“My mother had all sisters, her mother had all sisters, I have all sisters. She was raised by a single mother after her parents divorced when she was in third grade.

“I’ve been really shaped by growing up in a matrilineal family,” Garcia said. “Of Women and Salt” keeps its focus, always, on the women. There’s Carmen, a Cuban immigrant processing a complicated relationship with her mother while raising her daughter, Jeanette, who’s battling addiction. There’s Dolores, who does the unthinkable to protect herself and her child from her drunken, violent husband. There’s the story of Ana, whose life changes forever after her mother is deported. Those forces are at the root of her debut, which begins in 1866 in a cigar factory in Camagüey, Cuba, and jumps through space and time to Mexico and the present-day U.S., weaving together the lives of five generations of mothers and daughters. The author thinks a lot about the forces and perspectives - personal, political and historical conscious and unknowing - that shape us. He was subjected to racism and xenophobia and didn’t become a citizen until Garcia was in her 20s. Her father’s story was starkly different. with open arms and guaranteed citizenship when she arrived here from Cuba. and its systems, so I was always really aware of those differences and also how Latinx identity is not a monolith.” and were treated very differently by the U.S. “My parents had very different immigration paths to the U.S. “I think that so much of the immigrant experience is shaped by class, race and circumstance,” she said. So why did we use that term for our new newsletter? The term Latinx is controversial within the larger Latino community. World & Nation Why we chose the name Latinx Files for our new newsletter

Of women and salt a novel