Nuestra América: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation

by Claudio Lomnitz

A riveting study of the intersections between Jewish and Latin American culture, this immigrant family memoir recounts history with psychological insight and the immediacy of a thriller.

In Nuestra América, eminent anthropologist and historian Claudio Lomnitz traces his grandparents’ exile from Eastern Europe to South America. At the same time, the book is a pretext to explain and analyze the worldview, culture, and spirit of countries such as Peru, Colombia, and Chile, from the perspective of educated Jewish emigrants imbued with the hope and determination typical of those who escaped Europe in the 1920s.

Lomnitz’s grandparents, who were both trained to defy ghetto life with the pioneering spirit of the early Zionist movement, became intensely involved in the Peruvian leftist intellectual milieu and its practice of connecting Peru’s indigenous past to an emancipatory internationalism that included Jewish culture and thought. After being thrown into prison supposedly for their socialist leanings, Lomnitz’s grandparents were exiled to Colombia, where they were subject to its scandals, its class system, its political life. Through this lens, Lomnitz explores the almost negligible attention and esteem that South America holds in US public opinion. The story then continues to Chile during World War II, Israel in the 1950s, and finally to Claudio’s youth, living with his parents in Berkeley, California, and Mexico City.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Biography Memoir, Biography, Judaism, Historical

464 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 6, 2018

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been an interesting story if Lomnitz was a better storyteller and if the book was more streamlined and focused. But it read too much like a PhD dissertation to be accessible and appealing to the general reader.

[Geourska · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting story of Lomnitz's family and identity, that offered an interesting perspective on how family history shapes one's experiences. Having lived in Romania and traveled in both Bukovina and Moldava and now currently living in South America, it was very interesting to learn more about the history of both of these areas. While I generally found the book to be quite readable, it was a bit rambling and repetitive in places. There were also some small historical inaccuracies. Hungarians were hardly a minority within Austria-Hungary, given that they made up half of the dual monarchy, for example. Nevertheless, I felt that Lomnitz did an excellent job of explaining the complexity of nationality in that part of the world.

[Margo Perin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of fascinating information that I wasn’t aware of before - like the reason why the offensive slur “Jews and money” continues today comes from Christian rulers and property owners in Europe who needed money to fund their enterprises but were forbidden to trade in money because it’s disallowed by the religion. Jews, an oppressed minority, were anointed as their money lenders, and at the same time, as ‘sinners’ for handling money. I’m taking my time reading the book as the voice is more academic than literary (it doesn’t feel memoir-ish at all, which is how it’s advertised) that makes it hard to focus and get carried away as I learn. But I’ll be continuing as the information about history and culture, largely unknown or ignored to keep anti-Semitism and social/racial divisiveness alive, is so valuable.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating, rich, and thoughtful book. My family was also from Bessarabia but that is where the similarity ends. I do have family in South America but have never lived there myself. Despite that, I found myself extrapolating many times through this journey.

[Mich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Claudio Lomnitz has written a book that combines a biography of his family going back three generations with an immersion into the history of Jews in Eastern Europe, how life in South America provided some measures of freedom, how language influenced cultural choices, and how his family kept up with their Jewish heritage. The travels of his family across and within continents seeking safety and intellectual freedom is brilliantly described against a backdrop of the two World Wars, South American political upheavals, the Holocaust and settlement in the United States. He places his family in the context of that history and provides rich vignettes obtained from archival documents and interviews with surviving family members. As an historian, he carefully examines and challenges their recollections of various events to zero in on the truth.
The characters range from socialist intellectuals to successful soap manufacturers to Zionists. The book is enriched with his insights into his personal feelings as to the choices that members of his family made along their way.

This is a story of how various strands of a family came from different parts of the world and braided together, yet kept their identity as Jews. It is an amazing saga.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Neustra América: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation” by Claudio Lomnitz (Other Press) could be called a memoir about his maternal grandparents’ various emigrations: he writes about how they moved from Eastern Europe to Peru, then Colombia and then Paris before returning to Colombia until making aliyah to Israel, only to once again return to Colombia. But calling this complex work a memoir does not do justice to the sheer amount of historical and sociological discussion Lomnitz offers so that readers can understand the world in which his grandparents lived. In order to appreciate their actions and decisions, it’s necessary to know not only the problems Jewish communities faced in Europe and South America, but the political realities of life in Peru and Colombia.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/past...

[Ann Otto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lomnitz traces his Jewish grandparents' exile from Eastern Europe to South America and others in the family through World War 2 and finally to America and Mexico City. He provides an inside look at life in all of these locations through the lens of diverse people and cultures that his family experienced. In some cultures they are accepted middle class, in others, they are discriminated against. Each generation he describes also makes a difference.

[Vale Navarro-rosenblatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me encantó

Una mezcla de historia personal, con la historia local y regional de America Latina. Una búsqueda por el propio sentido que llena esos espacios y recovecos que, como hijos y nietos, tenemos sobre nuestros antepasados. Una historia conmovedora en cientos de aspectos. Gracias!

[David Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book written from the perspective of family genealogy. The author reaches back about 5 generations and tells about life in Basaraba, South America, Israel and finally the United States. Details will help anyone who has family in these areas, or wishes to learn more about the history of these areas.

[Laura Valenziano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a well written book, it just captivated me! It's a memoir about an extended Jewish family forced to escape the Nazi's during WWII and their lives in Chile, Colombia, Peru, Israel and California. VERY, VERY interesting and containing information about places and lives I had never considered.

[Yatita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo empecé pensando que era novela, pero es más un ensayo, muy bien documentado a cabalidad, narrando en contexto histórico la vida familiar del autor ligada con el antisemitismo y persecución judía en Europa. Es una buena lectura con datos relevantes que desconocía acerca de la temática.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very fine family history, encompassing Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, Latin America and the United States.

[Beatrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m like one degree of separation from this guy in all possible directions. Jewish geography + academic geography at its finest.

[Joe Huennekens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting transnational family history

[James Schoedler · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well-written and researched personal history of an extended Jewish family, starting prior to WWII and continuing almost through the present day, that also deals with the intellectual, political and cultural environment surrounding the family in Europe, South America, Israel, the United States and Mexico. A fascinating account!