Customer Reviews

Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron from the History of Puertorriquenos

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Interconnection is real. Earth is real. The violence of patriarchy, colonization, anti-semitism, and genocide are real. Our lives continue to be shaped by these violences; both intergenerational and contemporary. Healing grows organically and is nurtured by roots of understanding, storytelling, compassion, courage.

These are some of the ideas that clarified for me in reading this wonderful book full of stories that saved my soul from amnesia, numbness, and ignorance. I am a white woman now on her own path of unearthing stories from my past that can tell me who I am, where I come from, and how to heal a legacy of racism and sexism that still persists.

Read about Jigonsaseh, a Seneca woman alive around 1560 who served as a peacemaker who helped to form the Iroquois Confederacy. Read about the Hammer of Witches, a treatise written in Germany in 1487 that outlined various marks and signs by which a woman could be recognized to be a witch and how to torture the Devil out of her. Read about the 1097 invasion of Muslim Syria by the Franj, Christian invaders from the north and south.

Most of all, enjoy the beautiful prose of Levins Morales...
"We are the ancestors of whom no record has been kept. We are trace elements in your bodies, minerals coloring your eyes, residue in your fingernails. You were not named for us. You don't know the places where our bones are, but we are in your bones. Because of us, you have relatives among the many tribes. You have cousins on the reservations. Do not forget how wide your roots are in this America. Do not forget." (92).

This is a fantastic scholarly and creative work. Well researched, Levins-Morales combines her own story as a thread that connects the disparate histories of women in Puerto Rico. The author references European, African and American Indian influences and how the melding of these cultures/peoples created what we consider today to be Puerto Rico. It is a hybrid book about a hybrid people. Suitable for all of those who want to connect to history from the people's perspective.

As she does in Medicine Stories, Morales involves an innovative form in her writing. While following a chronological timeline, she weaves together many historically based stories. What at first seems confusing, eventually melds to show that Morales is writing about the women left out of history. She presents personal stories about each woman and crimes of history. Then she adds herbs used in healing to supplement her intent to be a historic curator, helping to heal the problems in history.