Homelands

Women's Journeys Across Race, Place, and Time

August 1, 2007

Edited By Patricia Justine Tumang and Jenesha de Rivera (Seal Press)

As an immigrant, I've spent most of my life traveling-my first international flight was at six months. Yet, the majority of travel writing that I have read has turned my stomach. The worst was when I picked up a Rough Guide anthology of travel writing by (mostly white) women, which had stories like: "In Bhutan, Lesley Reader learns to live with leeches and fleas, to chew betel nut and cross raging rivers in a monsoon." The contributors to the Homelands anthology offer a more complicated perspective, exploring the difficult sensation of being both a tourist and a native, and discovering different ideas of "home." Editors Tumang and de Rivera capture an incredible diversity of voices-ranging from a Latvian woman returning after 47 years of exile to a Sikh woman discussing her relationship to her hair-along with a not-to-miss introduction by Edwidge Danticat. If nothing else, buy this book just to read Austin-based writer Joshunda Sanders' powerhouse essay "Urban Nomads" about how her relationship with her unstable mother affected her own sense of restlessness. -Neelanjana Banerjee

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