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Volume 6, Number 1 - Fall 2007
Mothers and Sons
reflections by Alma Concepción
Of the sessions at Latinas Unidas in Trenton, there is one that has stayed with me for a long time. We had a visitor, and I was apprehensive because in our group there were some young women who seldom participated and looked bored. I read “Tuesday Siesta” by Gabriel García Márquez, which sparked a discussion about women in the face of power.
I asked the group to comment on the passage: “He is the thief they killed here last week. I am his mother.” The young women were the first to respond:
“My mother has excuses for my brother who is a thief, a drug addict, and has even hit her. The result is, he always comes out of jail and never rehabilitates. I would outright call him a thief.”
“My mother calls her son a thief, yet he wants to become a better person. And he will.”
“It is easier for us to call our brothers thieves. It is harder for a mother. The mother in the story is very strong. Not all women are like that.”
I asked about the strategies the women used:
“She was firm…She didn’t sit down, as if saying, ‘I am not here to beg. I am here to demand what I deserve.’…This is a good example for us.”
The Latinas Unidas coordinator told me later they had found employment for one of the women, whose only comment had been, “But I won’t be able to attend Gente y Cuentos anymore.”