New Student Writing: "No Longer La Reina de la Casa"
Posted on September 25, 2024
This past spring, Quechua-Peruvian author Marco Avilés joined us here in New York City to lead writing workshops for high school students at three local schools. Students read his thought-provoking essay "I Am Not Your Cholo" (translated by Sophie Hughes) and excerpts from the collection De dónde venimos los cholos, then enjoyed an interactive presentation by Marco featuring childhood memories of eating street food in Lima and coming to the United States for the first time.
Students then had a chance to write about their own firsts: seeing the ocean, eating spicy food, feeling at home in New York, and much more. Yoisy, a high schooler in Brooklyn, wrote about a melancholy first—the first sign of a rift between father and daughter. You can read her work below. —Eds.
No Longer La Reina de la Casa
When a girl is born, she is loved by her father. Before birth, he buys clothes and thinks about picking out names for her. Once she is born she is “La Reina de la Casa.” Everything that she wants or says goes, everyone around them tells him that he's gonna spoil her. If she wants ice cream, she gets it, if she’s full and doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t have to. As she grows up she sees her dad working hard, sometimes day and night, just to grant her wishes. He’s presented every big accomplishment in her little years of life, he’s there for the first day of school, for Father’s Day, for Christmas, and most importantly, her birthday. On the day of her sweet fifteen, or better known as “Quinceañera,” as she celebrates her becoming a woman, everyone applauds for her. On her happy day she doesn't realize that the father-daughter dance will be the last time her father looks at her with love, that it will be the last time they ever have a connection with each other. Everyone is happy until that girl turns into a woman.
The day that Dad sees that his little baby girl is a woman, his love towards her changes. He starts becoming more distant, more cold, more apart. She starts to notice how he looks at her in a disgusted way. As a teen she thinks nothing, but as the months go by she starts to realize what is really going on. She realizes that her father doesn’t see her as his Reina but more as a disgusting woman. You see, in many Hispanic countries men often see women as possessions/objects, and it impacts little girls growing up because their fathers change their attitude towards them when they need them the most. He starts creating boundaries and no longer loves his daughter the same.
When a son is born, from that moment on the father pushes her more away and forwards his attention to “El Hombre De La Casa.” From that moment forward everything is about him, all the attention, all the love, all the gifts, and most importantly, his presence. As the son grows older the father encourages him to be a playboy and to take advantage of women, as in his eyes they are all objects. As the boy grows older he starts to pick up bad habits and starts getting into trouble. He eventually gets arrested and his father is there to help him. The girl then realizes that in a situation that she wouldn't have recovered from, her brother will, because she was never really “La Reina de la Casa.” Seeing this, she realizes why mom was always so sad, she never had a smile on, it seemed as if the color of her eyes faded, as if the joy wasn't there anymore. She realized she wasn't “La Reina de la Casa” anymore, she was just another woman, meant to take care of the house, cook and clean as a lady always should, or at least that's what Dad told her. That love and affection from birth all faded away as his little girl matured and went through puberty.
By Yoisy, high school student, Brooklyn, NY
Do you have budding authors in your classroom? Have they produced work inspired by literature from WWB? Let's talk!