Speaking from the Body: Latinas on Health and Culture (review)

In Speaking from the Body: Latinas on Health Culture, editors Chabram-Dernersesian and Adela de la Torre discuss how health and culture overlap in the lives of the fourteen Latina authors featured in this anthology. While the emphasis of Speaking from the Body is health, the editors provide a space for its intersections with culture, language, family, childrearing, academia, and more. The essays collected cover a broad scope of illnesses that range from cancer and diabetes to obesity and hypertension. The authors are professors, mothers, artists, immigrants, working class, and much more. The editors have provided a text that exemplifies the complexities of being female, Latina, and living with temporary and chronic health issues.

Chabram-Dernersesian and de la Torre, two accomplished scholars, are able to negotiate the often impossible—making health conversations accessible. The narratives in this anthology draw attention to the lack of comprehensible information within the health system. In contrast, these essays flow easily and allow the reader to become part of the story that is being told. I imagine that Chabram-Dernersesian and de la Torre intentionally include essays that allow readers to have a sense of commonality and connection with the authors' stories. This intentional familiarity works to resist the all too familiar sense of shame and taboo that health issues can often invoke.

In "Of Breast and Baldness: My Life with Cancer," Gabriela F. Arredondo is able to utilize her academic research skills in order to access the most cutting-edge research to combat her breast cancer. She recognizes that the privileges of class and education allow her to know how to navigate a system that can oftentimes feel like a maze. Nevertheless, despite all of her academic training, Arredondo still struggles to obtain the necessary health support she needs and she must become her own advocate to navigate the medical industrial complex—a story that is all too familiar for women of color.

This anthology discusses problems that we recognize but fail to call by name such as dementia. De la Torre and Chabram-Dernersesian ensure that multiple health issues are addressed, including those that are most common and those that are seldom talked about. The essays capture the struggles in combating rheumatism, obesity, arthritis, and numerous other issues that are seldom disclosed outside of one's immediate family. By breaking the silence and taboo of not discussing the pain of chronic illness, the authors and editors allow for those impacted by such concerns to find solace in knowing that they are not alone; they also bear witness to the important role health plays in our lives.

Another striking difference between this anthology and similar works is the ways that culture is continuously incorporated in the essays. In "Embodying Dementia: Remembrance of Memory Loss," Yvette G. Flores discusses not her own struggles with health, but rather witnessing the challenges her mom faced as she battled dementia. While this struggle was not the author's personal story, it does speak to the ways cultural norms influence how we interact with health issues. Not only was this chronic illness named as dementia, which is often taboo, but also the reader is able to witness how the author struggles to support and love her mom.

What is most striking about this anthology is the prominence of the authors as first person narrators. The reader is able to hear their struggles and their anxiety as they deal with these life-changing health issues. However, the author is not the sole character in these essays. We often come across the author's partner, sister, aunt, mother, and other family members and friends, further emphasizing the ways in which the editors strive to incorporate the important role that families, both biological and chosen, play in the lives of these authors. However, what is lacking is a prominent queer lens as to how sexual identities, as well as gender identities, intersect with...