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One World Essentials #2021.4
My Broken Language
The Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and co-writer of In the Heights tells her lyrical story of coming of age against the backdrop of an ailing Philadelphia barrio, with her sprawling Puerto Rican family as a collective muse.
Quiara Alegría Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced their defiance in a tight North Philly kitchen. She was awed by her mother and aunts and cousins, but haunted by the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio—even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish, bodies and books, Western art and sacred altars. Her family became her private pantheon, a gathering circle of powerful orisha-like women with tragic real-world wounds, and she vowed to tell their stories—but first she’d have to get off the stairs and join the dance. She’d have to find her language.
Weaving together Hudes’s love of music with the songs of her family, the lessons of North Philly with those of Yale, this is a multi-mythic dive into home, memory, and belonging—narrated by an obsessed girl who fought to become an artist so she could capture the world she loved in all its wild and delicate beauty.
Quiara Alegría Hudes was the sharp-eyed girl on the stairs while her family danced their defiance in a tight North Philly kitchen. She was awed by her mother and aunts and cousins, but haunted by the unspoken, untold stories of the barrio—even as she tried to find her own voice in the sea of language around her, written and spoken, English and Spanish, bodies and books, Western art and sacred altars. Her family became her private pantheon, a gathering circle of powerful orisha-like women with tragic real-world wounds, and she vowed to tell their stories—but first she’d have to get off the stairs and join the dance. She’d have to find her language.
Weaving together Hudes’s love of music with the songs of her family, the lessons of North Philly with those of Yale, this is a multi-mythic dive into home, memory, and belonging—narrated by an obsessed girl who fought to become an artist so she could capture the world she loved in all its wild and delicate beauty.
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 6, 2021
534 people are currently reading
13664 people want to read
About the author
Quiara Alegría Hudes
19 books312 followersQuiara Alegría Hudes is a writer, barrio feminist, and native of West Philly, U.S.A. Hailed for her work’s exuberance, intellectual rigor, and rich imagination, her plays and musicals have been performed around the world. They include a Pulitzer-winning drama, Water By the Spoonful, and a Tony-winning Broadway musical, In the Heights (co-authored with Lin-Manuel Miranda). Her screenplay adaptation of In the Heights opens in movie theaters nationwide this June.
Along with her cousin and a dedicated circle of volunteers, Hudes founded and runs Emancipated Stories, a collection of pages written by people who have been or remain incarcerated.
Along with her cousin and a dedicated circle of volunteers, Hudes founded and runs Emancipated Stories, a collection of pages written by people who have been or remain incarcerated.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 529 reviews
December 8, 2021
I appreciated this book’s emphasis on family, culture, and reclaiming one’s story and language from white/colonialist standards of success. Quiara Alegría Hudes writes with care and passion about her upbringing and her loved ones’ trials and tribulations growing up in North Philly. Her honesty throughout this memoir, including about her nuanced relationship with her younger sister as well as her experiences at Yale, helped the narrative feel authentic both in life’s messiness and its joys. I didn’t love the execution of the nonlinear writing as I often found it difficult to keep track of the events occurring in Hudes’s life, however, those who don’t mind this style of writing may enjoy this book even more than I did.
July 12, 2021
This is the best memoir I have ever read and required some time to review. I was gobsmacked by the writing, and the story.
I was drawn to Broken Language by the title. Being a psycholinguist by training, and a person who leads a multilingual life, the title suggested language lost, and possibly found. I was not familiar with the writer, a Pulitzer-winning playwright. What I found in this book was the most profound and touching memoir I have ever read. It is the story of searching for identity – linguistic, racial and cultural, and searching for a language to live in.
The structure of the book was unique, with chapter titles that tell the reader the focus of this piece of the book such as “Splangish Cousins on the New Jersey Turnpike”, “A Book Is its Presence and Absence”, “The Foraker Act (On Boriken’s – and the Diaspora’s – Language History)”, and “Writing’s a Muscle, It Gets Stronger”. In each chapter, she provides a deep dive into aspects of her life, and her coming to terms with her identity as a biracial woman, who is Puerto Rican and Jewish, brought up by a Puerto Rican mother and Puerto Rican step father, a student, an outsider in all of her worlds, and a writer.
Quiara was the daughter of a white hippie father of Jewish background, handyman, and someone discontent with city living. Her mother was a Puerto Rican-born practitioner of Yoruba religion commonly known as Santeria, a talented gardener and community activist for health care for poor women of color. Her Puerto Rican grandfather was Taino, an indigenous descendant of Caribe Indians, virtually wiped out by Spanish colonizers. As a young girl, Quiara's parents brought her to live in rural Pennsylvania, not too far from West Philadelphia where her Puerto Rican extended family lived. Eventually Quiara and her mother moved back to Philadelphia and this family, and Queria visited her father on weekends until his new wife made it too uncomfortable.
As a gifted writer, even as a young student, Quiara felt out of place and without a language home. She realized she had to learn more Spanish, especially the language of her Puerto Rican family, to find her true place. This journey is the heart of her story. Her gift for seeing into the depths of her family’s experiences, and writing about them with love, and without judgment, have made her the writer that she is. As a gifted student, she ended up at Yale, but it took her time to find “her people” there – other Latinx students, some who were first generation college students as she was. She started out studying music, but fought the restrictions of the classical training that rejected the music she knew – the complicated polyrhythms of Caribbean son, and Latin beats. It was here she made her first venture into writing and producing a play that represented her world. A world where family members died of AIDS, worshipped African gods and goddesses, lived their lives on the streets, and sometimes self-destructed.
After leaving Yale, she went on to Brown after winning a fellowship to study playwrighting. It was here she found the work she wanted to dedicate herself to. Hudes certainly had mentors and great teachers outside of her world. However, the lesson in this book is that the key to her artistic success, was discovering herself through the love from and given to her Puerto Rican family, and translating that to a world that did not have many examples of these communities and lives. She teamed up with Lin Manuel Miranda to write the Broadway play “ In the Heights”. The attention Miranda got with “Hamilton” pathed a path for the recent movie version of "In the Heights". Miranda and Hudes had very different kinds of childhoods (hers being much poorer), but the common bond they have is love for Puerto Rico, its people, and its diaspora in West Philadelphia, New York City, and many American cities, particularly along the Eastern seaboard.
As someone who has lived among, worked with, and been friends with people in the Puerto Rican community in Boston, Quiara’s world in West Philadelphia wasn’t totally foreign. I am fluent is Spanish, particularly Caribbean Spanish (Puerto Rican, Dominican and Cuban). Many of my students in Boston were Puerto Rican, and I had close relationships with their families. My ex-husband is Dominican and my biracial son attended a Puerto Rican bilingual pre-school for three years (Escuelita) in Villa Victoria, a neighborhood in Boston, named for the activism of the Puerto Rican community that created it. Aa a white woman, I have learned that while some in the Latinx community may accept me because of my son and my language proficiency, they can be quick to move away from those who enter who they find to be ingenuine. Some may find it to be safer to stay within familiar surroundings, but to do so, limits us so much. The book My Broken Language is a clear illustration of why it is worth it to venture out, and experience things outside of one’s comfort zone.
Highly recommended.
I was drawn to Broken Language by the title. Being a psycholinguist by training, and a person who leads a multilingual life, the title suggested language lost, and possibly found. I was not familiar with the writer, a Pulitzer-winning playwright. What I found in this book was the most profound and touching memoir I have ever read. It is the story of searching for identity – linguistic, racial and cultural, and searching for a language to live in.
The structure of the book was unique, with chapter titles that tell the reader the focus of this piece of the book such as “Splangish Cousins on the New Jersey Turnpike”, “A Book Is its Presence and Absence”, “The Foraker Act (On Boriken’s – and the Diaspora’s – Language History)”, and “Writing’s a Muscle, It Gets Stronger”. In each chapter, she provides a deep dive into aspects of her life, and her coming to terms with her identity as a biracial woman, who is Puerto Rican and Jewish, brought up by a Puerto Rican mother and Puerto Rican step father, a student, an outsider in all of her worlds, and a writer.
Quiara was the daughter of a white hippie father of Jewish background, handyman, and someone discontent with city living. Her mother was a Puerto Rican-born practitioner of Yoruba religion commonly known as Santeria, a talented gardener and community activist for health care for poor women of color. Her Puerto Rican grandfather was Taino, an indigenous descendant of Caribe Indians, virtually wiped out by Spanish colonizers. As a young girl, Quiara's parents brought her to live in rural Pennsylvania, not too far from West Philadelphia where her Puerto Rican extended family lived. Eventually Quiara and her mother moved back to Philadelphia and this family, and Queria visited her father on weekends until his new wife made it too uncomfortable.
As a gifted writer, even as a young student, Quiara felt out of place and without a language home. She realized she had to learn more Spanish, especially the language of her Puerto Rican family, to find her true place. This journey is the heart of her story. Her gift for seeing into the depths of her family’s experiences, and writing about them with love, and without judgment, have made her the writer that she is. As a gifted student, she ended up at Yale, but it took her time to find “her people” there – other Latinx students, some who were first generation college students as she was. She started out studying music, but fought the restrictions of the classical training that rejected the music she knew – the complicated polyrhythms of Caribbean son, and Latin beats. It was here she made her first venture into writing and producing a play that represented her world. A world where family members died of AIDS, worshipped African gods and goddesses, lived their lives on the streets, and sometimes self-destructed.
After leaving Yale, she went on to Brown after winning a fellowship to study playwrighting. It was here she found the work she wanted to dedicate herself to. Hudes certainly had mentors and great teachers outside of her world. However, the lesson in this book is that the key to her artistic success, was discovering herself through the love from and given to her Puerto Rican family, and translating that to a world that did not have many examples of these communities and lives. She teamed up with Lin Manuel Miranda to write the Broadway play “ In the Heights”. The attention Miranda got with “Hamilton” pathed a path for the recent movie version of "In the Heights". Miranda and Hudes had very different kinds of childhoods (hers being much poorer), but the common bond they have is love for Puerto Rico, its people, and its diaspora in West Philadelphia, New York City, and many American cities, particularly along the Eastern seaboard.
As someone who has lived among, worked with, and been friends with people in the Puerto Rican community in Boston, Quiara’s world in West Philadelphia wasn’t totally foreign. I am fluent is Spanish, particularly Caribbean Spanish (Puerto Rican, Dominican and Cuban). Many of my students in Boston were Puerto Rican, and I had close relationships with their families. My ex-husband is Dominican and my biracial son attended a Puerto Rican bilingual pre-school for three years (Escuelita) in Villa Victoria, a neighborhood in Boston, named for the activism of the Puerto Rican community that created it. Aa a white woman, I have learned that while some in the Latinx community may accept me because of my son and my language proficiency, they can be quick to move away from those who enter who they find to be ingenuine. Some may find it to be safer to stay within familiar surroundings, but to do so, limits us so much. The book My Broken Language is a clear illustration of why it is worth it to venture out, and experience things outside of one’s comfort zone.
Highly recommended.
February 3, 2021
A beautifully done memoir of the coming of age Quiara Alegría Hudes, her hardships and struggles, and the confusion she faced with her own personal identity of who she was and where she fit in, in her world of North and West Philly and beyond.
From a young age Qui Qui noticed a difference in her parents. Her father, a Jewish atheist wood-worker who believes "Religion is the root of all evil", and a mother who is a very spiritual, very superstitious Puerto Rican that takes her religion very seriously. Growing up in a home where only English was spoken in the presence of her father, and Spanish only when her father was gone and her mother was worshipping. Eventually her parents separate, and the confusion and denial of identity grows and grows. As she grows older, she realizes the disproportionate issues that her Perez family faces, compared to those of other families she went to school with. The stories of her cousins are at once heart wrenching for the societal issues and disparities they faced, while all at once uplifting and heart-warming the way that the stories of Quiara's cousins eventually went to solidifying and connecting her to her identity in a beautiful way.
Laced with beautiful metaphors, thought provoking language and syntax, touching on societal issues and societal short-comings, this book is sure to have something for readers of all types. After recently taking a cultural communications class last semester, examination of the language and the code-switching to express ideas was a amazing way to produce a rich environment, that really brought life to all of the individuals in Ms. Hudes life. It also helped to express the conundrum in expressing identity through language and finally finding your voice in the cacophony of words and expressions that exists for a bilingual speaker from birth.
From a young age Qui Qui noticed a difference in her parents. Her father, a Jewish atheist wood-worker who believes "Religion is the root of all evil", and a mother who is a very spiritual, very superstitious Puerto Rican that takes her religion very seriously. Growing up in a home where only English was spoken in the presence of her father, and Spanish only when her father was gone and her mother was worshipping. Eventually her parents separate, and the confusion and denial of identity grows and grows. As she grows older, she realizes the disproportionate issues that her Perez family faces, compared to those of other families she went to school with. The stories of her cousins are at once heart wrenching for the societal issues and disparities they faced, while all at once uplifting and heart-warming the way that the stories of Quiara's cousins eventually went to solidifying and connecting her to her identity in a beautiful way.
Laced with beautiful metaphors, thought provoking language and syntax, touching on societal issues and societal short-comings, this book is sure to have something for readers of all types. After recently taking a cultural communications class last semester, examination of the language and the code-switching to express ideas was a amazing way to produce a rich environment, that really brought life to all of the individuals in Ms. Hudes life. It also helped to express the conundrum in expressing identity through language and finally finding your voice in the cacophony of words and expressions that exists for a bilingual speaker from birth.
April 5, 2021
I wanted to like My Broken Language, but struggled with it. Upon picking it up, I was immediately captivated by Quiara Alegria Hudes's story: urban Puerto Rican Philadelphian uprooted to rural Pennsylvania to live on a farm. Quiara's mother is a healer, a bit psychic, performs animal sacrifices. This all sounds so interesting! The kind of life story that I can't wait to read about. Unfortunately, the execution fell flat for me. I struggled with the non-linear storytelling, never quite understanding what was happening, how it connected, or where it was going. I can see why others would love and enjoy My Broken Language but it didn't work for me. Thank you to the author & publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
October 1, 2025
I appreciate and also really like how Quiara Alegría Hudes in her 2021 memoir My Broken Language often focuses on the concept of language to explain her life story as well as to frame the development of her identity. And growing up in Philadelphia with a Jewish father and a Puerto Rican mother, Hudes demonstrates with My Broken Language that she originally kind of organised (but also separated) the two halves of her cultural and ethnic identity by associating her father with English and her mother with Spanish, a juxtaposition created from and by her parents' very different backgrounds and also that Quiara Alegría Hudes has always had very different experiences and interactions with each parent and especially with regard to religion. For Hudes' father deems religion to be the root of all evil, which might well be linked to the horror of the Holocaust (but let us not kid ourselves, the Bible is also full of violence and that the many wars fought in the name of religion of course cannot and should not be ignored either), while Hudes' mother is intensely spiritual due her upbringing and reputed supernatural experiences she had in Puerto Rico, and that in My Broken Language Quiara Alegría Hudes shows that she due to her father’s all-encompassingly negative views concerning all religion even began to wonder as a child if her mother was actually evil, with this also exposing the confusion first generation children can experience, can feel and equally presenting the difficulties of growing up with multiple cultural backgrounds and religions in one household (and yes, I even noticed this a tiny bit when I was a child, with a Roman Catholic mother and a Lutheran father, and German being spoken at home and English everywhere else post our immigration to Canada, with me now being of no organised religion whatsoever but simply believing in some kind of impersonal deity or cosmic force, but basically totally rejecting religious denominations and their petty and sometimes of course also not so petty battles and differences of opinion).
And while My Broken Language commences with Quiara Alegría Hudes explaining her different experiences and conversations with her parents at home (which is a rural horse farm), the pace of My Broken Language quickly changes and becomes considerably more questioning and also often more painful and uncomfortable after her parents divorce, with Hudes beginning to feel an increase level of disconnection between the two halves of her identity as she processes the latter, that from this point on, My Broken Language tends textually showcase more the mother’s side of the family, Puerto Rican family dynamics and with the theme of language being lyrically and beautifully woven into Quiara Alegría Hudes' life stories, explaining instances in which language has affected her the most. And yes, My Broken Language also points out and analyses Hudes' assertion (and her truth) that language must be spoken, that talking and discussion are necessary, that wilful and deliberate silence equals not only linguistic but indeed actual death, thus spiritual demise as well as actual demise, that coping with tragedies such as addiction, STDs and the like by being silent, by not discussing, by pushing down and ignoring this (and which seems to be the way in My Broken Language, Quiara Alegría Hudes' mother's family has tended to try to manage) simply does not work and creates a huge black hoke of despair and no ways to successfully move forward to prevent further tragedies, that language might be broken and fractured but is all the same essential and that the actual enemy of humanity is deliberate selective mutism, is refusing discussion, debate and not wanting to use language as a positive and healing tool.
Finally and for me personally, in My Broken Language, Quiara Alegría Hudes' experience at school are in many ways realistically, very nicely but also at the same time massively uncomfortably relatable. For when Hudes in My Broken Language sees her Puerto Rican mother in a White Anglo Saxon Protestant setting, her cultural differences are even more highlighted, but instead of comparing her mother to her father (with regard to religion), Quiara Alegría Hudes is now and often quite unfavourably comparing her mother to her third culture of living in the United States, that many of her classmates are very confused about the difference of skin tones between Hudes and her mother, as well as by her mother’s broken English (and yes, I most definitely got this at school as well, namely that my siblings' and my English became fluent pretty quickly after we immigrated to Canada from Germany but that my mother's English was sometimes pretty difficult to understand, was often rather disjointed with a heavy accent and that my classmates when we first moved to Canada also did not like my mother's German cooking and did not want to come over for all that many playdates, not to mention that some parents actually refused to let their children talk or interact with me simply because I was German and thus of course a Nazi). Wanting to blend in at school and with her friends seems impossible for Quiara Alegría Hudes' in My Broken Language (and also seemed unattainable for me when we moved to Canada in 1976), but it is precisely this (which although oh so painful and oh so traumatic to consider and to recall because it of being so hugely personally relatable) also moves My Broken Language and Hudes' text, her personal experiences, her memories from the four stars I was originally considering to solidly and gloriously five stars.
And while My Broken Language commences with Quiara Alegría Hudes explaining her different experiences and conversations with her parents at home (which is a rural horse farm), the pace of My Broken Language quickly changes and becomes considerably more questioning and also often more painful and uncomfortable after her parents divorce, with Hudes beginning to feel an increase level of disconnection between the two halves of her identity as she processes the latter, that from this point on, My Broken Language tends textually showcase more the mother’s side of the family, Puerto Rican family dynamics and with the theme of language being lyrically and beautifully woven into Quiara Alegría Hudes' life stories, explaining instances in which language has affected her the most. And yes, My Broken Language also points out and analyses Hudes' assertion (and her truth) that language must be spoken, that talking and discussion are necessary, that wilful and deliberate silence equals not only linguistic but indeed actual death, thus spiritual demise as well as actual demise, that coping with tragedies such as addiction, STDs and the like by being silent, by not discussing, by pushing down and ignoring this (and which seems to be the way in My Broken Language, Quiara Alegría Hudes' mother's family has tended to try to manage) simply does not work and creates a huge black hoke of despair and no ways to successfully move forward to prevent further tragedies, that language might be broken and fractured but is all the same essential and that the actual enemy of humanity is deliberate selective mutism, is refusing discussion, debate and not wanting to use language as a positive and healing tool.
Finally and for me personally, in My Broken Language, Quiara Alegría Hudes' experience at school are in many ways realistically, very nicely but also at the same time massively uncomfortably relatable. For when Hudes in My Broken Language sees her Puerto Rican mother in a White Anglo Saxon Protestant setting, her cultural differences are even more highlighted, but instead of comparing her mother to her father (with regard to religion), Quiara Alegría Hudes is now and often quite unfavourably comparing her mother to her third culture of living in the United States, that many of her classmates are very confused about the difference of skin tones between Hudes and her mother, as well as by her mother’s broken English (and yes, I most definitely got this at school as well, namely that my siblings' and my English became fluent pretty quickly after we immigrated to Canada from Germany but that my mother's English was sometimes pretty difficult to understand, was often rather disjointed with a heavy accent and that my classmates when we first moved to Canada also did not like my mother's German cooking and did not want to come over for all that many playdates, not to mention that some parents actually refused to let their children talk or interact with me simply because I was German and thus of course a Nazi). Wanting to blend in at school and with her friends seems impossible for Quiara Alegría Hudes' in My Broken Language (and also seemed unattainable for me when we moved to Canada in 1976), but it is precisely this (which although oh so painful and oh so traumatic to consider and to recall because it of being so hugely personally relatable) also moves My Broken Language and Hudes' text, her personal experiences, her memories from the four stars I was originally considering to solidly and gloriously five stars.
November 4, 2020
"My Broken Language" by Quiara Alegria Hudes is a memoir about her home and family and how she makes sense of it all. Wow. This book is so beautiful that I found myself re-reading passages and savoring each page. This book is definitely in a league of its own, but I found a lot of parallels between this book and the themes and language that characterize Richard Blanco's work. I loved reading about Hudes' family and how she channels everything that surrounds her in her life - love, music, art, books, spirituality, and language - into her own work. I really hope everyone enjoys this book as much as I did.
December 7, 2020
I wish there was a better word to describe this book than "lyrical" because that seems almost trite given Hudes's career trajectory. But lyrical it remains, with gusto.
My Broken Language is smart, witty, winsome, painful, heartbreaking, and awe-inspiring. It's an exploration of home, youth, music, family, culture, belonging, spirituality, and - of course - language. It isn't an easy read but it is a worthwhile one. Highly recommended.
**I received an electronic ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
My Broken Language is smart, witty, winsome, painful, heartbreaking, and awe-inspiring. It's an exploration of home, youth, music, family, culture, belonging, spirituality, and - of course - language. It isn't an easy read but it is a worthwhile one. Highly recommended.
**I received an electronic ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
June 8, 2021
I was friends with Quiara in high school so this is totally biased. It’s nice to catch up with an old friend!
July 23, 2021
THIS WAS GRANDIOSE! BIGGER THAN LIFE! A MONUMENTAL OWNVOICES TREAT!
If you like stories about identity, family relationships and Hispanic culture like Poet X, Educated or Hillbilly Elegy you would probably love this book!
Awww this was SO GOOD! There is SO MUCH to unpack here!
Just as a book is incredibly good! The writing, the characterization and a storyline that reads like fiction (but it is not fiction!) are fantastic!
Just keep in mind that this is a lighthearted story but not a light read; the use of metaphors is liberal! It required some real immersion from me I had to rewind often the audiobook often. And, talking about audiobook... I especially recommend the audiobook! Same as Acevedo’s narrations, the musicality of the authentically executed "spanglish" and Latin American accents is a very gratifying experience!
And since the topics are so relevant it goes from "incredibly good" to "simply outstanding"!
It always warms my heart to find good Latin American culture representation and nothing like an ownvoices book to do it right!. I loved how all the different hues of Latin culture were portrayed with so much human depth in a way that was lighthearted, witty and humorous without taking away from the serious topics. I especially loved how Latin American spirituality (e.g. Santeria) was represented.
There is SO MUCH social content to experience as you navigate a world where Latinos are just another minority in the small “Other” slice of the pie and not only marginalized but abused. You'll understand how white feminism interferes with grassroot work and the immensity of the health care disparities in the Latino community. Some stories are just too heartbreaking, like how Latinos were subject to involuntary experiments and sterilization.
I REALLY HOPE THIS BOOK BECOMES A SCHOOL ASSIGNED READING!!!
If you like stories about identity, family relationships and Hispanic culture like Poet X, Educated or Hillbilly Elegy you would probably love this book!
Awww this was SO GOOD! There is SO MUCH to unpack here!
Just as a book is incredibly good! The writing, the characterization and a storyline that reads like fiction (but it is not fiction!) are fantastic!
Just keep in mind that this is a lighthearted story but not a light read; the use of metaphors is liberal! It required some real immersion from me I had to rewind often the audiobook often. And, talking about audiobook... I especially recommend the audiobook! Same as Acevedo’s narrations, the musicality of the authentically executed "spanglish" and Latin American accents is a very gratifying experience!
And since the topics are so relevant it goes from "incredibly good" to "simply outstanding"!
It always warms my heart to find good Latin American culture representation and nothing like an ownvoices book to do it right!. I loved how all the different hues of Latin culture were portrayed with so much human depth in a way that was lighthearted, witty and humorous without taking away from the serious topics. I especially loved how Latin American spirituality (e.g. Santeria) was represented.
There is SO MUCH social content to experience as you navigate a world where Latinos are just another minority in the small “Other” slice of the pie and not only marginalized but abused. You'll understand how white feminism interferes with grassroot work and the immensity of the health care disparities in the Latino community. Some stories are just too heartbreaking, like how Latinos were subject to involuntary experiments and sterilization.
I REALLY HOPE THIS BOOK BECOMES A SCHOOL ASSIGNED READING!!!
January 28, 2022
I was never quite sure what the point of this was. It circled around a lot of ideas, but never quite landed on anything
April 17, 2021
2.5 stars
I tried to liked this book but I felt disconnected and lost. I enjoyed some of her personal memories and her poetic and bilingual written, but I struggled. She really has a beautiful talent as a writer but I didn’t care enough about the context. Her mom’s weird world between Yorubas and Orishas, are definitely not my cup of tea.
I tried to liked this book but I felt disconnected and lost. I enjoyed some of her personal memories and her poetic and bilingual written, but I struggled. She really has a beautiful talent as a writer but I didn’t care enough about the context. Her mom’s weird world between Yorubas and Orishas, are definitely not my cup of tea.
May 17, 2021
I posted an honest critique of this memoir, and a troll decided to start harassing me in the comments. So I deleted the review, changed my privacy settings, and now I'm re-posting.
April 10, 2022
Audiobook review: Such a great listen! Quiara Alegría Hudes is a fantastic narrator! I'm so glad I listened to the audiobook rather than reading the paper copy.
My Broken Language was chosen as the 2022 One Book Philadelphia selection. Although I've yet to see In the Heights, I was drawn to this book because of its connection to Philadelphia. Quiara Alegría gives great descriptions of 1980s and 1990s Philly and Malvern. It was fascinating to learn about her early days and travels between North and West Philly and suburbia.
More than anything else, this book is a beautiful tribute to Quiara Alegría's mother and all of her Perez women. Her mother was (is?) a community rights activist and fixture in Philly's Puerto Rican community. She was/is a solid role model who taught her daughter strength and spirituality.
Highly recommend this book, especially if you're familiar with Philadelphia. Good choice, One Book Philadelphia!
My Broken Language was chosen as the 2022 One Book Philadelphia selection. Although I've yet to see In the Heights, I was drawn to this book because of its connection to Philadelphia. Quiara Alegría gives great descriptions of 1980s and 1990s Philly and Malvern. It was fascinating to learn about her early days and travels between North and West Philly and suburbia.
More than anything else, this book is a beautiful tribute to Quiara Alegría's mother and all of her Perez women. Her mother was (is?) a community rights activist and fixture in Philly's Puerto Rican community. She was/is a solid role model who taught her daughter strength and spirituality.
Highly recommend this book, especially if you're familiar with Philadelphia. Good choice, One Book Philadelphia!
April 28, 2022
Have never read anything like this and I loved every second of it. The writing is so unique and beautiful and real and pensive and just so good. Shoutout Malia for this quality book rec🤩
July 3, 2021
I loved everything about this book. It isn’t often that a work of non-fiction grabs me as firmly as a novel, but this memoir is absolutely stunning, and I was fully immersed in Hudes’ story. It is written with openness and honesty, but also, entirely unsurprisingly, with enormous artistry, of the very best kind, because it is subtle and not distracting. The narrative flows seemingly effortlessly, and yet it is carefully woven, creating a sense of progression and discovery that is bound up with Quiara’s journey and her attempts to find a language of her own. It is so clever and meta it hurts, but Hudes’ fearsome intellect is coupled with an incredible story-telling ability that makes this a hugely entertaining book as well as an intelligent and thought-provoking one.
This memoir is so insightful on the struggle to find a voice, to find a language that expresses our true selves in a way that feels authentic. It sent my mind spinning down all sorts of avenues – I have a special fondness for books with Spanish scattered in the text, as I used to be fluent, and learning and speaking it regularly actually changed my thought processes (I miss it so much!). But this isn’t simply about speaking Spanglish or straddling different cultures – this is about a much deeper search for self-expression, when the ‘self’ contains within it all the multitudes of histories and ancestors and stories and new beginnings and false starts and EVERYTHING that makes us US.
The very best books seem to distil all of life – its joys and sorrows, struggles and celebrations, into a kind of heady cocktail, and that is what reading My Broken Language is like – getting drunk on words, imbibing the fizzing, powerful energy of the Perez women, their gods, their messy lives, their fierce love for each other. This book is by turns achingly cool, self-aware, awe-inspiring, curious, sad, funny – it is both a tribute and a testament, a poignant examination of the communal and a deep-dive into a fascinating individual mind. I know this is a book I will be returning to, and I can’t recommend it enough.
This memoir is so insightful on the struggle to find a voice, to find a language that expresses our true selves in a way that feels authentic. It sent my mind spinning down all sorts of avenues – I have a special fondness for books with Spanish scattered in the text, as I used to be fluent, and learning and speaking it regularly actually changed my thought processes (I miss it so much!). But this isn’t simply about speaking Spanglish or straddling different cultures – this is about a much deeper search for self-expression, when the ‘self’ contains within it all the multitudes of histories and ancestors and stories and new beginnings and false starts and EVERYTHING that makes us US.
The very best books seem to distil all of life – its joys and sorrows, struggles and celebrations, into a kind of heady cocktail, and that is what reading My Broken Language is like – getting drunk on words, imbibing the fizzing, powerful energy of the Perez women, their gods, their messy lives, their fierce love for each other. This book is by turns achingly cool, self-aware, awe-inspiring, curious, sad, funny – it is both a tribute and a testament, a poignant examination of the communal and a deep-dive into a fascinating individual mind. I know this is a book I will be returning to, and I can’t recommend it enough.
March 1, 2022
Quiara Alegría Hudes' madre, tias, primas, and hermana lived loud, danced hard, and laughed long – and she loved that, but she also loved Duchamp's art, Miller's plays, and classical music. These loves took her to Yale, as she "craved an intellectual home base." But she wanted a home "that didn’t blindfold itself to my culture, that didn’t other entire hemispheres of art" (pp. 215-216). (Yale Music should not use Hudes' memoir to promote their program.)
Some people find their voice easily, as their community reflects them clearly. Hudes is Puerto Rican, but spoke Spanglish. White like her Jewish hippie father; not fitting with his second family or looking like her Boricua mother. Her language includes Santaria but also Quaker silence surrounding an ambivalent agnostic core. Bach and Schubert, but also (finally) salsa. Urban but splashes of rural and suburban. Gritty outsider, but a graduate of Yale and Brown. We are all composed of contradictions, but these contradictions can confuse and obscure.
Shame’s hot furnace lapped at my throat as I wished mom would worship a little bit whiter. Faced with my guests’ disgust, I remained silent rather than apologize for mom, but I also remained silent rather than defend her. (p. 99)
Despite this confusion, My Broken Language reads as celebration; not a quiet Catholic, off-key dirge, but a rowdy salsa, hips swaying. Her family dies of AIDS and heart attacks, they struggle with drugs, but they are alive and joyful. Hudes reclaims their scars and fat, their illiteracy and, rather than being reasons to reject them, they become the reason she returns home. They are home.
Mami, primas, hermana, no one else qualifies for the job. We must be our own librarians because we alone are literate in our bodies. By naming our pain and voicing our imperfections, we declare our tremendous survival. Our offspring deserve to inherit these strategies. We have worked hard to be here. We owe them ourselves. We owe each other. (p. 314)
Some people find their voice easily, as their community reflects them clearly. Hudes is Puerto Rican, but spoke Spanglish. White like her Jewish hippie father; not fitting with his second family or looking like her Boricua mother. Her language includes Santaria but also Quaker silence surrounding an ambivalent agnostic core. Bach and Schubert, but also (finally) salsa. Urban but splashes of rural and suburban. Gritty outsider, but a graduate of Yale and Brown. We are all composed of contradictions, but these contradictions can confuse and obscure.
Shame’s hot furnace lapped at my throat as I wished mom would worship a little bit whiter. Faced with my guests’ disgust, I remained silent rather than apologize for mom, but I also remained silent rather than defend her. (p. 99)
Despite this confusion, My Broken Language reads as celebration; not a quiet Catholic, off-key dirge, but a rowdy salsa, hips swaying. Her family dies of AIDS and heart attacks, they struggle with drugs, but they are alive and joyful. Hudes reclaims their scars and fat, their illiteracy and, rather than being reasons to reject them, they become the reason she returns home. They are home.
Mami, primas, hermana, no one else qualifies for the job. We must be our own librarians because we alone are literate in our bodies. By naming our pain and voicing our imperfections, we declare our tremendous survival. Our offspring deserve to inherit these strategies. We have worked hard to be here. We owe them ourselves. We owe each other. (p. 314)
March 14, 2024
So good!! I feel like I've learned so much from Quiara's life (and Philadelphia) experiences, revelations, culture, and language. In this memoir, she writes (almost mystically), about growing up in Philadelphia surrounded by the Puerto Rican side of her family, growing into her personal identities, starting her career, and realizing her calling in life: to be a storyteller.
I loved recognizing all of her Philly-specific references while also feeling newly exposed to a completely different side of this city I have never personally experienced. I learned so much about our (Philly/American/academic) culture/society, Puerto Rican history/culture, and Quiara's complex relationship with language (the linguist in me loved how she delved into this!). There is so much social commentary that I took away from her first-hand accounts.
This is the kind of book that I would have read in my "Spanish in the Philadelphia Community" class or discussed in my "Intro to Linguistics" class in college and would have led to soooo many meaningful discussions - UGH miss u Dra. Shenk <3!!!
This book also left me feeling inspired and reflective when thinking about my own life and where I want to go.
Reading through this review I just wrote - and the fact that I already have 2 friends that need to borrow this book from me so that we can discuss - I have to give "My Broken Language" 5 stars! Loved!
I loved recognizing all of her Philly-specific references while also feeling newly exposed to a completely different side of this city I have never personally experienced. I learned so much about our (Philly/American/academic) culture/society, Puerto Rican history/culture, and Quiara's complex relationship with language (the linguist in me loved how she delved into this!). There is so much social commentary that I took away from her first-hand accounts.
This is the kind of book that I would have read in my "Spanish in the Philadelphia Community" class or discussed in my "Intro to Linguistics" class in college and would have led to soooo many meaningful discussions - UGH miss u Dra. Shenk <3!!!
This book also left me feeling inspired and reflective when thinking about my own life and where I want to go.
Reading through this review I just wrote - and the fact that I already have 2 friends that need to borrow this book from me so that we can discuss - I have to give "My Broken Language" 5 stars! Loved!
April 21, 2021
Can't type well due to hand injury, but run out for this one. Exquisite writing and beautiful story of mother and child love and the disharmony of race. Also,for Philadelphians you will get a kick out of this.
January 22, 2022
wish I could give a book 6 stars
August 7, 2021
A poetic and hilarious memoir. Karla Conejo Villavicencio (author of The Undocumented Americans) recommended this read — and it was well warranted. Quira Alegría Hudes wrote the book for In The Heights as a Broadway play. I can’t help but feel that the movie missed something in “updating” her words. She’s good.
June 6, 2021
Always a pleasure to read a memoir by a professional writer and more so to listen to the audio of someone who writes work that is meant to be performed. Hudes has lived a life on the divide being both white and Puerto Rican, speaking English and Spanish, attending Quaker meetings and witnessing Santeria at home. She is able to fit in everywhere yet not fully fit anywhere. She learns and uses languages, English and Spanish but also the language of music studying music composition at Yale, languages of religion to understand her worlds. Books are her medium but her family is her spirit leading her to write plays that tell her story, inclusive of her fabulous family.
The memoir was well told interspersing personal history with the politics and social justice movements of the day. She witnesses on one hand her community ravaged disproportionately by poverty, drugs, AIDS and other health issues while in other spaces those untouched by any of it debate the infamous welfare queen. The mix is well done and I can't wait to watch The Heights.
The memoir was well told interspersing personal history with the politics and social justice movements of the day. She witnesses on one hand her community ravaged disproportionately by poverty, drugs, AIDS and other health issues while in other spaces those untouched by any of it debate the infamous welfare queen. The mix is well done and I can't wait to watch The Heights.
March 2, 2022
I really confirmed with this book that memoirs aren’t my preferred genre. This book gets a 3/5 stars for me, and it genuinely may get a higher rating from readers who like the genre more. I think that if someone wants to tell me about their life, I need a really compelling reason why I should spend that much time with it. For me it’s kind of “more power to ya that you want to tell your story, but I’m not sure why I should read it.” I read fiction for entertainment. I read most nonfiction to learn something (specific) about a topic. But I expect memoirs to stand on their own whether I know who the writer is or not… to have something to tell me about the world, beyond just their individual experience of it. *Everyone* has a story, from the biggest star to the homeless guys who used to come to the soup kitchens I worked at. Why should I read *your* story?
It took _My Broken Language_ a very long time to even begin to tell a story that answered that question. Hudes’ early years were told in a way that felt more diary-like than story-like, with open-ended questions and odd reflections that didn’t make any solid connections. That didn’t appeal to me. I kept going because I know as a White woman that sometimes my discomfort is because I’m accustomed to a certain style of writing or storytelling, and I actively want to hear others’ stories and styles. But Hudes’ style DID change, and become a more straightforward narrative. That tells me that she could have told her early years in a different way.
Eventually I did like the story she told about the Perez women, and the connections she made between them and her own personal journey. But overall, I could have done without it. Mostly, this wasn’t my thing, but it might be yours.
It took _My Broken Language_ a very long time to even begin to tell a story that answered that question. Hudes’ early years were told in a way that felt more diary-like than story-like, with open-ended questions and odd reflections that didn’t make any solid connections. That didn’t appeal to me. I kept going because I know as a White woman that sometimes my discomfort is because I’m accustomed to a certain style of writing or storytelling, and I actively want to hear others’ stories and styles. But Hudes’ style DID change, and become a more straightforward narrative. That tells me that she could have told her early years in a different way.
Eventually I did like the story she told about the Perez women, and the connections she made between them and her own personal journey. But overall, I could have done without it. Mostly, this wasn’t my thing, but it might be yours.
March 8, 2024
I loved this memoir so much. I am sure that I would have enjoyed reading it myself, but because I listened to the audiobook, I was invested. Hearing the author's own voice highlighted her lyricism, language, and tone for me, and it was absolutely beautiful. Quiara's relationship with her mother (and the other women in her family), her ongoing exploration of religion, realities of time period, and the development of Quiara's own craft are themes that are woven throughout the book, while music, dance, art, and (something like) magic compose the fibers.
August 18, 2021
I was reading slow at the beginning bc each chapter was great but it wasn’t anything I was wanting to devour. Then all of a sudden I couldn’t stop reading! I loved her writing, I loved how lost she was, how she got so focused and then so unmoored. It was such a joy to read. I wish the first half had been more like that though. But overall, what a read and I’m so glad I picked it up.
September 30, 2023
The most north Philly book I have ever read. And, as someone studying Lukumi religion, I love to read about it in narrative/fiction form. And the writing in this book - astounding. I am enthralled by her style.
Maybe I don't read enough fiction, so I don't have enough to care this with. But I want to re-read this, and I hardly am ever interested in rereading books...
Maybe I don't read enough fiction, so I don't have enough to care this with. But I want to re-read this, and I hardly am ever interested in rereading books...
July 14, 2021
This was an absolutely beautiful read. I don’t get much time to read just for me but I loved every minute of this book. Stunning imagery and prose giving voice to her family and the women in her life in such a powerful way. Highly recommend.
April 25, 2022
This is a perfect example of why I prefer to listen to, rather than read, memoirs that are narrated by the author. Quiara’s words in her own voice gave me chills upon chills, and I appreciated this powerful window into the experience of Puerto Rican communities in Philadelphia in the 80’s and 90’s.
July 28, 2021
5 stars! 10 stars! A million stars!!! This memoir is absolutely incredible: lively, firery, electric. I did not want to put it down! Definitely in contention for favorite book of 2021.
September 28, 2022
No sé si es un mal libro, pero no me gustó para nada, no sentí conexión con los personajes ni con la historia.
October 15, 2021
My Broken Language is a memoir by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Quiara Alegria Hudes. On the surface, its' a coming of age memoir - it explores her childhood, youth, and college years. To just say it is a coming of age memoir, though, underplays the richness and complexity of the ideas and relationships that she explores. Hudes grew up mostly in North Philly with her extended Puerto Rican family. Her father was white, Jewish, and (at least early on) somewhat of an Atheist hippy prior to his divorce from Hudes' mother and remarriage. Throughout the memoir, she explores what it meant to her to be Puerto Rican, how she balances between the worlds she moves between, what being Puerto Rican means to others in her family and how this all influences their relationships - and she goes deep on language. The sections where she is talking about language - how it's used, how it is sometimes weaponized, how it can soothe and calm and comfort -- these are some of my favorite sections of the memoir. You can feel the impact of Hudes' skill as a playwright throughout this memoir - she is an expert at setting the scene, creating and sharing just the right details to make you feel like you are sitting in the kitchen with her family. So many great moments throughout this thought provoking memoir. Highly recommend if you enjoy a rich memoir or if you just enjoy books that explore the ideas of identity and community. I'll close with a quote to give you a sense of the writing --
"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful was a national refrain. But not at Abuela's. There, the Perez DNA wrote different rules. The notion of a single beauty mold, be it size or skin color, was dismantled by our fleshy testimony. To glance at us was to know plurality, to behold beauty's parade."
"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful was a national refrain. But not at Abuela's. There, the Perez DNA wrote different rules. The notion of a single beauty mold, be it size or skin color, was dismantled by our fleshy testimony. To glance at us was to know plurality, to behold beauty's parade."
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