Don't Ask Me Where I'm From - Audiobook

 

Author: Jennifer De Leon

Narrator: Inés del Castillo

My thoughts: 

The narrator is easy to listen to. I was surprised when 7 hours went by so quickly. Part of it is the great story line, but I do think that the narrator keeps the story moving at a steady pace and the "reader" invests those hours in this very strong and like-able main character, Lili or Liliana. 

When she finally breaks through her mother's wall of silence and depression to find out that her father has been deported and is making his way back to America through a coyote, I just had flashbacks to another very powerful read: We Are Not From Here.  Liliana's story of being afraid for her parents, but also being afraid of the kind of racist backlash that could harm her family is definitely a centrifugal  book to other YA books around community, identity, the contemporary immigrant experience for children here and children making their way here. Another book coming out to read from after this book is the tween book Cuba in My Pocket (not out yet, but it will be posted here in August, 2021) about the authors's father's story when his family sent him from Cuba to America alone in order to escape being recruited for Fidel Castro's Young Rebels. 

This particular book starts great conversations around walls and how our walls represent parts of our identity. I can see this as a book club or alternative read to We Are Not From Here. 

From the Publisher:

First-generation American Latinx Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school. But when family secrets spill out and racism at school ramps up, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand.

Liliana Cruz is a hitting a wall - or rather, walls.

There’s the wall her mom has put up ever since Liliana’s dad left - again.

There’s the wall that delineates Liliana’s diverse inner-city Boston neighborhood from Westburg, the wealthy - and white - suburban high school she’s just been accepted into.

And there’s the wall Liliana creates within herself, because to survive at Westburg, she can’t just lighten up, she has to whiten up.

So what if she changes her name? So what if she changes the way she talks? So what if she’s seeing her neighborhood in a different way? But then light is shed on some hard truths: It isn’t that her father doesn’t want to come home - he can’t...and her whole family is in jeopardy. And when racial tensions at school reach a fever pitch, the walls that divide feel insurmountable.

But a wall isn’t always a barrier. It can be a foundation for something better. And Liliana must choose: Use this foundation as a platform to speak her truth, or risk crumbling under its weight.    

Update: (08/18/21)

The publisher actually sent me a hard copy of this book so I am giving it to one of my teacher cndidates for their future classroom library but I wanted to share these other resources freely:

1.   The author, Jennifer De Leon tells a fabulous story about a proposal in the Boston Library but also how she won a key to that same library that led to the draft of this book "Jennifer De Leon's Marriage Proposal story"
2.  Simon and Schuster Publishing is sharing a reader's guide for this book that can be adopted, adapted, or used as a template for student discussion.