Molinary, Rosie 1973-

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Molinary, Rosie 1973-

PERSONAL:

Born November 18, 1973; married. Ethnicity: Latina. Education: Davidson College, B.A.; Goddard College, M.F.A. Hobbies and other interests: Painting, running, biking.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Davidson, NC. E-mail—latinabookproject@adelphia.net.

CAREER:

Writer.

MEMBER:

HAMMERS (chair).

WRITINGS:

Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina, Seal Press (Emeryville, CA), 2007.

Also author of the Rosie Molinary Web log at http://hijasamericanas.wordpress.com. Contributor to literary magazines, including Circle, Anthology, Caketrain, Snake Nation Press, and Jeopardy; contributor to periodicals, including Women's Health, Health, Ms., NC Signature, Our State, Charlotte, Philanthropy Journal, Lake Norman Magazine, and Charlotte Medical News; work included in anthologies, including Coloring Book, Waking Up American, and Wishing You Well.

SIDELIGHTS:

Rosie Molinary is a poet, essay writer, freelance writer, and creative writing teacher who began her career as a high school teacher in North Carolina, where she grew up. Concerned about a "lack of voice" in her students, she explained on her Web log, she decided to earn a graduate degree in creative writing in order to develop the skills to help students use the written word to explore their selves and find their unique voices. Her M.F.A. manuscript, Giving Up Beauty, became the basis of her first published book, Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina.

The book explores the particular tensions facing young Latinas as they move toward adulthood. Drawing on her own experience as the only student of Puerto Rican ancestry at her North Carolina high school, Molinary also incorporates into the book material from more than eighty interviews and more than 500 online surveys with Latinas across the country, covering such subjects as body image, skin color, sexuality, family tensions, religion, and stereotypes. As the book shows, Latinas often must negotiate between conflicting expectations, torn between the demands of family and the need to fit into the larger culture.

A narrative from the first chapter, "Turning Gringa," quoted on Molinary's Web log, illuminates some of these conflicts. The narrator recalls the excitement of having a first boyfriend—a white boy—and the difficulties this caused between her and her mother. The girl begs to be allowed to go to the movies with the boy, and after a long interrogation the mother agrees: "‘But just remember, you are not a gringa.’ I nodded. Those instructions were an echo of an almost daily reminder she issued. ‘You are not a gringa’ was my mother's party line, whether it was in reference to going out on a date, sleeping over at a friend's house, or cruising the mall. Each time she denied my request with this phrase, I had to come up with a better excuse to give my friends for my inability to do things that they didn't even have to ask permission to do."

A reviewer for Publishers Weekly admired the book's honesty, but added that Molinary's extensive use of quotes from such a large base of respondents detracts from the book's narrative cohesion. At times, the reviewer felt, Hijas Americanas reads more like a sociological report than a book with a story to tell; at its best, the reviewer wrote, the book presents genuine insights that "come together to reveal a shared experience." Writing in Booklist, Hazel Rochman observed that the book's appealing and honest story "captures the immigrant conflicts of trying to fit in at home and feeling a stranger outside."