My Broken Language: A Memoir

“Back in Philly, at Abuela’s or Titi Ginny’s, Spanish was common as a can opener in a kitchen. But on the Malvern horse farm, it was an outdoor-only language, a mom-and-me secret. Whenever dad was in earshot, mom kept to English.”

From the start of Hudes’ memoir, Spanish and English occupy different physical locations, introducing the theme of Living Between Cultures and the Search for Belonging. The two are not mixed; what can be used in one space is inappropriate for another. This distance represents the disparate parts of Quiara’s identity and the struggle she faces trying to reconcile identities that resist combination.

A library shelf holds tremendous power, Quiara. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist.”

This is Virginia’s frequent advice to her daughter, reflecting The Role of Storytelling in Experiencing Heritage. She named Quiara after the Puerto Rican anthropologist Ricardo Alegría, who first published his findings on the Taíno people, therefore allowing them to become visible for the first time. Writing to bring things into existence is an important concept throughout My Broken Language. Much of the oppression and inequality the Perez family faces stems from the silence and invisibility that surrounds them. Their lack of representation makes them almost unreal to other segments of society, and Quiara will later try to combat this invisibility with her writing.