Where was that stupid notebook? I dug a hand between the mattress and the wall. Boom! There it was. “Let’s go.” I grabbed my coat and we raced for the front door.
On my way past the kitchen I smelled mint. I stopped short. Mom stood at the stove, stirring. “Mom, are you making pho?”
She stopped stirring and grinned all crazy like—happy crazy! Mom was making pho! Mom was making pho!
“Mom…” I couldn’t help it. My eyes watered.
“Give me a kiss good-bye,” she said.
“I’m on my way to the writing center. I gotta go!”
“A kiss,” she repeated.
A kiss. Then, “Bye!”
In the hall I ran right into Dad. He was holding a newspaper.
“Whoa!” he said. “Where are you flying off to?”
“The writing center! Mom knows!” I hugged him until Jade hollered “Come on, girl!” from the front door.
“Bye!”
“Be careful, mija.” There was so much in his voice.
“I will.”
Then I heard Dad again. “Liliana?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe next weekend, we can all go somewhere. It says here”—he waved the newspaper in the air—“there’s free admission at the science museum.”
“Sounds great, Dad.” It did. It really did.
As Jade and I pounded down the stairway, I inhaled the stale weed smell, but also the smell of Doña Rosario’s insane cooking (mmm… sancocho?), and I practically floated out the front door. It slammed behind me, and I swore if it was made of glass, it would have broken, but they didn’t put glass doors in apartment buildings like ours—the landlord was too cheap. Don’t get it twisted. I wouldn’t trade living there for anywhere else. Not now anyway. There was so much going on all the time; I’d never run out of things to write about or build. I’m hip.
I broke into a run. We had like a negative minute to get there. Jade was yelling and laughing a few feet behind me. That little Spanish dude—correction, Dominican dude; he wasn’t from Spain, hello—with the mustache in front of Lorenzo’s Liquor was whistling at us. I know what I must have looked like, like some crazy teenage girl with flushed cheeks running with her coat unzipped in fifteen-degree weather. Thing is, now more than ever, writing was like oxygen to me. Ha. Got you. I would never write that; that’s a cliché. At 826 I was learning all about those things—clichés, tropes, narrative distance, and adding FAT (feelings, actions, thoughts) to dialogue. Stuff like that.
We dashed across the street, not even waiting for the light to blink, and raced for the door. We buzzed, and Vicky (she was fifteen but acted like she was twenty-one) opened the door enough for us to see her wag a sanctimonious (vocab word) finger and say, “Naughty-naughty. You’re late.”
Whatever. We pushed past her.
Inside the center, framed close-up photos of kids’ faces greeted us. So many stories inside them. Inside us. Inside this space, where we workshopped our stories and had open mic sessions. Where stickers and neon flyers covered the podium: we are a nation of immigrants. no deportation. no wall.
My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t had breakfast. Someone had set up bagels and cream cheese and empanadas on paper plates in the back. The bagels were piled high, but the empanadas, they were almost gone. Someone needed to make more next time. Wait. Maybe I could? I could ask my brothers for help. And Dad would try the first one, and say something like, You really did this? And it wouldn’t sound like a question at all.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The day my book sold, my dad sent me an emoji of a watermelon and said, “This is great news, the fruit of your labor is here.” But this is the truth: Nothing good in my life would be possible without my parents, without their labor. My mother and father, Dora and Luis De Leon—who celebrate fifty years in the United States this year!—motivate me to work hard every single day. Mom, you’ve been my number one champion from day one. And Dad, in your quiet and reserved way, you’re tied for number one. To my sisters, Karen and Caroline De Leon—thank you for everything, and I love you.
I would not have completed this book without the encouragement and support and feedback of so many people—too many to name, but I will try!
To Faye Bender—my fierce and kind and wicked-smart agent—thank you for orchestrating that magical week when the book went to auction. Your faith and enthusiasm mean the world, and I am grateful to you beyond measure. To my A+ editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy—you inspired me to roll up my sleeves. You held the flashlight while I did the digging, and when I didn’t know how to dig anymore, you took out two flashlights. You’re amazing. I’m honored to work with you. And to Elena Garnu for the gorgeous cover art, Justin Chanda, Clare McGlade, Milena Giunco, Alex Borbolla, and the entire team at Simon & Schuster/Atheneum. You are fire.
For their writing and cheerleading superpowers—my beloved writing group, the Chunky Monkeys. Christopher Castellani, Chip Cheek, Calvin Hennick, Sonya Larson, Celeste Ng, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Whitney Scharer, Adam Stumacher (more later!), Grace Talusan, and Becky Tuch: You fill the well, and I am so lucky you all agreed to meet up at Sonya’s apartment for that first meeting. So many years and pages later, I’m bound to you for life.
For Eve Bridburg and the GrubStreet Creative Writing Center, I give you a bone-crushing hug. Can’t imagine my life without Grub. To my OG Fab Five Writing Group—Kris Evans, Jeremy Lakaszcyck, Lily Rabinoff-Goldman, Barbara Neely, and the UMASS Boston MFA program. Thank you to the editors and magazines who supported my work, especially Kweli and Ploughshares and Briar Cliff Review. And a very special thanks to Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, and all the greats who came before—and all the Wise Latinas. I am because we are.
I would also like to thank the Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA), the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and Richard Blanco—for letting Adam and me write in your Maine cabin—the timing could not have been better. Gracias. The Boston Book Festival and One City, One Story—Sarah Howard Parker, you’re the best. My writing professors and teachers and guides: Askold Melnyczuk, Miguel Lopez, Herb Kohl, Jennifer Haigh, ZZ Packer, Jenna Blum, Holly Thompson, Chris Abani, Reyna Grande, and especially Junot Díaz—I have at least four marble notebooks full of wisdom from you at VONA and I go back to these lessons more than you know. Laura Pegram, for starting Kweli! And also for that magical phone call while I sat in the parking lot at the Milton Public Library.
To Tayari Jones—for that phone call when you took the time to help me realize my time, my worth. Thank you. I will never, ever forget it.
It is entirely possible that this book might never have existed without the incredible support of the Associates of the Boston Public Library’s Writer-in-Residence Fellowship. Or my former student and friend, Josie Figueroa, who emailed me the info about the WIR.
That year at the Boston Public Library, in my Harry Potter–esque office, I got to w-r-i-t-e… what a gift! Thank you to the anonymous donor who changed my life.
To We Need Diverse Books and the Walter grant committee—that grant kept me going in so many ways, and kept Liliana Cruz going too. To the City of Boston Artists in Residence program, Karen Goodfellow, and my fellow Boston AIRS—let’s get together on a rooftop and clink glasses soon. To the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA).
For reading early drafts—Katie Bayerl, Niki Marion, Hasadri Freeman, Karen Boss, Stéphanie Abou, Lexi Wangler, Rob Laubacher, Hillary Casavant, and of course, Jenna Blum, and to everyone in her workshops for your smart and generous feedback. Alonso Nichols, for my author photo! Sonja Burrows, for my website, and for so much more. Francisco Stork—thank you for your important and beautiful work, and for introducing me to Faye! METCO students and Young Adult Writing Program (YAWP) teens and those I met in the Boston Public Library Teen Room—and teachers and counselors I met with—thank you for your help with questions. Especially JJ for your tips with sl
ang. Lit, bomb, I’m hip… lol.
For their friendship over the many years—Hannah Levine Vereker, Patricia Sánchez-Connally, Katie Seamans, Abby Greco, Aylin Talgar Pietz, Glen Harnish, Jamie Arterton, Emily Schreiber-Kreiner, Yeshi Gaskin, Wanda Montañez, Norma Rey-Alicia, Ru Freeman, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Amanda Smallwood, Yalitza Ferreras, Tim Host, Carla Laracuente, Desmond Hall, Val Wang, Eson Kim, Willy Barreno, Tasneem Zehra Husain, and to Justin Torres and Frances Cowhig, and all my fellow waiters at Bread Loaf. To Anne Flood Levine—for taking me to places like Vermont and Nantucket, and D.C.—thank you. To Leroy Gaines, Kristen Miranda, Jerica Coffey—for letting me crash at your apartments in San Francisco while I took writing workshops at VONA. Carissa and Carra Joyce-Dominguez, for those times in elementary school when we shared our own novels over the phone and dressed up for New Year’s Eve, and all of SMOC programming for giving me a childhood full of play. A big thanks to Judy Levine, for taking me seriously when I was sixteen and told her I wanted to spend a summer in Zimbabwe. You made it happen! To my mentors when I was young, especially Margo Deane (rest in peace, dear friend), Argentina Arias, and Esta Montano.
To my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. J. Shapiro, who came to my reading at Harvard Bookstore all those years later, I’m glad I got to say goodbye. Thank you for believing in me. Big thanks to Carolyn Chapman, for lifting me up again and again. Aime Galindo and all my students at Arbuckle Elementary School in San Jose, CA, when I was part of Teach For America.
For all my students and former colleagues, especially at the Boston Teachers Union School. You inspire me. To my students and colleagues at Framingham State University—thank you for being so supportive! For teachers and librarians, the ones on the frontlines, the ones putting books in kids’ hands—I thank you. For all the young people reading this—we need you. Continue to walk in your power. To all the kids out there waiting for an undocumented family member or parent who has been deported, to come home again—I see you. Hold on.
To my grande familia! Too many to name here, but I have to give a shout out to my cousin Mynor Flores (I forgive you for writing on my chalkboard in permanent marker) and my nephew Julian Flores—your future is so bright.
I am grateful to God, for so much, especially for putting Adam on my path. This book would not have happened without you, Adam, my husband and partner in life, in parenting, writing, teaching, and more. All roads led to you and I am breathless to think how lucky I was, I am, we are. And finally, for my boys, Mateo and Rubén—everything is for you now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer De Leon is an author, creative writitng professor, and former urban public school teacher. She is the editor of Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education, the recipient of the Associates of the Boston Public Library’s Writer-in-Residence fellowship, and the winner of the We Need Diverse Books’s Walter Dean Myers grant. Dont’t Ask Me Where I’m From is her debut novel. She lives outside of Boston. Follow Jenn on Twitter at: @jdeleonwriter and Instagram at: @delejenn, and visit her at jenniferdeleonauthor.com
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A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book
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An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division • 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 • www.SimonandSchuster.com • This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. • Text copyright © 2020 by Jennifer De Leon • Jacket illustration copyright © 2020 by Elena Garnu • All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. • Atheneum logo is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. • For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. • The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. • Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data • Names: De Leon, Jennifer, 1979- author. • Title: Don’t ask me where I’m from / Jennifer De Leon. • Other titles: Do not ask me where I am from • Description: First edition. | New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2020] | Audience: Ages 14 up. | Audience: Grades 10-12. | Summary: “Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school, but when family secrets come out and racism at school gets worse than ever, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand”— Provided by publisher. • Identifiers: lccn 2019040448 | isbn 9781534438248 (hardback) | isbn 9781534438262 (eBook) • Subjects: cyac: Racism—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. • Classification: lcc PZ7.1.D39814 Don 2020 | ddc [Fic]—dc23 • lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040448
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