Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/1001060
y grandmother Nancy Brazie, known as Manya to me, came into the world on August 13, 1946 in Highland Park, Illinois, where her father, Charles Brazie, was stationed at the time. ey soon moved to Detroit, then to northern Florida and then to Colorado Springs. By the time Manya was in rst grade, they were living in the Philippines, and her father was ghting in the Korean War. As she described to me, "He would go o and he would y in the war, and he would stop o in places like occupied Japan or ailand, and he would bring terric presents back to the house when he came home." Her favorite gift, as she fondly recalled, was a Chinese doll made of sand casting. She still has it today. However, Manya's life did not revolve around her father's work. In fact, she revealed to me that she didn't know much about the Air Force at all when she was a kid. When I asked her if it was scary knowing how dangerous her father's job was, she said, "I think young children don't think of things like that. We didn't have the media, we didn't have the TV showing us pictures of wars all the time ... e only thing we were ever told was that our dad was o ... in the Air Force, and that he was a pilot and that he was ying planes to help out America." Besides, even if Manya wanted to worry about her dad, she was already dealing with other, more immediate problems. As a smart young woman growing up in the '50s and '60s, life could be dull and highly disappointing. Being both bookish and a girl in those days was an unsatisfying combination, for there were few opportunities where girls could showcase their smarts. Instead of going out and exploring the world around her, Manya was forced to live a very passive and closed childhood. Her one escape from the domestic lifestyle she endured was reading. But even that wasn't enough to satisfy her curious and knowledge-seeking nature. At one point during the interview, Manya recounted something her mother had told her as a teenager, "I was very very smart, and in fact, my mother said to me one day, 'Nancy, I think life would be much easier for you if you weren't so smart.'" is quote proved to be true throughout her life. As Manya got older, her struggle as a woman didn't get any easier. After graduating from her high school in Italy — where, according to Manya, women were outlawed from wearing pants in 1962 — she returned to the United States and enrolled at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. ere, she met my abuelo, Alejandro Portes, a senior majoring in sociology. Manya was only 18 and unsure of her major. e classes that interested her were all very male-dominated, and their professors refused to acknowledge my grandmother's immense intellect. For example, in Manya's freshmen psychology class, the teacher made all the girls in the class sit in the back of the classroom, where they never got called on. Alejandro, on the other hand, seemed to appreciate her worldliness and curiosity. ey met on Friday, November 6, 1964 — just three months after Manya turned 18. "I wasn't too impressed," she said. Her indierence, however, was understandable. Manya was too busy with schoolwork to pay him much mind. Eventually, though, Alejandro won her over with an article he had written in the school newspaper on Kafka's Metamorphosis. It was then that she realized that she wasn't giving him enough credit. ey got married on January 22, 1966, a little more than a year after meeting. Unfortunately, her marriage forced Manya to drop out of college and start working to support her husband. After moving to Madison, Wisconsin, for Alejandro's work, Manya often had to work multiple jobs at once, and she barely had time to study for college. Even after dropping out, she still wanted to nd a way to graduate. About halfway through the interview, Manya described to me how she persevered through this dicult time in her life, "I ... had to work because the research assistantship that your abuelo had made very little money and didn't support the two of us. ... I did nd a way to take night classes at the University of Wisconsin. ... I took French, French literature, Spanish, Spanish literature and Persistence on the Portes Side of the Family M The following excerpt was written by Eva Murillo '22 as part of her eighth-grade family history project. "Being both bookish and a girl in [the '50s and '60s] was an unsatisfying combination, for there were few opportunities where girls could showcase their smarts." My Story 14 AROUND SCHOOL