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THE DAYS OF OFELIA, which was first published in 1942, is a book about Mexico that cuts through the surface and shows you the living people. 'Vivid,' 'delightful,' 'completely real' are worn-out phrases, but there are no others that do justice to this truly extraordinary narrative. Ofelia Escoto was a little girl that the author, Gertrude Diamant, met when she went apartment-hunting in the City of Mexico, and who became her maid. Ofelia's father was a night watchman with a family of thirteen to support; and for many months the author shared the life of the Escotos, sympathized with them in their misfortunes, and watched the love story of Ofelia's brother Daniel, with its tragic denouement. But the book is more than the story of the Escotos. It tells also of visits to the parched, poverty-stricken country of the Otomi Indians, where the author went to conduct 'lost intelligence tests,' of the picturesque dances and rituals of a wedding in tropical Tehuantepec, of the hazards of traveling in a Mexican bus along the Laredo highway, of the wisdom displayed by Mexican judges in handling the homeless children of the Revolution, and of the vagaries of Mexican officials who tried to deport the author on the ground that she was a Polish refugee.… (meer)
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"The need for privacy to compute the results of intelligence tests she had conducted among the Otomi Indians forced the author to take an apartment in Mexico City. Mrs. Diamant used her ten year old maid, Ofelia Escoto and her family as a focal point to explore the problems that existed in everyday life for the numerous Mexicans who flocked to the city from rural areas in search of better conditions. But her larger theme is to illuminate the difficulties the Mexican Government encountered in unifying its many cultures and in modernizing the nation." I liked this book very much but subsequently, in 2015, was contacted by the son of the authentic person to whom these experiences happened and told that the facts of the story actually belonged to his deceased mother. He found me through a search on the book title which led him to this review on LibraryThing and he called me from Jerusalem when he also found me connected to several websites related to Mexico. We had a very interesting conversation and he is searching for people who knew his parents as well as photos of them in Mexico so his sister in NYC can complete a book about them which she is writing.
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
The street behaved just like a river. It rambled through empty lots and circled a field of corn, and then it disappeared.
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Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Probably I will pass you in the market-place without knowing. You will be like all the others--an anonymous rebozo in the market place, a maid, as you wished to be, carrying the tortillas for some well-to-do famiy; and very proud of your servanthood.... And then you will marry and have many children, for one goes on having children until the thing finishes itself. It might have been different if you had gone to school. But that could not be, and perhaps it is just as well, for 'who knows?' I remember how you used to say that, like a Mexican. I remember you whenever I think of Mexico, Dear Ofelia.
THE DAYS OF OFELIA, which was first published in 1942, is a book about Mexico that cuts through the surface and shows you the living people. 'Vivid,' 'delightful,' 'completely real' are worn-out phrases, but there are no others that do justice to this truly extraordinary narrative. Ofelia Escoto was a little girl that the author, Gertrude Diamant, met when she went apartment-hunting in the City of Mexico, and who became her maid. Ofelia's father was a night watchman with a family of thirteen to support; and for many months the author shared the life of the Escotos, sympathized with them in their misfortunes, and watched the love story of Ofelia's brother Daniel, with its tragic denouement. But the book is more than the story of the Escotos. It tells also of visits to the parched, poverty-stricken country of the Otomi Indians, where the author went to conduct 'lost intelligence tests,' of the picturesque dances and rituals of a wedding in tropical Tehuantepec, of the hazards of traveling in a Mexican bus along the Laredo highway, of the wisdom displayed by Mexican judges in handling the homeless children of the Revolution, and of the vagaries of Mexican officials who tried to deport the author on the ground that she was a Polish refugee.
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