From Grandmother to Granddaughter: Salvadoran Women's Stories (Paperback)

by Michael Gorkin (Author), Marta Pineda (Author), Gloria Leal (Author) "At sixty-seven years (as she claimed), or perhaps seventy-four (as we reckoned), Cecilia de Nunez has the manicured and matronly look of a Salvadoran older..." (more)
Key Phrases: making tortillas, fourteen families, San Salvador, United States, San Vicente (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Gorkin, an American psychologist, teamed with two Salvadoran women psychologists to explore the life histories of three generations of women in El Salvador. Their recollections of childhood, courtship, marriage, and child rearing are conveyed against the backdrop of the social upheaval of El Salvador's 12-year civil war that ended in 1992. The subjects--grandmother, mother, and granddaughter--reflect the range of Salvadoran social and economic strata. The Nunez family are wealthy owners of a sugar plantation. The Rivas family (the teacher mother and the university student daughter) represent the growing middle class. The Garcia family are poor campesinas who live in a community that benefited from land reform that came out of the civil war. Maria Garcia was a former member of the guerrilla faction. The interviews reflect the changing structure of Salvadoran society, growing opportunities for women, and resistance to the machismo culture. Gorkin, author of a similar book on Palestinian women, sees parallels between the Middle Eastern and Central American nations, both culturally repressive toward women and recovering from the upheavals of war. Vanessa Bush --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
The life histories and testimonies of nine Salvadoran women from different generations shape this intimate portrayal of contemporary El Salvador. The authors interviewed a grandmother, mother, and granddaughter from three Salvadoran families: La Familia Nuñez, members of the upper class; La Familia Rivas, from El Salvador's growing middle class; and La Familia García, from the campo, the Salvadoran peasantry. The voices we hear convey a deep sense of the world of Salvadoran women and how life is lived in that Central American country today.
Each woman tells her own life story, and interspersed with recollections of childhood, marriage, and childrearing are revealing accounts of El Salvador's turbulent political past and present. Reflected in the stories are the vast changes in educational and occupational opportunities for women and the shifts in male-female relationships. Class differences are still a fundamental part of Salvadoran life, but changes are occurring in this area as well.
From Grandmother to Granddaughter is a vivid and authentic portrait of today's El Salvador that convincingly illustrates how individual lives can reflect the larger changes within a society.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 267 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (March 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520222407
• ISBN-13: 978-0520222403
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #656,637 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A view into the hearts and hardships of El Salvadorian Women, July 2, 2000

By	VA Teacher (Leesburg, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Grandmother to Granddaughter: Salvadoran Women's Stories (Hardcover)

I could not put this book down. I thought that the title sounded a little "sappy" and almost didn't buy it. The title does not express the volume of information about hardships in life, values, family, and most importantly breaking through the history of being women held down by culture and poverty. It explains through very personal eyes the lives of three generations of women, upper, middle and lower class. The most interesting parts to me were how they viewed and sometimes participated in the Civil War and the changes they have seen. This book gave me great hope that as El Salvador recovers from their war, we are going to see some very strong and good women from there change the world for the better. I am not from El Salvador. I visited this beautiful country before the war started and look forward to visiting it again someday.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Survivors all- women from diiferent Salvadoran classes spea, September 23, 2003

By	Camille Guirola (San Salvador, El Salvador) - See all my reviews

I am an American who has been living and working in EL Salvador for the past 9 years. Micheal Gorkin's book is an insightful, reflective piece of reality- it weaves the tale of daily life, civil war survival, family challenges, and gender roles in today's El Salvador woven with the strong and ubiquitous issue of SOCIAL CLASS as its varying thread. As he states early on in the work- only about 10% of Salvadorans fall into the Upper Socio-Economic class, and 60-70% are stuck in the Lower class with the rising middle class claiming only around 20-30% of inhabitants. This stark contrast to America's wealth distribution colors much of one's experience here. He and his co-interviewers did a magical job of telling tales from different generations all across the varied social spectrum. It is a pioneer in the field of opening up, and letting ALL SIDES tell their tales- and gives its reader the gift of social and poilitical insight and empathy as a treat along the way.