For an inspiring and uplifting Thursday afternoon you can’t go wrong reading this week’s featured Vintage DB. Published in a special folio based around “Librotraficante and the New Latino Renaissance,” (DB 18, Winter 2013–2014) author Jennifer De Leon’s nonfiction piece is a touching account of growing up and getting an education as a Latina in America. Read on for a snippet of “Wise Latina;” the link to the full story can be found below.
“…there it was underneath the shade of soft lighting bulbs inside Ann Taylor. Magenta, magical. My mother and I gazed at the silk fabric through the storefront window. A headless mannequin showed off the exquisite A-line cut. Sleeveless, sophisticated. Nothing but a pane of fingerprint-proof glass parked between us. We stepped inside the store and were greeted by the sweet smell of leather and cashmere-blend tops. The aura of credit card transactions hovered around us like a mist.
“How much?” my mother asked.
I massaged the crisp white price tag between my thumb and forefinger. “How much do you think?”
Jennifer De Leon is the editor of Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education (University of Nebraska Press, 2014). Selected as a tuition scholar in fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 2015, De Leon was also named the 2015–2016 Writer-in-Residence by the Associates of the Boston Public Library. She is using her office space in the Boston Public Library and stipend to work on her Young Adult novel, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From. Jennifer’s short story, “Home Movie,” originally published in The Briar Cliff Review, was also chosen as the 2015 One City, One Story pick as part of the Boston Book Festival. De Leon’s work has appeared in Ploughshares, Ms., Brevity, Poets & Writers, The Southeast Review, Guernica, Best Women’s Travel Writing, and elsewhere, and her essay, “The White Space,” originally selected as first place recipient of the Michael Steinberg Essay Prize and published in Fourth Genre, was listed as notable in Best American Essays 2013, edited by Cheryl Strayed. For her full bio and more information about her work, check out jenniferdeleonauthor.com
Click here to read “Wise Latina”
Vintage DB 112: Jennifer De Leon’s “Wise Latina,” DB 18 was originally published in Anomaly on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.