Knitting the Fog
Weaving together narrative essay and bilingual poetry, Claudia D. Hernández’s lyrical debut follows her tumultuous adolescence as she crisscrosses the American continent: a book "both timely and aesthetically exciting in its hybridity" (The Millions).

Seven-year-old Claudia wakes up one day to find her mother gone, having left for the United States to flee domestic abuse and pursue economic prosperity. Claudia and her two older sisters are taken in by their great aunt and their grandmother, their father no longer in the picture. Three years later, her mother returns for her daughters, and the family begins the month-long journey to El Norte. But in Los Angeles, Claudia has trouble assimilating: she doesn’t speak English, and her Spanish sticks out as “weird” in their primarily Mexican neighborhood. When her family returns to Guatemala years later, she is startled to find she no longer belongs there either.

A harrowing story told with the candid innocence of childhood, Hernández’s memoir depicts a complex self-portrait of the struggle and resilience inherent to immigration today.

"1129229558"
Knitting the Fog
Weaving together narrative essay and bilingual poetry, Claudia D. Hernández’s lyrical debut follows her tumultuous adolescence as she crisscrosses the American continent: a book "both timely and aesthetically exciting in its hybridity" (The Millions).

Seven-year-old Claudia wakes up one day to find her mother gone, having left for the United States to flee domestic abuse and pursue economic prosperity. Claudia and her two older sisters are taken in by their great aunt and their grandmother, their father no longer in the picture. Three years later, her mother returns for her daughters, and the family begins the month-long journey to El Norte. But in Los Angeles, Claudia has trouble assimilating: she doesn’t speak English, and her Spanish sticks out as “weird” in their primarily Mexican neighborhood. When her family returns to Guatemala years later, she is startled to find she no longer belongs there either.

A harrowing story told with the candid innocence of childhood, Hernández’s memoir depicts a complex self-portrait of the struggle and resilience inherent to immigration today.

16.95 In Stock
Knitting the Fog

Knitting the Fog

by Claudia D. Hernández
Knitting the Fog

Knitting the Fog

by Claudia D. Hernández

Paperback

$16.95 
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Overview

Weaving together narrative essay and bilingual poetry, Claudia D. Hernández’s lyrical debut follows her tumultuous adolescence as she crisscrosses the American continent: a book "both timely and aesthetically exciting in its hybridity" (The Millions).

Seven-year-old Claudia wakes up one day to find her mother gone, having left for the United States to flee domestic abuse and pursue economic prosperity. Claudia and her two older sisters are taken in by their great aunt and their grandmother, their father no longer in the picture. Three years later, her mother returns for her daughters, and the family begins the month-long journey to El Norte. But in Los Angeles, Claudia has trouble assimilating: she doesn’t speak English, and her Spanish sticks out as “weird” in their primarily Mexican neighborhood. When her family returns to Guatemala years later, she is startled to find she no longer belongs there either.

A harrowing story told with the candid innocence of childhood, Hernández’s memoir depicts a complex self-portrait of the struggle and resilience inherent to immigration today.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781936932542
Publisher: Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date: 07/09/2019
Pages: 224
Sales rank: 499,748
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Claudia D. Hernández is a poet, editor, translator, and bilingual educator, born and raised in Guatemala. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch UniversityLos Angeles, and writes in Spanish and English, and sometimes weaves in Poqomchiʼ, an indigenous language of her Mayan heritage. Hernández is the editor of the anthology Women, Mujeres, Ixoq: Revolutionary Visions (Conocimientos Press 2017), and the founder of the ongoing photography project Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Read an Excerpt

"In light of the current misunderstandings surrounding immigrants fleeing violence in Central America, this book should be required reading. The writing is fluid and lyrical and the story is relevant." Mom Egg Review

“In Knitting the Fog, Hernández eloquently captures the hardship, joy, magic, and resilience of three generations of women enduring ‘the battles of this dream’—border after border—from the family home in Mayuelas, Guatemala, through the desert across the Río Bravo, to the streets of Los Angeles. Magnificent!” —Carol Potter, author of Some Slow Bees

Knitting the Fog brings us the immigrant experience in a refreshingly new light. This memoir of hybrid forms—moving evocatively between poetry and prose—is not only timely but resonant in sense of place and purpose. How exciting that Hernández's voice joins the canon of contemporary Latina stories.” —Bridgett M. Davis, author of The World According to Fannie Davis

"This debut gives tender and keen insight into the experience of migrating north to the US and the challenges a preteen faces integrating into the 'Promised Land.'" —Ana Castillo, author of Black Dove: Mamá, Mi'jo, and Me

"Part-torch song and part-excavation: a hybrid book of short nonfiction interlaced with poems that mirror the turbulent fog one must survive when they are a child who must keep going, despite it all. It is also a book of our times, a story of struggle and resilience, a warrior song that refuses to look or run away." —Melissa R. Sipin, editor in chief, TAYO Literary Magazine

“Claudia D. Hernández’s exquisite new memoir is a breathtaking read. Her raw honesty sings on the page with a kind of fiery joy and longing of what it means to be a family.” —Kerry Madden, author of the Appalachian Maggie Valley Trilogy

"Knitting the Fog evokes the universal journey of identity that we all go through as people, immigrants, and artists. An inspirational gift." —Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, author of Flashes & Verses . . . Becoming Attractions

“In Knitting the Fog, each of Claudia D. Hernández’s memories is framed by the writer’s bilingual, bicultural childhood experiences at home . . . then reshaped by the poet’s struggle to survive in an alien environment in the US. This debut is so much more than an immigrant’s story. It is an ode to the resilience of the human spirit. A hymn to the power of poems and stories as agents of personal liberation and social change. In any language. Any culture. Anywhere in the world. ¡Brava, Claudia! ¡Otra, otra! Encore!” —Lucha Corpi, author of Confessions of a Book Burner: Personal Essays and Stories

“La Diablita, the tomboy, wrote these searingly honest, la verdad, stories of crossing to the other side from her beloved Guatemala to her now home, the USA. Poesía is also sprinkled throughout, her prayers. Listen, you’ll believe every word as La Diablita knits the fog beyond man-made borders. The fog is love.” —Alma Luz Villanueva, author of Song of the Golden Scorpion

“A timeless story, Knitting the Fog humanizes those who have migrated north since time immemorial, regardless of place. Hernández weaves the joys, travails, and intricacies of a journey that, like the fog, did not dissipate into the past, weaving instead revolutionary visions of growth, survival, and change. A must-read for all.” —Josie Méndez-Negrete, author of A Life on Hold: Living with Schizophrenia

"Claudia D. Hernández knits together so much in this necessary, unforgettable book—poetry and prose, Guatemala and El Norte, Spanish and English, innocence and awakening—blurring borders with humor and heartache and the richest, most vivid detail. Hernandez’s harrowing yet joy-laced journey will knit its way deeply into your heart." —Gayle Brandeis, author of The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother's Suicide

“Hernández gives us a multi-faceted look at a young girl and her family from Guatemala.” Remezcla

Table of Contents

Part I Life in Paradise, Also Known as Hell

Facts on How to Be Born: Life 3

Tempting Mud 4

Nothing ever hurt: fragmented memory 7

Crying-See / Saw-Laughing 9

Becoming Papel Picado 13

Pollita trasquilada 15

Mamá All to Myself 20

Northbound 23

Cierta vez caminamos / Once, we walked / Junpech xojb'ehik 26

Mayuelas versus Tactic 27

Nuestro fruto / Tía Soila 30

For Tía Soila 31

La Siguanaba 33

En el olvido / Forgotten 36

Mayuelas's Mill 37

La Familia 40

The Persistence of a Nightmare 47

Little Devil 48

Tactic's River 62

Speaking of Robbery 65

At Nightfall 69

Mamá Returns 70

Part II Our Journey To El Norte

Tejiendo la niebla / Knitting the Fog 74

Northbound Again 78

Meeting the Coyote 81

Tapachula 84

Getting to Know Javi 87

The Art of Peeing 90

Sindy's Choice 91

In Conversation with a Poem Called: Detachment 94

Matamoros and the Moors 96

The River Never Happened to Me (i) 99

The River Never Happened to Us (ii) 100

My Side-Your Side 101

Frontera de mi lado / Border on My Side 104

Are We There Yet? 106

A Flying Bus 109

Part III The Promised Land

Amado De Jesus Montejo 115

The Luggage 116

K-I-S-S-I-N-G 119

District Six 126

We Had Our Childhood-Xqab'an cho qaha'lak'uniil 130

Middle School 135

Ardor de cuerpo / Ardor of the Body 140

Lentils, Anyone? 142

It's Been A While Since I Heard Your Last Song 149

Part IV Returning to my Motherland

Kim Ayu-Vení Pa' ca / Kim Ayu-Come Over Here 153

The Return 157

Va callada/ Quietly, she goes, 161

Victoria 163

As We Go 173

Epilogue 175

Acknowledgments 177

Previously Published Work 179

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