Trini

by Estella Portillo Trambley, Debra A. Castillo (Afterword), Helena María Viramontes (Foreword by)

The sole novel of beloved Chicana author Estela Portillo Trambley, Trini is the epic story of one girl's journey across borders and into womanhood. Born in the rural region of the Tarahumara (Raramuri) people in Mexico, Trini shares her family's struggle to squeeze a living out of her beautiful but inhospitable land. But she is sustained by the rich traditions of her Mestiza heritage, the adopted traditions of the Tarahumara, and by her own intelligence and spirit. As a young woman, she crosses into the United States to pursue her dreams of independence and land ownership.

Trini is a novel distinguished by the richness and beauty of its language and by its rare depiction of life in the Borderlands in the 1940s and 1950s. Most remarkable of all is its portrait of a sensitive and courageous young Chicana woman, whose quiet heroism resonates from every page. Here restored to print with a new foreword, this early novel of the Mexican American experience is bound to take its rightful place among contemporary classics of multicultural American literature.

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2005

Reviews

[Anjoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dense book about 1940 and 50s Mexico and the US, this story tells of the experiences of Trini, a young woman who eventually crosses the border to the US to buy land and make a better life for her children. Trini, of mixed blood herself, mixes with the indigenas and the hispanolas, feels the tug between embracing and living close to the land, and wanting to find the god of church and live in the city--but that isn't doing the story justice. go to feministpress.com to read more about it. I promise, it's good. It's just a bit dense.

[Kaushalya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nostalgically trying to get back to my Hispanic reading shelf.