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An Analysis of Real Women Have Curves, a Movie Directed by Patricia Cardoso | Kibin

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The title of the movie Real Women Have Curves has a double meaning. Not only does it refer to body shape, but it also refer to the person who has the guts to do something and always is able to reach her goal. The director of this movie is Patricia Cardoso, who launched this funny and dramat...

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"Real Women Have Curves: A Feminist Narrative of Upward Mobility" by Launius, Christie - American Drama, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Summer 2007 | Online Research Library: Questia

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The film Real Women Have Curves, directed by Patricia Cardoso and starring America Ferrera, was...

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I want to be taken seriously for what I think, not for how I look," 18-year-old Ana exclaims as the central character in Real Women Have Curves, the engaging film adaptation of a stage play by Josefina Lopez.

The film's heroine is Ana, played wonderfully by America Ferrera, a Chicana who lives in East Los Angeles with her workingclass family. Upon graduating from Beverly Hills High School, Ana is faced with life-changing choices.

She could remain with her family and continue to work in the dress shop of her sister, Estella (Ingrid Oliu). She could follow the wishes of her mother, Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros), and lose weight so she can "catch" a man and learn to be a good wife. Or she could follow the urging of one of her teachers, Elias Guzman (George Lopez), and apply for admission into Columbia University, a New York City Ivy League institution far away from Ana's roots.

Beyond the traditional Mexicana role. All young adults of Ana's age are at a crossroads, but for youth of color and low income, the choices are more limited and difficult than for the more privileged, like most of Ana's Beverly Hills classmates. The pressure is on the former to do what it takes to help their families financially.

I felt this way at age 14. I wanted to quit high school to work in the fields, but my mother taught me a lesson. She made me work 10 hours a day except Sundays all summer, and by fall I begged to go back to school. She knew I would live a farmworker's life of poverty if I did not get an education.

By contrast, Ana's mama strongly discourages her from applying for college, even dismissing her teacher when he comes to visit. Her mama can only envision the old Mexican traditional role of wageworker and housewife for her daughter, and constantly demeans her for her weight.

Ana's self-esteem is strong, however, and she believes that she has value even if her amply curvaceous figure won't fit into the dresses that she, her mother and coworkers sweat to make in the sweltering, dimly lit garment factory. Her father, sister and grandfather provide the encouragement she lacks from her mama - who is also real-sized, and does suffer from a lack of self-esteem.

Becoming rebelliously proud. The film movingly and humorously drives home the central theme of playwright Lopez that young women are under assault to conform to stereotypical female body images.

At some point, all teenage girls face the pressure to fit in and commodify themselves, dumb down their intellect, and relinquish any dreams that aren't compatible with being a wife and mother.

This pressure is doubly hard for women of color, who usually have fewer options and a harder life.

Hollywood soap operas and Spanish-language novelas relentlessly broadcast the message that in order to be attractive, women must be thin, and usually blonde (but that's another story). "Who says so!" is Ana's bold response to her gossipy coworkers who buy into this line - at least until Ana makes her influence felt.

The most dramatic scenes in the film take place when Ana challenges those close to her to accept her body, and their own bodies, as they are.

During her first sexual encounter, with a college-bound Beverly Hills High classmate, she abruptly gets up and turns on the light, announcing, "I want you to see how I look."

In another scene, in response to the insufferable heat of the garment factory, she strips to her bra and panties in front of her horrified mother and bewildered sister and co-employees. Eventually she is able to persuade all the women, except for her mama, to disrobe and display their "defects" without any shame.

As a secondary theme, Ana is shown speaking out about the unjust economic realities that cause much of the conflict that Real Women portrays. To the sweatshop owner she complains, "You mean we earn 18 dollars to make a dress that sells for six hundred dollars?"

I regretted, however, that the script missed the opportunity to comment on one other aspect of economic reality: that the odds today of a woman such as Ana being offered a full scholarship at Columbia, as happens in the film, are probably less than being visited by the Virgin de Guadalupe. Education is at the bottom of the government's priorities. Scholarships are shrinking and affirmative action programs are being curtailed, making it harder each year for students of color to attain higher education.

Building her own dream. I loved the movie, which features so many raza faces and superb actors, and ultimately portrays more than Ana's acceptance of her body - celebrating not only how Ana deals with her own curves, but with the curves life throws her.

In the end, Ana takes the risky choice: to break from tradition and go to Columbia. In the last scene, she struts her stuff in the streets of New York, proclaiming with her swagger what the new Latina represents: Accept me as who I am, body and mind, and I will make a difference - deal with it!
Also see: Life lived in peril: women under capitalism Princess, dominatrix, forever young: the new feminine mystique

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The message of Real Women Have Curves: deal with it! - Freedom Socialist Party

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I want to be taken seriously for what I think, not for how I look," 18-year-old Ana exclaims as the central character in Real Women Have Curves, the engaging film adaptation of a stage play by Josefina Lopez. The film's heroine is Ana, played wonderfully by America Ferrera, a Chicana who lives in East Los...

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Courtesy of the Aurora Fox

Real Women Have Curves, now at the Aurora Fox, isn't a terrific play, but it is one hell of a charmer. Written in 1987 and since revised slightly, it focuses on immigration and the fear that immigrants live with daily. Five women work in a small factory, sewing frantically; owner Estela is having trouble paying for her machinery and is being sued, so she's desperate to meet the terms of her impossible contract and get paid. While working, the women complain about the heat and share their problems - romantic, familial, financial and physical. Estela and her sister Ana both think they're overweight. Their lively, gossipy mother, Carmen, deliberately gained weight after having eight children to deter her sexually demanding husband. Another worker, Pancha, suffers physical abuse at home and grieves over her inability to conceive. Finally, there's Rosali, thin as a rail and subsisting on water and diet pills. All of the women except Estela, who got into trouble for possessing a lobster out of season and skipped her court date, are in the country legally, but they still live in terror of la migra.

Ana is a stand-in for playwright Josefina López, who once worked in her own sister's factory. An aspiring writer, she frames the story, periodically retiring to a bathroom off to the side to scribble notes. This strategy is reminiscent of the structure of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, in which Tom Wingfield, standing outside on the fire escape, tells the story of his damaged younger sister and overwhelming mother. Real Women doesn't have the intensity, strength or poeticism of Williams, though; what it does have is lightness of spirit, joy and hope. Director Melissa Lucero McCarl's casting is smart and the production vibrant throughout, but something particularly vivid happens in the second act when the women, hot beyond endurance in the stifling factory, take off their clothes and exult in a sudden new sense of freedom. The younger women twirl; Carmen proudly parades her stomach; Pancha reveals the warmth beneath her customary sadness; Rosali, always obsessed with the idea of being overweight, perhaps finally accepts her own slenderness. This scene is performed so well and is so unexpected that you find yourself tearing up.

Watching, I couldn't help summoning the dominant image of my childhood: my mother bent over her sewing machine hour after hour, day after day, the rattle of her moving treadle a constant background. Immigrant women everywhere often make a living as seamstresses, and my mother had arrived in England from Czechoslovakia as a refugee in 1939. A widow, she sewed dresses for individual clients and also an upscale London fashion house where arrogant young male staffers told her to unpick her immaculate stitching, take the dresses home and re-sew them. She rapidly discovered she could simply bring them back untouched and see them pass muster: The young men were just enjoying their authority. Many of the individual women she sewed for were kind, but I still couldn't help loathing them. I loathed them because I had seen my mother - my strong, resourceful, clever mother - kneeling at their feet too often, pinning up a hem. But here's where our story differs from those of López's women and other immigrants to the United States: Under the socialistic governments of England in the 1940s and '50s, there were ways out of poverty. Health care and education were free, public transportation was crazy cheap, and thanks to subsidies to local authorities, working people could afford to buy their homes.

Our house was lonely, and I never saw the kind of playfulness or heard the laughter that suffuses Real Women: My mother had lost almost her entire family to the war. But she, too, was a living, feeling woman, and not immune to the power of the body. The lovely dresses she made, like those made by Estela's women, were for the rich. Still, I have a clear memory of her coming in one evening to kiss me good night, a beautiful apparition in a white blouse covered with glimmering sequins. She was going on a date, and she had sewn on every one of those sequins by hand. I was very young, but on some level, I understood this for what it was: a celebration of pleasure and sexuality, a defiant affirmation of the eternal feminine.
Real Women Have Curves, presented by the Aurora Fox through March 18, 9900 East Colfax Avenue, Aurora, 303-739-1970, aurorafox.org.

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theater in denver real women have curves

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Review: Real Women Have Curves Sews Up an Immigrant Story

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Real Women Have Curves, now at the Aurora Fox, isn't a terrific play, but it is one hell of a charmer. Written in 1987 and since revised slightly, it focuses on immigration and the fear that immigrants live with daily.

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America Ferrera and Lupe Ontiveros as a daughter and mother at odds in "Real Women Have Curves." The remarkable 2002 movie received no Academy Award nominations. Credit Credit Nicola Goode/HBO Films and NewMarket Films

When you recognize where a story is headed, you usually feel disappointed or comforted by the familiar. The tropes and stock characters have robbed the story of its ability to surprise you. That's always a threat with a genre so well worn as the coming-of-age film - the probably nostalgic tale of a child or teenager inching toward adulthood. Yet entries like Greta Gerwig's " Lady Bird " still prove that this type of movie has the ability to move us.

Could stories that are so familiar to many a misfit be too similar to each other? In the weeks leading up to the Oscars, discussion has been swirling around "Lady Bird," a best picture nominee, and whether it copied elements from Patricia Cardoso's 2002 movie, " Real Women Have Curves." Josefina López, the film's screenwriter, told Hoy Los Angeles that "Lady Bird" was a "white version" of her movie. "I enjoyed it and at moments kept thinking: 'Wow, the mother is like the mother in my movie. Wow, they aren't going to let her go to college, like Ana,'" she said. Other commentators also noted the similarities but used harsher terms like plagiarism or whitewashing.

On the surface, the two young women in these movies do share many similarities. Ana (America Ferrera) and the self-christened Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) each attend a good school in California with classmates who are financially better off. Both have their hearts set on a college in New York City and share excruciatingly difficult relationships with their mothers, whom they'll part with either just before or at an airport.

For me, the similarities end there. Ana is a fantastic Mexican-American student who gets guidance from a well-meaning teacher (George Lopez) on how to apply to Columbia University. She doesn't seem to have friends at Beverly Hills High School, apart from the boy she likes, or in her neighborhood in East Los Angeles. Her story plays out over the last day of senior year and throughout the summer. She spends just as much of her screen time working at her sister's dress shop as she does at home. Her family is working class, with no money to send her to college at all or keep her sister's store afloat.

Ana's mother, Carmen (the formidable Lupe Ontiveros), forbids her to go to college because she needs her to work for her sister. Carmen undercuts Ana's intelligence and needles her about her weight. When Ana stands up to her criticism, it becomes a body positive moment and a declaration of self-assurance. "Real Women Have Curves" ends on a hopeful note.

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Saoirse Ronan, left, and Laurie Metcalf in "Lady Bird." Credit Merie Wallace/A24

Lady Bird, whose ethnicity isn't specified, deals with different problems in her family. Her mother (Laurie Metcalf with a nuanced performance) guilt-trips her about money and how she treats her father when he's suffering from depression and has been laid off from his job. They're a lower-middle-class family who own a home in Sacramento, even if it's on the "wrong side of the tracks," as Lady Bird jokingly tells one boy. Her journey isn't as solo as Ana's: She has a best friend at school to confide in and a counselor who steers Lady Bird's creative energies toward a performing arts class.

Her doting father helps her with the college application process, and she's not the first in her family to go to college. She's expected to go to college, just preferably to a closer school with in-state tuition rates. The movie covers Lady Bird's entire senior year so that she has time for not just one heartbreak, but two. The final moments of "Lady Bird" are more sobering. Once in New York, she overcomes her hatred of her hometown and the mother she fought so hard to escape.

Troubled mother-daughter relationships are not an uncommon theme in female coming-of-age stories. In movies, defying parents has long been a way of asserting one's independence from them - no matter whether it's in the headstrong girl's interest. In "Imitation of Life" (1959), a light-skinned daughter separates herself from her black mother in order to pass as white, even as it breaks her mother's heart. The unlikable Veda in "Mildred Pierce" (1945) seems born to defy her self-sacrificing mother. Remembering their relationships with their mothers, the characters of "The Joy Luck Club" (1993) also remember the times they fought against their mothers' wishes that they become chess champions or concert pianists. More recently, the young lesbian at the center of "Pariah" (2011) has a fraught relationship with her mother that deteriorates as she tries to assert her sexuality.

Fast forward to "Lady Bird," which has been celebrated by critics and rewarded with five Academy Award nominations. "Real Women" didn't receive a single nod from the academy, though it won a handful of awards in the run-up to the Oscars. That might look as if the industry were praising the movie with the white protagonist when it ignored the movie with a Latino one - that "Real Women Have Curves" lacked the familiarity the traditionally white, older Oscar voters would reward. If there was an unfair dismissal of "Real Women Have Curves," it isn't the fault of "Lady Bird." There are more systemic barriers to blame. If anything, this should be a time to re-evaluate how the entertainment industry missed a remarkable movie like "Real Women Have Curves."

For me, watching the two onscreen mothers discourage their daughters from college rang true. When I was applying to colleges years ago from a corner of swampy Florida, my mother wouldn't allow me to apply to any school in the state of New York. Although she drove me from cheerleading practice or guitar class to night courses at the local community college, she thought the city - and therefore the state - was too dangerous for me to live in alone. Her reasoning was different from the movie mothers, but I still remember responding like Ana and Lady Bird, upset at being barred from something I wanted.

I see myself in both Ana and Lady Bird. Like Ana, I studied hard in school and wanted to go to a good college. I'm close to my family who still wishes I would work closer to home. Like Lady Bird, I wanted to get as far away as I could from my hometown. I dreamed about movie theaters that weren't giant multiplexes, museums that had more than a handful of rooms or a city with more places to spend time in other than a mall.

I'm uncomfortable with the idea that fights with your parents or tough mother figures can belong to only one story. We erase the cultural, economic and geographic complexities between these movies when we say that. Both of these movies should be enjoyed, especially since we don't have enough coming-of-age stories about girls. We should play as many of these movies as possible: We have a lot of onscreen growing up to watch.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR36 of the New York edition with the headline: Mothers, Daughters and Differences. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Why 'Real Women Have Curves' Never Got Its 'Lady Bird' Moment

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When you recognize where a story is headed, you usually feel disappointed or comforted by the familiar. The tropes and stock characters have robbed the story of its ability to surprise you. That's always a threat with a genre so well worn as the coming-of-age film - the probably nostalgic tale of a child or teenager inching toward adulthood.

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By Angélica Pérez-Litwin

Undeniably, the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most important and treasured relationships in a woman's life. Latinas, in particular, often refer to their mothers as their "rock" and the wind beneath their wings. In a survey launched last year by NewLatina.net, Understanding Today's Latinas, 84% of 382 respondents identified their mother as the most influential person in motivating them to succeed in school and professionally.

Latina daughters are proud of their mother's strength. They respect the sacrifices their mothers have made for their children and family. As a result, the Latina mother-daughter bond is often anchored on admiration and gratitude.

But what happens when your relationship with mami is less than perfect? What do you do when your relationship has been a complicated and emotionally painful one?

"But She's My Mother"

It is taboo in our culture to express negative feelings about our mothers. When they do so, Latina daughters often feel they are being "ungrateful" and " malcriadas." But the reality is that some mothers do fail to mother their children in a way that fosters confidence, emotional security and personal growth. You can spend all day rationalizing why mami didn't love you the way you needed to be loved, or why she's so critical and overly demanding, but this rationalization is useless, unless you are willing to also honor how her behaviors have negatively impacted you.

Below, we focus on two types of difficult mother-daughter relationships. The resource list at the end of the article includes books that expand on this subject matter.

The Critical and Overly Demanding Mami

If you grew up with a mother who was a little too comfortable pointing out your limitations and faults, you might struggle with feelings of insecurities and self-doubt. In fact, you may find it difficult to make decisions in your life, take new steps and take risks. You may be "stuck" in your relationship with others, or even professionally. Furthermore, adults who have critical parents are highly sensitive to criticism, are afraid of making a mistake and fear being rejected. These fears limit their innate potential.

The adult children of critical parents often become obsessed with their need to gain their parents' approval and love. They sacrifice their personal needs and desires, in hopes of meeting the high demands imposed by their parents. Unfortunately, this is often a frustrating situation for the child/adult, as they can't seem to stop trying one more time to gain mami' s approval.

The Needy Mami that Won't Let Go

Needy mothers will do ANYTHING to get their children's attention. They have an amazing way to pull their children into their emotional space, and have their needs taken care of. They are often highly dependent on their children and have very little insight into how this dependency impacts their children's personal growth. Needy mamis come in all forms: the depressed mami, the emotionally abused spouse, the eternal sick mami, and the disempowered one.

Needy mothers are skilled in making their children feel guilty. One look, one comment, a sigh - are enough to trigger their children's attention. They often use guilt and the threat of rejection to trap their children into reacting in a vicious cycle of dependency.

In extreme cases, dependent mothers will develop a mother-daughter relationship that is very exclusive. The mother invests a significant amount of time and attention on the child, often aiming to fulfill all of the child's needs, including the need for other relationships (e.g., friendships with peers). The child, in turn, learns to survive, live and play with mom as the center of his/her world. This creates an interdependency that is hard to break as the child grows older. Chronic guilt, shame and pity are the emotional remnants of growing up with a needy mother. In less healthy situations, daughters may experience difficulties building relationships with other people (including romantic ones) because they fear abandoning their mother to pursue new relationships.

An important note: It is important to mention that, in most cases, parents are not fully aware of the dynamic they are creating with their child. Their behavior is not malicious or ill-intent. They simply have become so comfortable with other people taking care of their needs, that they don't know how to be otherwise. By doing less for your needy mother, you will help her become more comfortable with doing things on her own (unless she manages to find someone else to depend on, which is typical).

What to Do About Your Not-So-Good Mother-Daughter Relationship?

First and foremost, love and respect her. Equally importantly, honor your needs and your personal growth as a human being. If your relationship with your mother is limiting you and emotionally-draining you, this is a big red flag that something is not well in your relationship with your mother. Don't ignore it. Do something about it.

Below are some tips to get you started on the road to a more peaceful mami-m'ija relationship:

Acknowledge how your mother makes you feel. Write it down, talk about it, and say it out loud.

Question every single negative emotion your mother makes you feel. If you feel bad for not calling her as often as she expects you to, ask yourself: "Why am I feeling bad about not calling her every day?"

Ask yourself why you choose to feel bad (or guilty, or ashamed). How are these feelings helpful to you? (They're not.)

Be objective: Does mami really needs your help, attention, company? Do you really need to take her criticism(s) to heart? Does it really matter what she thinks?

Ignore, ignore and ignore. Let the critical comments, the complaints, and the emotional stuff roll off of you. Try it. With practice, you'll get good at it.

Be yourself. You don't always need to agree with mami. Trust your instinct and your needs. Take the risk of her being upset at you, and learn to deal with it. Honor thy self.

Set boundaries. I cannot stress this one enough. Teach your mother to respect your time, your thoughts, your values and your needs. Set boundaries by not giving her complete access to you and your time. Teach her to respect your life and lifestyle.

Seek counseling if life with mami is so over-whelming that you're beginning to feel anxious, depressed, insecure and/or stuck in your life. Talking about this with an understanding and trusting counselor will help you figure out how to best create the type of relationship that you deserve.

Resources: If You Had Controlling Parents: How To Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming You Life When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life

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The Mother-Daughter Relationship - Impacto Latino

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Undeniably, the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most important and treasured relationships in a woman's life. Latinas, in particular, often refer to their mothers as their "rock" and the wind beneath their wings. In a survey launched last year by NewLatina.net, Understanding Today's Latinas, 84% of 382 respondents identified their mother as the most influential person in motivating them to succeed in school and professionally.

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credit: Getty Images
Our immigrant Latin American mothers have endured so much, from the economic, political and/or violent strife that forced them to flee their homelands to the racial, xenophobic and cultural discrimination and abuse they face in the U.S. This painful reality often makes it difficult for us, their daughters, to speak up when they hurt us. We don't want to add to their suffering - and we shouldn't - but if we want to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma, we must accept and confront that many relationships between immigrant Latina mothers and their daughters are strenuous.

This isn't exclusive to Latinas. In her essay " The Strained Relationship Between Black Mothers and Their Daughters ," MadameNoire writer Arah Iloabugichukwu explores the way many Black women have normalized maternal abuse as a manifestation of love through discipline. According to Iloabugichukwu, Black daughters know their mothers love them even if it doesn't always feel as if they like or accept them. To prove this, she breaks down common maternal sayings in the Black community and analyzes their problematic nature, discussing how this mindset is keeping a cycle of maternal toxicity in a constant forward motion.

As a Black woman, I resonated with Iloabugichukwu's argument, but, as a Latina and daughter of an immigrant, I noticed some additional factors that could lead to strained relationships between mothers and daughters in our community as well. After exchanging stories with many of my Latinx friends, I felt affirmed that while the plight is similar, we face a distinct kind of strain with our immigrant Latin American mothers.

In our community, there is a heavy emphasis on what others will say or think about our appearance. "Y qué va a decir la gente," our mothers usually ask us. Often, when impoverished immigrants enter the United States, they are made to feel like they are nothing. In response, they set out to create value for themselves based on how the world views them. They work tirelessly to blend in by acting like the white Americans they see on TV, a sort of assimilation on steroids. This is not to say that this problem is strictly a result of immigration. There is a strong emphasis on appearances in Latin American countries as well, often in comparison to those of a higher economic class. It's also possible that appearances are the one thing our mothers felt able to control, as opposed to the many situational experiences they could not. But regardless of the reason, our mothers' constant worry of what others will think - instead of addressing or accepting circumstances - puts an immense pressure on daughters to perform and people please over living an authentic life.

Even more, while gender roles aren't exclusive to the Latin American community, almost-everyday sayings, like "Eso no es cosa de niñas," show how prevalent they are in our families. Some common "ladies don't" rules include sitting with your legs uncrossed, wearing pants, playing in dirt or hanging out late. Along with them are several rigid "ladies must" requirements: keep the house clean, stay in the kitchen, serve the men and children before serving yourself, smile and always be pleasant. There is a certain way girls should behave, look and even think. And when the status quo is challenged, it is disconcerting for both parties.

Then, of course, there are the always-occuring moments where many of our mothers belittle our own crises, using stories of the deeply horrific struggles they have endured to discount our experiences. The extreme conditions our mothers faced are traumatic: they were forced to walk miles to access a basic education, when it was available; they faced corporal punishment for the simplest of mistakes and there were times when their young bodies starved. All of this will often lead to the mindset behind, "Yo a tu edad no tenía nada de lo que tú tienes." It is not uncommon for our mothers to list the hardships they endured as a way to justify their continued cycles of toxicity. The classic, "look what I went through and I'm just fine" attitude lends to them having a difficult time seeing the validity of our struggles. Growing up, whenever I would try to point out something not feeling right, my mother's response was always a sharp, bitter reaction, like, "Ya lo se, yo soy una madre terrible." And so I was conditioned not to say anything because I didn't want my mom to feel like she was a bad mother.

None of this is a critique on how immigrant mothers should handle trauma better - not by any means.

We cannot disregard the courage and strength our mothers needed to leave their home in search of a better life, and we must acknowledge the lack of mental health resources they faced both here and in their native land. They were never provided with effective ways to deal with their pain. As a result, our moms are burdened with their mothers' traumas while holding onto their own lost childhood and relinquished dreams.

It is possible to both appreciate and honor our mothers' sacrifices, to be empathetic to their heavy past, while also working to break the chains of shame we carry for wanting more or doing things differently.

This is a reminder that the shame that accompanies intergenerational trauma is real. It is an encouragement to seek support when it is needed.

Young Latinx girls don't need to be worried about how others will view them as they grow into themselves. They don't need to adhere to strict gender roles with sole aspirations of getting married and having children. And they don't need to be made to feel like their emotional and spiritual struggles are irrelevant if their physical needs are being met.

Above all, they need to understand that their voices matter and have power. They need to be raised to see conflict and dialogue as a bridge to deeper understanding and more intimate relationships.

Nowadays, when I talk to my mom, I mention my therapy sessions as casually as I would a nail appointment. Recently, she called me to apologize for an inconsiderate comment she made. Our relationship is growing because we are learning how to have open, honest exchanges - we are learning how to hold space for one another.
Read: Cardi B Is Defining Pregnancy And Motherhood On Her Own Terms
I cannot promise that every mother will be as receptive as mine has been. I wish I could. But knowing that we're not alone, grappling with the complexities of maternal toxicity, setting boundaries as we move forward and cultivating a strong sense of self that is not tied to the stigmas from childhood is a good place to start.

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The Complex Relationship Between Latina Immigrant Mothers And Their Daughters

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Our immigrant Latin American mothers have endured so much, from the economic, political and/or violent strife that forced them to flee their homelands to the racial, xenophobic and cultural discrimination and abuse they face in the U.S. This painful reality often makes it difficult for us, their dau

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Real Women Have Curves: A Feminist Narrative of Upward Mobility.

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Real Women Have Curves: A Feminist Narrative of Upward Mobility.

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Looking at the narrative of Latina women and what they are culturally going through. Body imagine issues. Dealing with generational issues in the modern era and how it relates to living now in the era.

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The scholarship foundation that was found to help the latina community in the arts. The creator of the movie envolved.

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