Isabel's Hand-Me-Down Dreams

Download or read book Isabel's Hand-Me-Down Dreams written by Isabel Lopez and published by Createspace Indie Pub Platform. This book was released on 2011-10-19 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a mice-infested tenement in Spanish Harlem, a young girl finds solace in the pages of classic novels and photographs of distant horizons. With her mind's eye focused on her personal visions, she takes chances against overwhelming odds, because some things happen only once in a lifetime. This is the autobiography of a girl uprooted from Puerto Rico to El Barrio in New York at the age of three. Isabel and her siblings are raised by their temperamental mother and nurturing grandmother in a stifling, claustrophobic upbringing that paradoxically fosters her imagination. Without support and guidance in a teeming metropolis where few understand their language and culture, Isabel learns to rely on her inner strength to overcome adversity against reason and others' discouragement. The roads she takes are paved with fated events as she forges forward with blind faith, unaware that her childhood fantasies would eventually be recaptured in the crowning pages of her own life story. Told with panache and comedic flair and saturated with the color and vibrancy of life in El Barrio in the turbulent 60s and spirited 70s, Isabel immerses us in her proud cultural heritage while asserting her conviction that it's never too late to find happiness.