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Larisse
LARISSE Do you want to be happy? Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away Gone from the earth to a better land I know I hear their gentle voices calling, Old Black Joe I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low I hear their gentle voices calling, Old Black Joe Why do I weep, when my heart should feel no pain Why do I sigh when my friends come not again Grieving for forms now departed long ago I hear their gentle voices calling, Old Black Joe I’m coming, I’m coming, for…
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Laura Laura
LAURA LAURA I have dolls. Being a girl in the South, you grew up with dolls and there were some that you played with and some that you just looked at. My mom has some china porcelain dolls that her grandmother brought over from Germany when she came and those were the “look at” dolls. They lived in the cedar chest. My mother is 94, and they’re still in the cedar chest at her home and she brings them out any time one of the three girls visit her. It’s like “the bringing out of the dolls,” but you can’t really touch them, you can only look at them. I…
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Chris
CHRIS I think I was probably in the second or third grade and I loved dolls, but we were very poor. I had no dolls. I did have one that came with a cereal box or something, but I never had a real doll and every birthday or Christmas I always wanted a doll. My mother actually did give me a “dance-me” doll once. You know the kind that you put on your feet, with the yellow yarn hair, like a Raggedy-Ann type doll, only it was life-size. So that was a good doll memory. My dad was a student the whole time I was growing up and my mother…
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Josefina
JOSEFINA Hoy (Today) Looking out my kitchen window, I see Josefina sitting on the deck with her swollen legs sticking straight out as she combs the hair of one of her many Barbies. Soon she will make them dresses in happy colors of red and blue, and plain calzones (underpants) without lace. Her knees are swollen from bone on bone after walking for 15 years behind Juan without even a suitcase to hold her one dress, un rebozo (a shawl), a pillow, a little box of plates, and babies in her arms. She is smiling and singing with the radio to a romantic mariachi song. In the song, a husband…
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Cheryl’s First Story
CHERYL’S 1ST STORY I was in the second grade when we wrote letters to Santa. In my letter to Santa, besides asking for a doll that had a baby carriage, I had to write what else I wanted. I asked for a warm winter coat for my mother because she was always cold. She was a single mom, and although I wasn’t aware of all the hardships she was experiencing, I did know she was cold. One thing I didn’t know is that the letters were sent to the Chamber of Commerce. Out of all the letters that were sent, they chose mine. One day close to Christmas, my mother…
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Daraj
DARAJ I had a job being Santa one year. It was at a local community center. Most of the children got on my lap and asked for the latest doll that was advertised on TV. I would sneak a look at their parent to see if buying that was even remotely possible before I would reassure them that it just might happen. If I saw a worried look on the face of the adult who brought them there, I would tell the child that Santa had to buy a lot of toys and dolls for lots of children and sometimes he didn’t have enough even if they had been very…
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Marcy
MARCY My main situation with dolls is that I never wanted to play with them when I was a little girl. They were not realistic enough for me, and that pretty much summarizes my whole personality to this day. And I kind of really didn’t get it. Why did anybody want to play with dolls? They’re not realistic in any way, and I have no imagination. I really had no interest ever in playing with dolls. So one time when I was in nursery school in the synagogue, the theme of the day was for everybody to bring in their dolls or their stuffed animals. I had a doll, but…
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Gina
GINA I collect black dolls. Not for the same reason other people I’ve met do it. I don’t understand my fascination with them other than that I’m Cuban, and in my country, as a child, I really didn’t like being this white. I have always felt mixed races are more charismatic. In Cuba we have a kaleidoscope of colors, anywhere from onyx to milky white. I really think the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen are those with real dark skin who have almond-shaped aqua or emerald colored eyes. I went through a period in my life when I collected black dolls, preferably with light colored eyes, when I could…
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Geraldine’s First Story
GERALDINE’S 1ST STORY I was born in Dublin. My mother left me for America when I was 8 months old. I was brought up by my grandparents, and when I was old enough, I attended school in a convent. My mother would send me packages from America, and the nuns would have me go from classroom to classroom, showing the other students what I got. I was the only one in the school whose mother was in America. Once she sent me an American Indian doll. I was around 7 or 8 years old then. I loved it, but I wasn’t allowed to play with it. It had beautiful white…
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Constance
CONSTANCE 2 Teaching the Alphabet Wrong We were children in an orphanage in Switzerland, the German part. It was in a small village. I did have a mother somewhere. She would come and get me once in a while. I was forced to be with her. She didn’t like me. It was always a nightmare to go with her. Whenever it was time for presents, like my birthday or the middle of summer, there was a chance I would have to be with my mother. She once gave me a present for my birthday. It was in a big box full of little plastic cheap dolls, the kind that…