White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing

by Jennifer De Leon

Sometime in her twenties, Jennifer De Leon asked herself, “What would you do if you just gave yourself permission?” While her parents had fled Guatemala over three decades earlier when the country was in the grips of genocide and civil war, she hadn’t been back since she was a child. She gave herself permission to return—to relearn the Spanish that she had forgotten, unpack her family’s history, and begin to make her own way.

Alternately honest, funny, and visceral, this powerful collection follows De Leon as she comes of age as a Guatemalan-American woman and learns to navigate the space between two worlds. Never rich or white enough for her posh college, she finds herself equally adrift in her first weeks in her parents’ home country. During the years to follow, she would return to Guatemala again and again, meet ex-guerrillera and genocide survivors, get married in the old cobblestoned capital of Antigua, and teach her newborn son about his roots.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Race, Social Justice, Education, Latinx

228 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 26, 2021

About the author

Jennifer De Leon is author of the YA novel Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From (Simon & Schuster, 2020) which was chosen as a Junior Library Guild selection, and the essay collection White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing (UMass Press, 2021), which is a recipient of the Juniper Prize in Creative Nonfiction. She is also the editor of Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), an anthology that won an International Latino Book Award. An Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Framingham State University and faculty member in the Creative Writing & Literature Master Program at Harvard University, she has published prose in over a dozen literary journals including Ploughshares, Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and more. Jenn makes her home outside the Boston area with her husband and two sons. Her next YA novel, Borderless, is forthcoming in February 2023.

Reviews

[Esta Montano · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this extraordinary book of personal essays, DeLeon interrogates what it is to be a daughter...not just any daughter, but a daughter of immigrants from Guatemala. Through eloquent and stunningly descriptive writing , DeLeon retraces her life's journey, not only as a member of the 1.5 generation, but as a Latinx woman, a teacher, a mother, a world traveler and most of all, a writer.

DeLeon's essays are varied -- linked together through her own humanity, such that the reader comes to know her seemingly well. Many of her essays are extremely relatable, such as in "Gyms," where she courageously recounts her battle with body image and the relentless need to work out; or "Work," in which she retraces her arduous process of finding her people in the world of readers and writers. In "Mother Tongue," we witness DeLeon's heart fill with love and pride when her young son speaks to her in Spanish, a language that is so hard to maintain in a world where English holds power.

The most heartfelt essays are those where DeLeon explores her relationships with her beloved parents, different from her in so many ways, but still so much the same. In an effort to reclaim her history and native language, DeLeon travels to Guatemala, and the essays that document her time in the country of her ancestors are exquisite and compelling. As DeLeon unpacks Guatemala's disturbing history that precipitated her parents' decision to leave, we feel her conscious effort to bind their past to her present.

DeLeon writes from her memory, as she strives to find the patterns and connections that unite the different phases of her life: "I like memories that are knots. Knots that are stories. Stories that are questions. They help me feel less like I need answers....My story is part of a larger story. Everyone's is" (211).

[Carrie Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful tribute to De Leon’s family and her own process of self-discovery. Each essay was both immediately relatable and yet so clearly unique to her own history. Although the essays can be read separately, they’re expertly sequenced to carry the reader through the character development of a complex family portrait, with enough narrative thrust to keep the pages turning.

I was fortunate enough to meet De León during her first solo trip to Guatemala, and both know and cherish some of the individuals she mentions. (I appear a few times too- my favorite moment being in the production of the Vagina Monologues as the performer who “dramatically presented a range of orgasms” causing the audience’s eyes to bulge!! Haha, this is all true!)

I can’t wait to read more of De Leon’s work in the future, and am superbly grateful her voice is on the page!!

[Lauren Fanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[Lissett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of essays. Guatemalan-American writer navigating between two cultures, languages and exploring the new territory of higher education. Her experiences + challenges in her relationship with her parents especially resonated with me. The whole book was incredibly relatable..made me smile, laugh and cry and I never felt more seen in a book. Will highly recommend to my Latina friends, especially first generation Americans in higher ed.

[Ilya Scheidwasser · Rating 3 out of 5]

White Space is a series of stories from the author's life, mostly focusing on her young adulthood. It is roughly chronological; the first third talks about her childhood, adolescence, and college years; the middle talks about a trip she made to Guatemala, her parents' country of origin; and the last third talks about her late 20s.

Much as the three sections of the book are divided by time, they're also divided by theme. The first third tends to focus on her experience being a Latina in mostly white spaces, and the conflicts between her family's culture and the culture of her peers. The second third focuses on the condition and history of Guatemala, and her feelings of belonging or un-belonging in that country. The last third has a lot to do with feeling adrift as a young adult, wanting to be a writer but struggling with motivation problems, and dealing with personal and interpersonal psychological issues.

For me, I found the last third of the book the most compelling. De Leon digs deep into her own psychology and neuroses, exploring the challenges she's faced throughout her life and how she's dealt with them over the years. From my own past, I identified with a lot of the feelings she expressed of being stuck in a rut while everyone around her was moving forward, of life passing her by. But, the other two sections of the book were definitely interesting as well.

One thing that struck me about the writing style of the book is that it often leaves a lot to the reader's imagination. There are many anecdotes and thoughts in the book that stop short of a full examination of the story being told and its implications, which made my first reaction to these passages, "that's it? what happened next? what did this mean for her? what did she think about it?". I don't think that this is necessarily a failing of the book; it gives it a bit of a sense of mystery and invites the reader to fill in the missing pieces in their mind. However, it was a bit of a surprise in what felt like an otherwise fairly straightforward series of autobiographical essays.

Overall, I found the book to be a compelling and worthwhile read. I do think that it feels a bit like three different books; I think I might have enjoyed it more if each section was fleshed out and expanded more, and presented as an actually separate work. But, I definitely did still enjoy the read.

[KP · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book as a potential Common Book for my university. I have very mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, the writing itself is beautiful - it's very clear and straightforward, it's not like it's full of purple prose or anything, but the way she constructs her clear and straightforward sentences comes together beautifully. And some of the essays are genuinely moving and thought-provoking. And then there are other essays which I just... didn't really get. Like, I could see a thin filament within the essay that connected it to some of the larger themes of the collection, but there were so many essays with only a thin filament connecting it to the wider themes that I can't even say super comfortably that there were wider themes? That sounds like such a jerky thing to say because again, this is a gorgeous volume of essays! Personal essays about someone's personal life which are personal! But because I read this specifically for evaluating it as a potential common read, I can't help but think that incoming students would be a little confused about what they are supposed to take away from the collection as a whole. If every essay were like the last one, Bridges, this would be 5 stars. But because it felt somewhat disjointed, I don't think I can really go above 3 stars, which is just because of my reading preferences.

That being said, I think in 2023 I'm going to adopt a policy of not rating personal essays or memoirs, because it feels super tacky to be all "uh, your life story is only three stars".

[Derek Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each of the essays are satisfying and well-written, coming together so well that by the final chapter, she jumps back and forth between her youth and adulthood & it makes perfect sense. I love how De Leon explores writing as both a barrier between her and her parents, but also the best tool she has for connecting with them. She discusses family, identity, her body, and her career. Her writing is vivid, so it feels like we're inhabiting her memories with her. Life is complicated, and so are some of her stories. For example, her essay on diet/weight loss culture, where she finds gyms in every country she travels, sitting in the uncomfortable-ness of her own struggles and the fact that she's working through them in spaces that are inaccessible to many people in these countries. I'd recommend this book for just about anyone, I think it's really worth the read!

[Debbie Hagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the daughter of Guatemala immigrants who fled their homeland amid genocide and civil war, De Leon contemplates not only what it means to be a Guatemalan-American woman, but to comprehend the struggles her parents endured—giving up their language, family, friends, and a world they once called home. To better understand them, she takes off to Guatemala to live among the people there, to learn Spanish, hike the jungle, and participate in a performance of the "Vagina Monologues." This is a compilation of twenty-one beautiful essays, winning the Juniper Prize for Creative Nonfiction by the University of Massachusetts Press. These essays give an important look at what it's like to be a first-generation American woman and being dismissed, held back, and viewed differently in school for being not white. This is a very important book for our times.

[R-M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across one of De Leon's essays on-line and immediately ordered her book as soon as I finished it. Not since Julia Alvarez have I found a literary voice with that "it" factor that pulls you, the reader, in, to the writing and the process of writing. The last paragraph of the last chapter just gutted me, it is so rare to find that experience so perfectly articulated...and there it was on the page. This book was so many things to me personally and I had so many thoughts spilling through my head and now all I can say is wow...and I cannot wait for all there is to come from this powerful literary voice.

[Yi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute stunner. Reading creative nonfiction and literary fiction is by far the easiest way to get to know someone new, and de Leon's work knocks that expectation out of the park.
Pick up this volume and digest it. You won't be sorry. From Guatemala to Boston to Nigeria to Paris, de Leon never pulls punches, and you'll be a better person for it.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into the history of Guatemala, and the US’s complicity in driving the political instability, deep poverty, and lack of opportunity today. This book also provides a window into the immigrant experience, the feeling of not quite fitting either here or there, and the impact of navigating all the expectations and history that accompany an immigrant family in a new world.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one felt like a true love letter to places and experiences that are part of my every fiber.

And as a mixed Guatemalan daughter and writer, I felt like I needed to read this now more than ever.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"White Space" by Jennifer De Leon had so many great stories that explored the author's culture and struggle with accepting and embracing her family and her background. This is not your "usual" book format, so it is interesting and a good way to take a break from my typical type of reading selections. As she tells of her parents escape from Guatemala to America and her yearning to go back and understand her roots, she comes to understand more about herself and her family. Her mother cannot understand why she would want to go back there, and her parents are sure that if she returns to visit, she will never return because when they left, the country was in such an upheaval. Each of the chapters in the books are different essays on parts of her life and how they all fit together. Her journey to Guatemala, relearning Spanish, and her bravery in exploring the ex-guerrillera and genocide survivors is fascinating. The struggle that she has in fitting in as a Guatemalan, was enlightening. Even though it is different than something that is what I normally read, I definitely enjoyed this book and would recommend it for a group read.

[Maria-Veronica Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jennifer once again does it. I couldn’t put this book down and I want people I love to read it. She touches the very spot of our identities that feels vulnerable by showing us hers.

[Sara Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting stories and also loved learning about Guatemalan history and culture!

[Mckinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed her contemplation of select topics, like her writing style.