What drew my attention to this book was the critical acclaim it was receiving. I've not seen anything like this in a long time: A National Book Award Finalist, a PEN Memoir Award Finalist, winner of Books for a Better Life. The American Library Association (very picky people) chose it as one of the top ten nonfiction books of the year. Philadelphia News picked it as THE BEST book of the year. And then the New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune, not to mention lots of other newspapers around the country picked it as one of the best books of the year. As a book lover, and someone in the book business, I tend to keep an eye on this sort of thing, so, as I say, it drew my attention.
It took reading "American Chica" to make me see why it was so loved by so many readers and critics coast to coast. This is ground-breaking stuff. A marvelous mirror on the new America. More important, it captures something about all of us Americans: Us mutts, mongrels, multicultured people who live on bridges of our own.

Without the prompting of my book club, I would not have read American Chica, and I would have missed this honest, thoughtful and absolutely captivating insight into a bicultural family. I would have missed one of the best books that I've read this year.

I was surprised to discover how much I related to Marie Arana's experiences even though I was the daughter of two white-bread American parents. Her lush descriptions of the Peruvian gardens revived memories of my early childhood in Puerto Rico. I remembered the difficult adjustment when we moved from Puerto Rico to Canada. I wanted to shout "I'm an American!" every time I would overhear teachers and other students referring to me as the "Puerto Rican girl." I remember being embarrassed when fellow students would ask me to "say something in Spanish" and then later the culture shock when we moved to Texas and I became known as "the Canadian."

As our world becomes smaller, travel more accessible, and bicultural families more common, Arana's work becomes meaningful to all of us. The only way to counter our human inclination toward prejudice is by learning about each other and sharing our stories, the priceless gifts of our culture and experiences. I applaud Arana for her beautifully written and engaging work and for sharing this gift with us.

This wonderful bio of the author's early years in Peru and the States describes a situation that so many of us find ourselves in these days when we sense that we belong to more than one culture. It is a situation that makes the participant feel like an impostor, always having to somehow fake belonging to one or the other; but it also provides tremendous wealth for we are thus able to get more than just one puny opening to the universe.

The style is rich and the descriptions seem authentic. But what makes the book quite special are the situations the young Marie gets into as she tries with humor and imagination to penetrate the different worlds she comes into contact.

Bien vale la pena.