba, while she works to rescue the rest of her family. The situation is getting dire for Jews in Poland on the eve of World War II. Esther's father has fled to Cuba, and she is the first one to join him. It's heartbreaking to be separated from her beloved sister, so Esther promises to write down everything that happens until they're reunited. And she does, recording both the good--the kindness of the Cuban people and her discovery of a valuable hidden talent--and the bad: the fact that Nazism has found a foothold even in Cuba. Esther's evocative letters are full of her appreciation for life and reveal a resourceful, determined girl with a rare ability to bring people together, all the while striving to get the rest of their family out of Poland before it's too late. Based on Ruth Behar's family history, this compelling story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the most challenging times.

Pura Belpr Award Winner Ruth Behar's inspiring story of a young Jewish girl who escapes Poland to make a new life in Cuba, while she works to rescue the rest of her family The situation is getting dire for Jews in Poland on the eve of World War II. Esther's father has fled to Cuba, and she is the first one to join him. It's heartbreaking to be separated from her beloved sister, so Esther promises to write down everything that happens until they're reunited. And she does, recording both the good--the kindness of the Cuban people and her discovery of a valuable hidden talent--and the bad: the fact that Nazism has found a foothold even in Cuba. Esther's evocative letters are full of her appreciation for life and reveal a resourceful, determined girl with a rare ability to bring people together, all the while striving to get the rest of their family out of Poland before it's too late. Based on Ruth Behar's family history, this compelling story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the most challenging times.

Winner of the 2018 Pura Belpre Award A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of the Century "A book for anyone mending from childhood wounds."--Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative--based on the author's childhood in the 1960s--a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie's plight will intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro's Cuba to New York City. Just when she's finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English--and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood's hopscotch queen--a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie's world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

Winner of the 2018 Pura Belpre Award A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of the Century "A book for anyone mending from childhood wounds."--Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street In this unforgettable multicultural coming-of-age narrative--based on the author's childhood in the 1960s--a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed. Ruthie's plight will intrigue readers, and her powerful story of strength and resilience, full of color, light, and poignancy, will stay with them for a long time. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro's Cuba to New York City. Just when she's finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English--and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood's hopscotch queen--a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie's world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger and she comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

This study of a northern Spanish community shows how the residents of Santa MarAa del Monte have acted together at critical times to ensure the survival of their traditional forms of social organization. The survival of these forms has allowed the villagers, in turn, to weather demographic, political, and economic crises over the centuries. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

For fifty-five years U.S.-Cuban relations were couched in terms of the Cold War, often pitting Cubans in the diaspora against Cubans who remained in their homeland. This collection of Cuban and Cuban-American writing and art celebrates the informal networks that Cubans in both countries have maintained through artistic, academic, family, and other ties. The book brings together for the first time in English Cuban voices of the second generation, both on the island and in the diaspora. The multivocal and multigenre collection includes both scholarly and creative writing and an impressive range of visual art. Bridges to Cuba/Puentes a Cuba opens a window onto the meaning of nationality, transnationalism, and homeland in our time.

This study of a northern Spanish community shows how the residents of Santa MarAa del Monte have acted together at critical times to ensure the survival of their traditional forms of social organization. The survival of these forms has allowed the villagers, in turn, to weather demographic, political, and economic crises over the centuries. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Traveling Heavy is a deeply moving, unconventional memoir by the master storyteller and cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar. Through evocative stories, she portrays her life as an immigrant child and later, as an adult woman who loves to travel but is terrified of boarding a plane. With an open heart, she writes about her Yiddish-Sephardic-Cuban-American family, as well as the strangers who show her kindness as she makes her way through the world. Compassionate, curious, and unafraid to reveal her failings, Behar embraces the unexpected insights and adventures of travel, whether those be learning that she longed to become a mother after being accused of giving the evil eye to a baby in rural Mexico, or going on a zany pilgrimage to the Behar World Summit in the Spanish town of Béjar.Behar calls herself an anthropologist who specializes in homesickness. Repeatedly returning to her homeland of Cuba, unwilling to utter her last goodbye, she is obsessed by the question of why we leave home to find home. For those of us who travel heavy with our own baggage, Behar is an indispensable guide, full of grace and hope, in the perpetual search for connection that defines our humanity.

Yiddish-speaking Jews thought Cuba was supposed to be a mere layover on the journey to the United States when they arrived in the island country in the 1920s. They even called it “Hotel Cuba.” But then the years passed, and the many Jews who came there from Turkey, Poland, and war-torn Europe stayed in Cuba. The beloved island ceased to be a hotel, and Cuba eventually became “home.” But after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, the majority of the Jews opposed his communist regime and left in a mass exodus. Though they remade their lives in the United States, they mourned the loss of the Jewish community they had built on the island. As a child of five, Ruth Behar was caught up in the Jewish exodus from Cuba. Growing up in the United States, she wondered about the Jews who stayed behind. Who were they and why had they stayed? What traces were left of the Jewish presence, of the cemeteries, synagogues, and Torahs? Who was taking care of this legacy? What Jewish memories had managed to survive the years of revolutionary atheism?An Island Called Home is the story of Behar’s journey back to the island to find answers to these questions. Unlike the exotic image projected by the American media, Behar uncovers a side of Cuban Jews that is poignant and personal. Her moving vignettes of the individuals she meets are coupled with the sensitive photographs of Havana-based photographer Humberto Mayol, who traveled with her. Together, Behar’s poetic and compassionate prose and Mayol’s shadowy and riveting photographs create an unforgettable portrait of a community that many have seen though few have understood. This book is the first to show both the vitality and the heartbreak that lie behind the project of keeping alive the flame of Jewish memory in Cuba.Reader Guide (http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/pages/behar_reader_guide.aspx)

Interrogates the comfortable and stable contours of "home," asking what it means to women in different social, class, sexual, ethnic, and racial contexts in different times and places.This book explores the idea of "home." Using feminist scholarship and ethnographically grounded readings of historical, literary, and cultural texts, contributors interrogate the comfortable and stable contours of home and ask what it means to women in different social, class, sexual, ethnic, and racial contexts in different times and places. Giving voice to diverse women's understandings of home, the book includes stories of elite white U.S. and Canadian women, rural poor and peasant white women in the United States and France, a British Caribbean freed slave woman, and others.

Until recently, the combination of a Cuban old boys' network and an ideological emphasis on tough writing kept fiction by Cuban women largely unknown and unread. Cubana, the U.S. version of a groundbreaking anthology of women's fiction published in Cuba in 1996, introduces these once-ignored writers to a new audience. Havana editor and author Mirta Y ez has assembled an impressive group of sixteen stories that reveals the strength and variety of contemporary writing by Cuban women-and offers a glimpse inside Cuba during a time of both extreme economic difficulty and artistic renaissance. Many of these stories focus pointedly on economic and social conditions. Josefina de Diego's Internal Monologue on a Corner in Havana shows us the current crisis through the eyes and voice of a witty economist-turned-vendor who must sell her extra cigarettes. Others-Magaly S nchez's erotic fantasy Catalina in the Afternoons and Mylene Fern ndez Pintado's psychologically deft Anhedonia (A Story in Two Women)-reveal a nascent Cuban feminism. The twelve-year-old narrator of Aida Bahr's The Scent of Limes tries to make sense of her grandparents' conservative values, her stepfather's disappearance, and her mother's fierce independence. The Cuban-American writer Achy Obejas recreates the strange dual identity of the immigrant, while avant-garde stories like the playful and savvy The Urn and the Name (A Merry Tale), written by Ena Luc a Portela, reveal the vitality of the experimental tradition in Cuba. And Rosa Ileana Boudet's Potos 11: Address Unknown is both a romantic paean to a time of youth, passion, and revolution, and an attempt to reconcile that past with a diminished present.