My Heart Lies South, Young People's Edition: The Story of My Mexican Marriage

Rating:
Summary: Her heart lies south of the border
Review: It would be hard to resist a person who asks, "Shall I sing you a song about love?", and so it's not difficult to see why Elizabeth Borton de Trevino fell for her husband. Their unusual courtship and often hilarious marriage is chronicled in "My Heart Lies South: The Story of my Mexican Marriage," a story of clashing cultures and hysterical family.

She first met her husband Luis in a hotel lobby, while on a writing assignment. After courting her with love songs in a taxi, Elizabeth Borton ended up going home with him to meet his rambuctious family and adoring parents, who approve of the young American "mees" as Luis's future wife. Suddenly Borton found herself living in Mexico -- but with a lot to learn.

At first, Elizabeth struggles to deal with the cultural barriers and how she is being snubbed by the neighbors. But soon she adjusts to her new life, and runs into an ultra-religious cook, troubles with the legality of her marriage, a playboy in-law who falls madly in love with a very proper girl, and finding out how much fun it is to be pregnant in Mexico.

Surprisingly, "My Heart Lies South" is not just an autobiography about Borton de Trevino's "Mexican marriage." It's also a portrait of 1930s Mexico, which was very different from anywhere in the United States -- a place solidly entrenched in old traditions. It wasn't backward. They just did not see any reason to change things like the "Tia" aunts who care for a whole family.

Borton's brisk writing goes pretty quickly, telling stories of young Romeo-and-Juliet lovers, authentic Mexican food and getting drunk in front of her husband's clients. She's funny and self-deprecating, not to mention unafraid of telling the world when she committed some social sin. It's almost like a sitcom, except it was all real.

Perhaps the most endearing thing she shows us is Luis's family -- a sprawling, warm bunch of people who immediately take her under their wings. Particularly likable is Luis's mother Mamacita, and her playboy brother-in-law Roberto. But Borton de Trevino brings everyone to life, right down to the eccentric cooks and kindly judges.

"My Heart Lies South: The Story of My Mexican Marriage" is a thoroughly charming look back in time, where an American woman clashes with Mexican traditions. The results are funny and heartwarming.

Rating:
Summary: A delightful venture into 30s Mexico
Review: Reading this autobio, you can see why the author won a Newbery for "I, Juan de Pareja." Recently reprinted, I was given this book as a gift and was stunned by it

This short yet sweet accounting of the author's marriage and life in Mexico is a joy to read. It begins in long ago in California, when a young woman named Elizabeth Borton travels to Monterrey with a Mexican PR worker, a young man named Luis Trevino. A few months later, they are married, and a modern young woman from the US must get used to life in traditional Mexico, with all the joys and cultural rifts that includes. A delightful extended family and Elizabeth's excellent kids add to the cultural enjoyment over the course of the book.

In her colorful, sparkling prose, you are transported to the world of Mamacita and Papacita and Tia Rosa, of Robert's peculiar courtship of his girlfriend and the trials and tribulations of setting up house in a new country. How does Elizabeth adjust to the cultura!l changes, the passionate natures of the people around her, and the expectations of a Mexican wife and mother?

I was feeling depressed until I read this book, but it immediately perked me up. Read it and enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: That fortress, the Family
Review: This book is an autobiography of an American woman who came to Mexico on what she thought was going to be a brief assignment and ended marrying with a Mexican and staying in Mexico for the rest of her happy life. But the book is much more than this. It describes the clash between the very different cultures of Mexico and the USA which result, almost always, in hilarious situations.

Almost everything described happens in Monterrey, Mexico where she lived with her husband and eventually with her children, but as she mentions in the book, the extended family is extremely important in Mexico and she got to love and respect her "Mamacita" and "Papacito" (mother and father-in-law) as much, or maybe even more, than her own parents. "To Mamacita and Papacito I dedicate this book in loving memory."

The Treviño Borton family is, in my humble opinion, "every family of mankind, the archetypal family about whom all mankind is dreaming." (Quoting from a review of Finnegans Wake). As such, anyone may appreciate this book, but... for Regiomontanos (people from Monterrey) it means much more: it describes the inner workings of the social fabric in the city, it brings to life the infinite subtlety of their ways, it gives a microscopic historical view of the 1930's that you can hardly find anywhere else, it creates a deep longing for a beautiful past.

I, like Borton, married with Monterrey. Her husband was Luis Treviño. My wife is Olivia Treviño and through Borton I finally understood why "the Family" is of such overwhelming importance for my wife.

The interest that this book generated in me was so great that I decided to journey through Elizabeth's world... 70 years later.

I have built a web site where you can see how her house, her Mamacitas house, and many other places she mentions in the book look TODAY... 70 YEARS LATER. ...

Many things have changed during the years but writing from Monterrey I can say, as she once said, "I was then, as now, so safe, so happy, within that fortress - the family."