The House of Memory: Stories by Jewish Women Writers of Latin America (review)

House of Memory contains more than two-dozen stories that intertwine Latin American and Jewish cultures, histories and struggles. The writers are from Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil and across the Latin American continent. Their mother tongues range from Ladino to Hebrew to Yiddish to Polish, but all learned new languages of Spanish and Portuguese. They tell stories of the past, politics, family and community with sensuality, absurdity, fervor and lyricism, using the real to the surreal. They focus often on memory of the places they left and integrating their old and new identities into their new lives. Indeed, the work is divided into three sections reflective of these journeys: The Family Tree: Ancestors and Traditions, The Sign of the Star: Immigrants and Strangers, and On the Border: Forging Identities. The introduction itself makes it worth looking at this anthology, as it provides an enlightening overview of how Jews and women are hidden from Latin American history, including some of Agosin's own journey (an excerpt of Agosin's Always from Somewhere Else is included the anthology).