Mohr, Nicholosa | Marilyn Sachs
MARILYN SACHS
When Nilda Ramirez was nearly 10, a white policeman shouted, "God damn you people," at her and her neighbors. At other times in the course of this sad and beautiful book ["Nilda"], Nilda and her family are called "spics," "animals" and much worse. But they are always "you people" to the teachers, social workers, policemen, nurses and other white Americans who control their world.
What does it feel like being poor and belonging to a despised minority? Over the past 10 years many children's books have been written, exploring these very questions. Few come up to "Nilda" in describing the crushing humiliations of poverty and in peeling off the ethnic wrappings so that we can see the human child underneath.
Nilda is nearly 10 when the book begins in July, 1941, and 13 1/2 when it ends in May, 1945. The Second World War is there in the background, important only in its unimportance to a family whose daily struggles to survive are so...
[The entire page is 358 words long]
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