Grounding Oneself at the Crossroads: Getting Home Alive by Aurora Levins Morales and Rosario Morales

Abstract

This article analyzes the multiple dimensions of hybridity in Getting Home Alive (1986) by Puerto Rican Aurora Levins Morales and Rosario Morales. This revolutionary autobiography is experimental in both form and content, containing poems, stories, journals, reportage and so forth. It resists clear categorization as to genre, defies any one culture or language and presents a sense of place rooted in multiple places.  The voices of mother and daughter end up fusing into one, together with the voices of all their ancestors. The multiple sensitivities of both women, products of multidirectional migrations, ethnicities, cultures, languages and class are symbolized in grounding themselves at the crossroads, embracing a relational collective identity, wholeness and choice while rejecting fragmentation or alienation.