Someday Mija, You'll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman: A Memoir by Yvonne Martinez
Someday Mija, You'll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman is a memoir that turns time on its head, circling through terror and joy with eloquence and becoming its own sacrament of resistance. -Foreword Reviews, 5-star review
At eighteen, Yvonne Martinez flees brutal domestic violence and is taken in by her dying grandmother . . . who used to be a sex worker. Before she dies, her grandmother reveals family secrets and shares her uncommon wisdom. Someday, Mija, she tells Yvonne, you'll learn the difference between a whore and a working woman. She also shares disturbing facts about their family's history-eventually leading Yvonne to discover that her grandmother was trafficked as a child in Depression-era Utah by her own mother, Yvonne's great-grandmother, and that she was blamed for her own rape.
In the years that follow her grandmother's passing, Yvonne gets an education and starts a family. As she heals from her own abuse by her mother and stepfather, she becomes an advocate/labor activist. Grounded in her grandmother's dictum not to whore herself out, she learns to fight for herself and teaches others to do the same-exposing sexual harassment in the labor unions where she works and fighting corruption. Intense but ultimately uplifting, Someday Mija, You'll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman is a compelling memoir in essays of transforming transgenerational trauma into resilience and post-traumatic growth.
At eighteen, Yvonne Martinez flees brutal domestic violence and is taken in by her dying grandmother . . . who used to be a sex worker. Before she dies, her grandmother reveals family secrets and shares her uncommon wisdom. Someday, Mija, she tells Yvonne, you'll learn the difference between a whore and a working woman. She also shares disturbing facts about their family's history-eventually leading Yvonne to discover that her grandmother was trafficked as a child in Depression-era Utah by her own mother, Yvonne's great-grandmother, and that she was blamed for her own rape.
In the years that follow her grandmother's passing, Yvonne gets an education and starts a family. As she heals from her own abuse by her mother and stepfather, she becomes an advocate/labor activist. Grounded in her grandmother's dictum not to whore herself out, she learns to fight for herself and teaches others to do the same-exposing sexual harassment in the labor unions where she works and fighting corruption. Intense but ultimately uplifting, Someday Mija, You'll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman is a compelling memoir in essays of transforming transgenerational trauma into resilience and post-traumatic growth.