I had been told by many members in my family that my grandmother wanted to sing professionally. I didn't really think this could be true, I've never once heard her sing. But they say in fact she was very close to making this dream of hers come true. When she met my grandfather she was only 15. She liked him and enjoyed his company, but I suppose he was really in love with her and decided to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Even though she objected her parents felt it would be best for her to raise a family. So they married and everything remained relatively normal until after having three children, somehow it became nearly impossible for my grandmother to conceive again. This wasn't acceptable to my grandfather as two were girls and he wanted more sons to carry on his name. That's when they say he began to abuse her.
It seems the women in our family have a long history of being taken advantage of by the people we love. More specifically, the men we love. At least this has been true of the maternal side of my family, since we know very little of my father and his family. No doubt that any woman of any race could be and has been taken advantage of. Though it seems more common for it to be accepted in Hispanic culture, just like Kingston's Chinese culture. Although I am hispanic, my mother didn't want to raise me with the customs she grew up with. She felt they would only confine me. As a child I was angry with her. A majority of my classmates were hispanic and teased me because I didn't speak enough Spanish to hold a conversation with them. They would also tease me because of my last name. As I became a teenager, my catholic schoolmates condemned me for being raised by a single parent. You'd think that by now people would have grown out of old fashioned ideals, but they really haven't. Things are slowly progressing but cultural issues still aren't far from where they were 50 years ago.