Resource and Lesson Ideas for: Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun
Elise Weisenbach, Branford High School, Branford, CT, eweisenbach@branford.k12.ct.us
Introduction: Madre is a wonderful book for students for many reasons. It is a delightful way to
learn about Mexico, the social structure, gender, food, iconography, and the pre-Hispanic, colonial and
contemporary history. Also, through many anecdotes, it explains the challenges for an English-speaking,
Spanish-learning American living abroad as well as for Mexicans experiencing life in the United States.
Most importantly, Madre puts language into context, which grammar books do not do, and
demonstrates to the second-language learner that language has context, meaning has circumstance,
and both language and meaning change over time. Furthermore, the book plays with the fact that
language may seem inflexible, when reading a dictionary or a grammar, but inside conversations it is
fluid and malleable, rather than hard and fast. These aspects of language are easily learned when living
abroad. Madre is a wonderful early substitute/preparation for a pre-abroad experience.
Madre is best used throughout a course. Because there are numerous references to history,
architecture, grammar, character, food, social class, and religion, chapters or parts of chapters can be
assigned throughout the semester and used as springboards for class discussions that correspond with
other assignments and activities in class. Madre is written in English, class discussions are in Spanish.
Caveat: The language in Madre, in a few of the chapters, is strong, like Catcher in the Rye. I am
using the book in my classes in the following ways, selections vary from class to class, as I teach
Intermediate up to Honors Levels:
1. Essential Questions (5 examples)
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How does understanding one case study, the word “madre” in Mexico, help us
understand the relationship of language to culture and society more broadly?
How do cultural stories (or mythologies) reflect and create a culture's core beliefs
about itself, origin, identity, place in the universe? Why are certain cultural
characteristics enduring?
How can past events in language shape present and future linguistic events?
How does learning new grammar elements enhance reading, comprehension and
speaking fluency?
2. Entire book: Required summer reading for honors/AP or extra credit assignment.
--Students are instructed to read the entire book and apply various colored stickies to mark:
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Expressions using the word madre
Class/society/the “Mexican character”
Pre-Hispanic culture/history
Colonial history –to- late 19th century
20th -to-21st century
Gender- including references to the Mexican Grande Dames- (Tonantzín, La Malinche, La
Virgen de Guadalupe, La Llorona, la Catrina , Sor Juana), machismo
Language- grammar and vocabulary and phonology
Mexican food and beverage
--Students complete “organizational charts” to structure in writing the information learned. They are
asked to use the information from the charts during group activities in class.
--Class activities include, although not limited to: creation of food/beverage slide show (in the book,
there is mention of hot chocolate, tamales, huitlacoche, mangoes, hot sauce, et cetera); a slide show on
Mexico City and/or Oaxaca, showing locations mentioned in the book; thematic shows and discussions
centered around topics or other topics noted in the organizational chart; personal and scholarly crosscultural comparisons; and chalk-talk activities.
--Written activities in Spanish include:
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Examination of one of the book’s themes in the organizational chart
Exploration of the “Mexican character” (a topic to be discussed as well as defined) and values
Research Malinche, Virgin of Guadalupe, La Llorona La Catrina and write an essay or create slide
show about them.
A short biography of the author, as an outsider, a researcher, an English-speaker, based on
information in Madre
Cultural comparison reflection
3. Using parts of the book: Sections of the books would be required reading for Intermediate students.
Spanish writing activities:
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Read pages 12-13 (Begin with “I had started the first day…. “ and end with “It became my
home although I never fully fit in.”) and describe the author’s apartment and surroundings
in the present tense.
Read pages 12-13 Re-tell the author’s first day of her Madre journey, using the preterite
and imperfect tense.
Read page 37-describe Armando’s family, using the past tense.
Slide shows and other activities
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Read chapter Wedding, pages 24-45, and create a slideshow/video or dramatization of
going to a wedding with Armando.
Read chapter Back to Church pages 158-180, and discuss with students the importance of
religion in Mexico.
Have students research/write/ create slide show about the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Create a slide show of Virgin of Guadalupe in pop culture (street art, tattoos etc.) and
discuss guadalupanismo.
Create a slide show of Mexican churches-the church of Santo Domingo in Oaxaca, the
cathedral in Mexico City (note construction dates and histories).
--Read page 38 and use for a class discussion about the use of Ud. vs. tú
--Read pages 31-33 for a discussion on the use of the subjunctive. Ask students to discuss
the pluses of the subjunctive.
--Read Chapter Lost in Los, pages 109-140, for a class discussion of grammatical genders.
--Read chapter Sounding it Out, pages141-157, and discuss with students other areas of
language, English or Spanish, where sounds carry more than conventionalized meaning.
To contact Elise Weisenbach: eweisenbach@branford.k12.ct.us
For more information on Madre, including pdf excerpt, go to: www.lizabakewell.com
Discussion questions to accompany Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun
College-University Level, Professor A. Gallin
1. Throughout the first half of the book, the author describes how she will never fit into Mexican
society. She writes, “I stayed here for two years. I lived here. It became my home, although I
never fully fit in.” (p. 13) Her blond hair and blue eyes, “New England, graduate-student look of
high necklines and non-tailored, loose-fitting clothes” and her accent prohibit her from fully
integrating. She thinks that if she buys “a pair of very high heels, stop wearing black, paint my
fingernails (and, also, grow them), drop my neckline, and do something with my hair—other
than tie it behind my head with the rubber band that held together yesterday’s newspaper” (p.
14) she just might begin to fit in a bit.
Describe a time in your life when you felt like an outsider, no matter how hard you tried
and fit in.
If you are not a member of the dominant culture within a society, is it ever possible to
fully integrate? Why or why not? If it is, how does one do it? Give examples of someone you
know.
2. After describing an incident when a taxi driver asks if she has children, on pg. 18 Bakewell
writes,
“…Armando gave me a what-planet-are-you-from look…and continued to roll his eyes.
As did all my friends here, when I played back the day’s events for them because to Armando
and everyone else it was obvious. But to me, nothing ever is when it arrives in a foreign
language, traveling over a foreign geography through foreign air and sunlight, bubbling up from
foreign soil, where it had rested during a foreign night before.” (p. 18)
Have you ever had a similar experience, either in the US or in another country?
3. Do you think Bakewell speaks in English or in Spanish with her Mexican friends and
colleagues?
4. Pg. 27: In reference to Mexican painter, Magali Lara, Bakewell writes “Warm houses,
kitchens, food, and savory smells came to her mind, when she thought of Mexican mothers.”
What comes to your mind when you think of North American mothers, relatives or your
friends’ mothers, or your own mother, wherever she may be from?
5. Pg. 31-32: “As it turned out,…” to end of paragraph. Excellent description of the subjunctive.
Pg. 33: “This hopeful, optimistic, doubtful, ambiguous, ambivalent, uncertain, very real mode of
discourse was convenient for Armando because it helped him sidestep touchy topics that
concerned pinning things down to who, what when, where, and why.”
What is your understanding of the subjunctive, i.e., when it is used or appropriate to
use, and is there any aspect of the English language that allows speakers to communicate in the
same way?
6. Neither Armando, Pablo nor the famous Mexican writer, Carlos Fuentes want to explicitly
explain or translate any of the madre expressions to Bakewell. Do you think they would
translate them if Bakewell were a man?
7. On pg. 83, Bakewell writes, “It’s not about mothers so much as it is about men and the
disdain men have for their mothers…These mother insults are about power and control over
women who exercise power and control over their children at home. The sons, especially, don’t
like it.” A few pages later she writes, “The hijas (daughters) I’ve met down here don’t seem to
have this knotted up relationship with their mothers.”
Why do you think men do not like the “power and control” their mothers have over
them but it does not seem to bother the women, at least not in the same way?
8. Pg. 93, when discussing piropos with a young college-aged woman, Odette, Bakewell writes,
“Odette felt it was okay to have her body complimented by men on the street, but most
compliments, she believed, were sexist.”
How do you interpret Odette's belief/opinion?
9. Pg. 117 Bakewell writes, “Existential or practical, all six of us—Lilian, Beyti, Amparo, Juliana,
Enrique, and I—not to mention others, over the past nine years, have talked about how women
in the Spanish-speaking world go about their daily lives having to guess, ‘Are we part of the los
or not?’
Do you agree with this statement or do you think most women do not question this
aspect of the los? Or know intuitively if they are included? Or question it but for such a split
second it is imperceptible?
For more information on Madre, including pdf excerpt, go to: www.lizabakewell.com