Darkroom
A Memoir in Black and White

Lila Weaver (Author)

9780817357146

Paperback / softback, published 1 March 2012

264 pages
23.3 x 15.4 x 2.2 cm, 0.48 kg

Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White is an arresting and moving personal story about childhood, race, and identity in the American South, rendered in stunning illustrations by the author, Lila Quintero Weaver. In 1961, when Lila was five, she and her family emigrated from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Marion, Alabama, in the heart of Alabama's Black Belt. As educated, middle-class Latino immigrants in a region that was defined by segregation, the Quinteros occupied a privileged vantage from which to view the racially charged culture they inhabited. Weaver and her family were firsthand witnesses to key moments in the civil rights movement. But Darkroom is her personal story as well: chronicling what it was like being a Latina girl in the Jim Crow South, struggling to understand both a foreign country and the horrors of our nation's race relations. Weaver, who was neither black nor white, observed very early on the inequalities in the American culture, with its blonde and blue-eyed feminine ideal. Throughout her life, Lila has struggled to find her place in this society and fought against the discrimination around her.

Contents Author's Note Prologue: Home Movies Chapter 1: In the Dark Chapter 2: Passage Chapter 3: Blending In Chatper 4: Ginny\u2019s Books Chapter 5: Ancestral Lines Chapter 6: An American Education Chapter 7: Dear Argentina Chapter 8: Good News, Bad News Chapter 9: Know Alabama Chapter 10: School Lessons Epilogue: Long Night\u2019s Journey into Day Acknowledgements