(no subject)

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

So, I'm wildly behind on my 50books_poc reviews. Because I'm full of suck. But I'm supposed to be doing schoolwork, so that seems the perfect time to do a few reviews.

( The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan )

( The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan )

( In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker )

( The Last Time I Saw Mother by Arlene J. Chai )

When We Were Colored, by Eva Rutledge

[chipmunk-planet.livejournal.com]

A memoir originally published in 1964 about one woman's trials of motherhood for the most part, interspersed with incidents stemming from the Jim Crow laws in the South.

From the title I had expected more about race in particular, and I was a bit disappointed to see that it was mostly 50's era Pollyanna-style anecdotes about mothering, PTA and Girl Scouts. (not a fan of that sort of writing) Only near the ending does she really delve into the racial turmoil she and her family mostly escaped by moving from Alabama to California. But the things she does relate (like her world-traveling husband being advised not to return to the US by people in other countries) made it quite clear how much of an apartheid situation was present at the time in the US.

What really surprised me was how much the author seemed to prefer segregation at first, I guess until she and her family got used to it. She relates a time later on where they joined a segregated club and found it not to their liking at all.

She seems like a good person who raised her kids not to be prejudiced, and it's worth reading, especially if you are younger and don't know the history of the Jim Crow era.

Suggested tags: memoir, African-American, non-fiction, women writers