Pueblo Girls: Growing up in two worlds

Description

Sonja and Desiree Roybal know they are lucky. Growing up in San Ildefonso Pueblo, they enjoy what most other American girls their age enjoy—from bike riding to swimming to computer games to playing with friends. But they have much more: their Indian heritage. In the Roybal family, heritage is not just something grandparents remember with pride. It is a way of daily life that reserves a central place for traditional customs, prayers, and reverence for the natural world. Heritage is listening to stories passed down in the Tewa language, learning pottery-making from their mother and grandmother, and making bread in an outdoor oven. It is ceremonial days when everyone gathers to dance and celebrate as Pueblo Indians have done for thousands of years. In this beautifully illustrated book, we are invited on a personal tour of daily life at San Ildefonso with Sonja, who is 10, and her 8 year-old sister Desiree. We meet Renee Roybal, who teaches her daughters the traditional San Ildefonso pottery technique. She holds a job in the computer division of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The girls’ father, Leon, who enjoys woodworking in his spare time, works in the Pueblo’s Tribal Office as Natural Resource Director.