Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Author Sonia Pressman Fuentes joins BookGoodies hosts Deborah Carney and Karen Garcia to discuss writing, publishing and a lot of history.
What inspired you to write your memoir?
Several things inspired me to write my memoir. First, I was born in Berlin, Germany, of Polish Jewish parents, fled the Nazi regime with my parents, and came to the US, where I became a founder of the second wave of the women’s movement. Second, I played a historic role at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in interpreting the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, among other things, prohibited employment discrimination based on sex. Third, I was a founder of NOW (National Organization for Women). And, finally, my parents were born in Piltz, a village in Poland, and lived a lifestyle that was gone and I wanted to preserve the record of their lives and mine.
Eat First—You Don’t Know What They’ll Give You, The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter
Tell us about your book:
It is the story, told with humor, of my parents’ lives and my own. The book begins with my parents’ marriage in Piltz, the village in Poland where they were both born, and goes on to their lives and my own in Germany, Belgium, and the US. The book discusses my becoming a lawyer in 1957, when 3% of the law school graduates in this country were women, my career and marriage, and my becoming a founder of NOW. It ends with my returning to Germany in 1978 as an “American specialist” on the women’s rights movement in the US for the then-US Information Agency.
[Read more…]