Real Women Have Curves
04.28.02 // 2:15 a.m.

�It is only because I love you so much that I make your life terrible.� -Carmen in Real Women Have Curves

I have a new favorite movie. It�s the first time ever in my life that I have seen me in a film. Me! A Chicana with weight issues, an overbearing mother, dreams of going to college, and a social conscience. Well, me a few years ago.

Alright, so Ana (played by America Ferrera), the 18 year old heroine in Real Women Have Curves, is not exactly like me though I was told I resemble her.

I saw a lot of myself in Ana, something that I rarely find in the mainstream media�s portrayal of Chicanas and Latinas. I saw a young woman who did not have a body like J.Lo. Instead, she looked more like me. She had a brain and mouth� boy, did she have a mouth. In one scene she told her mother that a woman was more than what she had between her legs and questioned the value of virginity.

Instead of going to college, Ana�s parents insisted that she go to work in her sister�s sewing shop, a sweatshop pretty much. There she gazed at the formal dresses they made, a size seven that she would not fit into. She was the only one to speak out about the sub-standard conditions she and the other women worked in. Imagine getting paid $18 per dress that will later be sold at a fancy department store for $600.

Ana comes from a working class background, but took a few buses from East LA to school in Beverly Hills. Her father was a gardener, just like Pap� Chepe and her mother was a seamstress, like Grandma. Also, her parents were immigrants. Oh yeah, and she starts seeing a white boy from her school. Last, I heard the same phrase from my mother, �You would be so pretty if only you lost a little weight.� Ha! My mother may not be as mean as Carmen, played by Lupe Ontiveros, but I still got the feeling from her that I was never quite as thin as I should be, especially when I compared myself to her.

I�m lucky I even got tickets for this film. I got them through work because they co-sponsored the screening. The theater was packed, the stars of the film were there and so were the writer, Josefina Lopez, and the director, Patricia Cardoso (both graduates from UCLA�s School of Film and Television). The film won a few awards at Sundance in January and will be shown on HBO in September. Don�t miss out.

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