Getting Home Alive

by Aurora Levins Morales

A mother and daughter of Puerto Rican and Jewish ancestry, the Moraleses express their radical and feminist views in diary-like poetry and prose that echo the rhetoric of the '60s. Yet the mixed origins of this pair lend an international, even universal feeling to the sentiments. They seem to speak for many women of many places and times. Titles of their pieces include "Concepts of Pollution," "Distress Signals," "Getting Out Alive," "Class Poem" and "I Am the Reasonable One." Both authors are literary, serious, socially concerned and passionate, and their anger is about injustices that plague them and other people. There is much vivid imagery and heartfelt emotion, and the reader may well long for causes that stir them as these women are stirred. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Genres: Poetry, Memoir, Nonfiction, Essays, Feminism, Short Stories, Latinx

213 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1986

Reviews

[Aurora Morales]

My mother and I wrote this book between 1983 and 1986, at the instigation of Nancy Bereano, publisher of Firebrand Books, who heard my mother read from both of our works in Ithaca, NY.

[Luke Hillier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aurora Levins Morales's poem "V'ahavta" is possibly my favorite piece of writing ever, so I was eager to check out a collection of published writing by her. Incidentally, her brother Ricardo is also an artist whose work I appreciate (and I didn't realize they were related until about 2 years after buying one of his pieces!), so it felt like another a fun surprise that her mother was a co-author here offering a chance to "meet" yet another member of this talented family. I found the book itself to have highs and lows; it certainly feels less polished than some of the other work I've come across by Aurora, much of it more stream-of-consciousness and plainspoken.

I most appreciated the work here that embraced an overt politicism. Both women recognize themselves as participants in the struggle for justice via radical politics and communism, and their writing took on a particular set of teeth when focusing there that felt lacking elsewhere. "Letter to a Compañero" and "If I Forget Thee, Oh Jerusalem" are two of the strongest for me –– the first addressing the prevalence of sexism oft-ignored under the guise of "solidarity" in organizing spaces, the second a stunning wrestling with Jewish identity as Israel has taken to perpetuating the same patterns of oppression against Palestinians they themselves endured. Both feel powerfully vulnerable, a glimpse into the complicated realities of the struggle for justice. "Bad Communist" offers more of this, serving as a confession for Rosario of the ways her desires for comfort and self-interest prove to be pervasive obstacles to her participation in radical politics (tremendously relatable). "I Am the Reasonable One" and "Class Poem" were also stand-outs for me. However, the majority of the pieces (poems? stories?) here are oriented elsewhere –– memories of time in Puerto Rico, reflections on family and childhood. I personally didn't enjoy these as much, but still appreciated the book as a whole.

[Addie Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection of stories and poems by the mother-daughter duo are compelling and well written. They tackled a wide array of different subjects such as environmentalism, cultural imperialism, feminism, racism and antisemitism. I think above all the book showed how both of these women became who they are today without being pretentious about it.

[Mya Aviles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosario Morales co authored the novel “Getting Home Alone” with her daughter Aurora Levins Morales. Rosario Morales was born on August 23, 1930 in New York and passed away on March 23, 2011 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She attended a number of universities including Cornell, Hunter, and the University of Puerto Rico. Morales met her husband, Richard Levins, during her time at Hunter College, he is mentioned in the book by the name of Dick. The two had their first born, Aurora Levins Morales in 1954, three years after moving to Puerto Rico in an attempt to escape the draft for the Korean War. This mother daughter duo is well known for their joint presence in multiple feminist movements. They both are Jewish Puerto Rican American feminist radicals. This book touches on many different topics ranging from religion to assimilation to racism.
The compilation of poems is about the mother and daughter’s experience living in New York, more specifically East Harlem, and dealing with being both female and minorities. As the book consists of prose poetry, there are many instances of the use of imagery and intense emotion. Poems such as ‘I Am the Reasonable One’ and ‘Distress Signals’ utilize both imagery and passionate feelings to get their socially conscious messages across.
The captivating voices of Rosario Morales and her daughter Aurora Levins Morales make it hard to stop reading their book. I can relate to them as I am also a Puerto Rican who strongly believes in feminist movements.
I recommend this to adolescents and adults who are activists or who enjoy reading others anecdotes. Although the book contains spanish phrases and words, the use is brief and easy to decipher by reading around the words. There's also a few pictures of Morales, Levins Morales, and more members of their family in the book. Some may shy away from this book as it is made up of poetry but many of the poems have multiple parts, making it prose poetry and not verse poetry. For example, ‘Puerto Rico Journal’ is a perfect example of this as it reads like a diary and has 13 parts divided by dates ranging from 2/14/1983 to 3/3/1983. I would rate this book a five out of five stars.

[Documenting Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting Home Alive-Aurora Levins Morales & Roasio Morales

When mother and daughter started writing poems, they figured out that they could write a boook of poems together. A novel that depicts the life of two puerto rican females living in the USA and fighting for the rights of the Women across the world. There is much vivid imagery and heartfelt emotion, and the reader may well long for causes that stir them as these women are stirred.

#puertoricans #mothernaddaughter #feminism #biography #northamericanlietrature
@auroralevinsmorales @rosariolevins

https://youtu.be/T3f1_rwrvHs?feature=...

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

🚨🚨 feelings 🚨🚨

[KT · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable collection of poems and prose - most affecting when politically touching on nostalgia and identity

[Nicolas Shump · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd and interesting book written by a mother and daughter that touches on questions of nationalism, ethnicity, religion, identity, and assimilation. The mother is Russian Jewish and Puerto Rican and the daughter grew up mostly in Puerto Rico or in Puerto Rican neighborhoods in NYC.