In the Land of God and Man: A Latin's Woman's Journey

In the Land of God and Man: A Latin's Woman's Journey Review

"Paternostro tells the stories our mamis always told us not to tell and in doing so, she brings to light the secret sexual heart of our Latin culture. I loved reading this book."--Julia Alvarez, author of Yo! and How the Garca Girls Lost Their Accents

As the daughter of the privileged Colombian elite, Silvana Paternostro was programmed to go from convent school to cocktail parties, obedient to God and man, never questioning the injustice she saw all around her or demanding a voice in public life. She left Latin America twenty years ago, but recently returned to "look critically at our Church, our Constitution, our daily lives." Told in a lyrical and personal voice, but backed up by solid research, In the Land of God and Man draws a new map of Latin and Latino America--from Quito, Ecuador to Queens, New York--exposing its hidden cultural undercurrents and bringing women out of the factories and favelas, the brothels and the boardrooms, and allowing them to tell their own stories. Read more...

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In the Land of God and Man: A Latin's Woman's Journey Specifications

Silvana Paternostro, born into a well-to-do Colombian family, was taught to be a traditional, virginal, obedient Latina. Sent to the United States to be educated, Paternostro has since remained, tied to her Colombian family but unwilling to fall in step with her culture's expectations. Now a widely published journalist and fellow at the World Policy Institute, Paternostro has revisited Colombia and several other Latin cultures to boldly uncover the quietly damaging sexual contradictions of the Latin world she left behind.

Here, where well-bred women must be virgins before marriage, monied young men are ritually deflowered by prostitutes at their fathers' expense and often continue to frequent brothels while courting their future wives. While married women are discouraged from educating themselves about sex and birth control, many husbands at every class level secretly pay for sex with women, boys, men, and transvestites. The consequences for traditional Latin American women, Paternostro discovers, are grim: married monogamous women are at far greater risk of being HIV-positive than female prostitutes, who can at least insist on condoms with their clients. Women in Latin America have, on average, more abortions than women in the United States, frequently at risk of their lives. Paternostro condemns not only the deceit fueling these epidemics but the larger culture that keeps many Latin women obedient and powerless. This devastating, important first book concludes with an investigation into the relationships of Latin American men and women who are being raised in the United States, with the author's hope that this "new world" might offer a boost to the condition of fellow Latin women. --Maria Dolan

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