Identity and Creativity

Evaristo explores the relationship between identity and creativity throughout her memoir, particularly in terms of the effects of her family background on her artistic career. In the opening chapter of the book, she focuses on how her parents’ backgrounds, places in society, and appearances affected her formation as a creative individual, as well as how her parents’ own parents’ and ancestors’ experiences eventually culminated in the opportunity for her to have a creative life. For example, she considers that her maternal grandmother’s drive to be independent gave her mother a taste for freedom, and that both of these women paved the way for Evaristo herself to seek a life of self-expression and choice: “Nana wanted my mother to lead a more prosperous life [...] My mother, in turn, passed values on to me that enabled me to lead a creative life” (44).

Evaristo further examines the way...