Individual Presentation or Panel Title
Mercedes and Eugenia: A Salvadorean Love Story
Abstract
This excerpt is taken from my English honors thesis, a novel-length work of creative nonfiction about my maternal grandparents’ adolescence in El Salvador. My purpose in writing this thesis was to record for posterity the true story of my grandparents’ struggles to be together in spite of the hardships they faced. After his mother’s death, my grandfather, Mercedes Delcíd, was raised by his strict, demanding aunts while his father sought work in far-off fields. When Mercedes was sixteen, he met my grandmother, Eugenia Ventura, whom he courted for four years. Unfortunately, Eugenia’s mother disapproved of Mercedes and his family, and she therefore went to extreme measures to ensure that Eugenia avoid Mercedes. When Mercedes proposed, Eugenia’s mother refused to give her consent. Nonetheless, Eugenia decided to live with Mercedes, and they eventually married and remained together for 72 years, until my grandfather passed away last year. My thesis signifies the culmination of a year-long work of research about El Salvador’s culture in the early twentieth century, and about my family’s history in particular.
Location
Rathskeller
Start Date
3-5-2014 3:30 PM
End Date
3-5-2014 4:20 PM
Mercedes and Eugenia: A Salvadorean Love Story
Rathskeller
This excerpt is taken from my English honors thesis, a novel-length work of creative nonfiction about my maternal grandparents’ adolescence in El Salvador. My purpose in writing this thesis was to record for posterity the true story of my grandparents’ struggles to be together in spite of the hardships they faced. After his mother’s death, my grandfather, Mercedes Delcíd, was raised by his strict, demanding aunts while his father sought work in far-off fields. When Mercedes was sixteen, he met my grandmother, Eugenia Ventura, whom he courted for four years. Unfortunately, Eugenia’s mother disapproved of Mercedes and his family, and she therefore went to extreme measures to ensure that Eugenia avoid Mercedes. When Mercedes proposed, Eugenia’s mother refused to give her consent. Nonetheless, Eugenia decided to live with Mercedes, and they eventually married and remained together for 72 years, until my grandfather passed away last year. My thesis signifies the culmination of a year-long work of research about El Salvador’s culture in the early twentieth century, and about my family’s history in particular.