When I was five, six, seven, and eight, I was standing between them. Sonia’s father drank a lot, and whenever he drank, he’d beat her mother. They’d move out, get a new place, and then her parents would reunite. Sonia’s mother left her father repeatedly when Sonia was a kid. SM: Well, when I was little I didn't ask her why - you know, why she would change her mind so much about my father. You would - you could not say, 'But what do you mean by that?' They would say either 'You'll know when you grow up,' or 'Shut up and get out of the way.'ĪS: And what were the things that -that you never asked your mom about when you were a little girl? SM: Adults always told you things, whether you understood it or not was meaningless to them.
Her parents moved there from Puerto Rico. Sonia Manzano grew up in the Bronx in the 1950s. SM: I don't know if it was a cultural thing, but you would never would question an adult.
The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot…and need to talk about more. You could get married young like my cousin who got engaged at 16. Sonia Manzano: There were two things you could be when I was a kid.
