1. JUDITH ORTIZ COFER (b. 1952)
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Born in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, Judith Ortiz Cofer just two years later moved with her family, first to New Jersey and later to Georgia, experiences that would inspire much of her later fiction and poetry. "How can you inject passion and purpose into your work if it has no roots?" she asks, avowing that her own roots include a long line of women storytellers who "infected" her at a very early age with the desire to tell stories both on and off the page. After earning an MA at Florida Atlantic University (1977), Ortiz Cofer returned to Georgia, where she is an emeritus professor at the University of Georgia. Among her numerous publications are the novels The Line of the Sun (1989), in which a young girl relates the history of her ne'er-do-well uncle's emigration from Puerto Rico, The Meaning of Consuelo (2003), and Call Me Maria (2006); the poetry collection A Love Story Beginning in Spanish (2005); and The Latin Deli (1993) and The Year of Our Revolution (1998), two collec- tions that seamlessly interweave fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, thereby demonstrating, in Ortiz Cofer's words, "the need to put things together in a holistic way."
At twelve I was an avid consumer of comic books—Supergirl being my favor- ite. I spent my allowance of a quarter a day on two twelve-cent comic books or a double issue for twenty-five. I had a stack of Legion of Super Heroes and Supergirl comic books in my bedroom closet that was as tall as I am. I had a recurring dream in those days: that I had long blond hair and could fly. In my dream I climbed the stairs to the top of our apartment building as myself, but as I went up each flight, changes would be taking place. Step by step I would fill out: My legs would grow long, my arms harden into steel, and my hair would magically go straight and turn a golden color. Of course I would add the bonus of breasts, but not too large; Supergirl had to be aerodynamic. Sleek and hard as a supersonic missile. Once on the roof, my parents safely asleep in their beds, I would get on tiptoe, arms outstretched in the position for flight, and jump out my fifty-story-high window into the black lake of the sky. From up there, over the rooftops, I could see everything, even beyond the few blocks of our barrio;2 with my X-ray vision I could look inside the homes of people who interested me. Once I saw our landlord, whom I knew my parents feared, sitting in a treasure- room dressed in an ermine coat and a large gold crown. He sat on the floor counting his dollar bills. I played a trick on him. Going up to his building's chimney, I blew a little puff of my superbreath into his fireplace, scattering his stacks of money so that he had to start counting all over again. I could more or less program my Supergirl dreams in those days by focusing on the object of my current obsession. This way I "saw" into the private lives of my neighbors, my teachers, and in the last days of my childish fantasy and the beginning of ado- lescence, into the secret room of the boys I liked. In the mornings I'd wake up in my tiny bedroom with the incongruous—at least in our tiny apartment— white "princess" furniture my mother had chosen for me, and find myself back in my body: my tight curls still clinging to my head, skinny arms and legs and flat chest unchanged.
In the kitchen my mother and father would be talking softly over a café con
leche. She would come "wakeme" exactly forty-five minutes after they had got- ten up. It was their time together at the beginning of each day and even at an early age I could feel their disappointment if I interrupted them by getting up too early. So I would stay in my bed recalling my dreams of flight, perhaps plan- ning my next flight. In the kitchen they would be discussing events in the bar- rio. Actually, he would be carrying that part of the conversation; when it was her turn to speak she would, more often than not, try shifting the topic toward her desire to see her
familia on the Island: How about a vacation in Puerto Rico together this year, Querido?4 We could rent a car, go to the beach. We could . . . 5 And he would answer patiently, gently, Mi amor, do you know how much it would cost for all of us to fly there? It is not possible for me to take the time off . . .Mi vida, please understand. . . . And I knew that soon she would rise from the table. Not abruptly. She would light a cigarette and look out the kitchen win- dow. The view was of a dismal alley that was littered with refuse thrown from windows. The space was too narrow for anyone larger than a skinny child to enter safely, so it was never cleaned. My mother would check the time on the clock over her sink, the one with a prayer for patience and grace written in Spanish. A birthday gift. She would see that it was time to wake me. She'd sigh deeply and say the same thing the view from her kitchen window always inspired her to say: Ay, si yo pudiera volar.
