NEW
Library Project
Volume 1, Number 2 - Fall 2002
Gente
y Cuentos Bridges Borders of Age, Privilege
Differences Enliven
Group
At
the Princeton Public Library, lives cross in Gente y Cuentos.
In
the group Angélica Mariani has led for ten years, there are readers from
Guatemala, Cuba, Colombia, Perú, Mexico and the United States. There is a
wealthy artist who lives in a mansion and a student who can’t afford to
buy books. What unites them is a love for literature in Spanish—a native
tongue for some participants, an acquired one for others.
“There
is a cleaning lady, she sits next to an executive,” says Mariani. “A
babysitter next to a working man. A cook next to a philanthropist.”
Those differences enliven the discussions, she says. They have also led to
some unlikely and tenacious connections.
When
a bright student from Princeton High School confided to the group that she
couldn’t afford to attend college, another member of the group quietly
told Mariani that he would be willing to help the student, as long as his
gift remained anonymous.
Once,
Mariani says, two women—one Cuban, one North American—began to argue
after reading a story set in Cuba. The Anglo woman said something positive
about the country, and the Cuban woman responded sharply, “No, you are
mistaken, it is not like that.”
But
the next week, the two again sat side by side. And when the Cuban woman
was in a car accident, the other woman’s husband helped her launch a
successful lawsuit. “Now they are the best of friends,” Mariani says.
Mariani,
who came to the United States from Peru 30 years ago, says that
recruitment for Gente y Cuentos was difficult at first. The Princeton
library group slowly grew from nine to its current 25 participants.
Now
her most challenging task is finding new stories. “Most of our Latin
American writers have very tragic stories. I try to find lighthearted
stories so the group can enjoy the universal language of laughter.” She
also seeks out stories with poetic fragments that readers can explore,
such as the arresting use of adjectives in José de Martí’s “El
DeSoto de Rita Hayworth.”
In a decade of leading Gente y Cuentos, Mariani has learned to share parts of her own story while listening to others. “I try to become a participant myself. I learn a lot from them. With every story, we learn from each other.”