UR Scholarship Repository

Title

Cuarto oscuro: Recuerdos en blanco y negro

Authors

Lila Quintero Weaver
Karina Elizabeth Vázquez, University of RichmondFollow

Files

Description

A visually stunning graphic memoir of an Argentinian immigrant’s experience during the civil rights movement. Cuarto oscuro: Recuerdos en blanco y negro is the long-awaited Spanish-language translation of Lila Quintero Weaver’s critically acclaimed Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White. An arresting and moving memoir about childhood, race, ethnicity, and identity in the American South, Cuarto oscuro is animated by Weaver’s stunning illustrations. Her drawings are visually understated but striking and dramatically embolden her heartfelt storytelling. In 1961, when the author was five, she emigrated with her family from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Marion, Alabama, located in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt. As educated, middle-class Latino immigrants in a region that was defined by segregation, the Quinteros occupied a privileged vantage from which to view the racially charged culture they inhabited. Weaver and her family were firsthand witnesses to key moments in the civil rights movement. Weaver chronicles what it was like being a Latina girl in the Jim Crow South, struggling to understand both a foreign country and the horrors of our nation’s race relations. Weaver, who was neither black nor white, observed very early on the inequalities in American culture with its blond-haired and blue-eyed feminine ideal. Throughout her life, Weaver struggled to find her place in this society and fought against the discrimination around her. Cuarto oscuro is her testament, in words and images, to that struggle. This personal and historic account is translated by Karina Elizabeth Vázquez.

ISBN

9780817359072

Publication Date

2018

Publisher

The University of Alabama Press

City

Tuscaloosa, AL

Keywords

Argentinian immigrant memoir, childhood, race, ethnicity, identity, American South, segregation, discrimination, Jim Crow South

School

School of Arts and Sciences

Department

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies

Disciplines

Latin American Languages and Societies | United States History

Comments

Translated by: Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Read the introduction to the book by linking to the Read More button above.

Recommended Citation

Weaver, Lila Quintero. Cuarto oscuro: Recuerdos en blanco y negro. Translated by Karina Elizabeth Vázquez. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2018.