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Article: Mother Tongue.
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- December 9, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Demetria Martinez's Mother Tongue is a love story set in Albuquerque, N.M., about Jose Luis, a Salvadoran refugee, and Mary, a sometimes dreamy Mexican-American, who yearns to heal her new friend and his preoccupation with a war-torn, nightmarish past. Mary says, "With the power of love I'm going to help him forget ... the war that he fled from, that he says he still dreams about."
In a marvelous blend of humor, tragedy, poetry, politics, newspaper items, movement bulletins, letters, recipes and flashbacks, Martinez uses the growing entanglement of Mary and Jose to gradually unveil the persecution and terror associated with the cruel realities of El Salvador's ...