Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America

Ive listened to the entire book and am 1/2 way through reading it. If you want to get inside the mind of a muse, a translator and an oracle of cultural dexterity and geopolitical finesse and strategy, read this book. Listen to it. Review it. Its a five course meal of flavorful and intellectual delights.

If I could add people and not just have places on my bucket list, Maria and Hernan her husband would be there. For the few days since the long awaited books (in both SpanishUna Vez Fui Tand English) arrived on my porch while I rested on break in Aguascalientes, MX, Ive immersed myself even more in learning about the history of immigration issues, Dominican and Mexican culture and Columbian and Salvadoran culture.

Maria helps the reader navigate through the nuanced and hyper competitive world of journalism and is an expert at her craft, one who happens to be Latina. The breadth and depth with which she writes makes me wonder why the heck she isnt one of the US Presidential debate moderators. She gets the world; she can relate it through stories and make it accessible using her uniquely diverse rhetorical palate that explores complicated geopolitical issues impact daily lives of ordinary people.

I may have more to add, but from someone who was not an immigrant but from some who had immigrant and indigenous ancestors (didnt we all), I found this book moving and stimulating and worthy of reviews it has already received.

More!

I loved everything about this book, especially its intimacy throughout, from her personal story life to the people stories of friends and those she met during her reporting. Her life story, having immigrated from Mexico as a very young child when her father was courted as valued academic by the University of Chicago, gave her both perspective and the ability to intimately connect with those immigrants to which she devoted much of her life in journalism.

I don’t do cable TV (refusing to pay for right wing propaganda masquerading as news), so I knew of her career only from Latino USA on NPR. I had no idea of her long career in TV journalism.

I also loved her insights into the workings of journalism as a career and NPR in particular. One of her first gigs at NPR was as a producer/researcher for Scott Simon, and I loved reading about him as a journalist. He’s long been one of my favorite journalists — it’s clear in everything he does that he really cares about the people he’s reporting on, and her description of how he relates to people in interviews is one of the jewels of the book.

A major focus of this book is immigrants and immigration, mostly, but not exclusively those from south of our border. She’s clearly angry, and her reporting makes me angry too. But it’s a good anger, in the way that the late John Lewis talked about making “good trouble.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. Maria Hinojosa came to the US with her family in the early sixties from Mexico. She seamlessly weaves her immigration story with the history of immigration. I enjoyed learning more about the Latino culture and nuances that are often not considered. For me, the novel started a little slow but quickly became a book I couldn’t put down. I highly recommend it.

I loved this book and the rich histories told herein. My heart breaks at the continuing and harmful policies of the current administration, but I am encouraged and hopeful that those policies of immigration will change soon.

Maria gives a voice to many of those in the shadows and sheds light on our broken immigration system that continues to do the unthinkable to other human beings! It made me cry, laugh and dig deep to be the change I want to see. Thank you Maria for dedicating your life to reporting what others run away from. Eres un orgullo Latino!

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