Seca

SECA is the autobiography of a an intelligent, courageous, and decisive woman who, at the age of four, was given away by her mother to a wealthy couple during the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. "A part of me died that day" wrote Seca recalling the moment when she was turned over to her new "adoptive" mother. The "adoptive" mother turned out to be eccentric and psychologically unstable woman who subjected Seca to abuse, both physical and mental, mostly out of the sight of her...
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SECA is the autobiography of a an intelligent, courageous, and decisive woman who, at the age of four, was given away by her mother to a wealthy couple during the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. "A part of me died that day" wrote Seca recalling the moment when she was turned over to her new "adoptive" mother. The "adoptive" mother turned out to be eccentric and psychologically unstable woman who subjected Seca to abuse, both physical and mental, mostly out of the sight of her often-absent, coffee-farmer husband. Relocated to Guatemala after the death of the coffee farmer, at the age of ten, Seca grew up under the care of Catholic Sisters, while continuing to suffer from neglect and abuse by the increasingly demented "adoptive" mother.
SECA is a story of immigration and adaptation to new environments, not once, but twice in her lifetime. Seca found stability and gained a sense of belonging when she met and married Carlos, a union which lasted for more than fifty years. This autobiographical account of her life looks back several centuries at the family histories of both Seca and Carlos. Their life together, their economic struggles, and their family's eventual success in California are chronicled here as is her eventual physical and mental decline after the death of Carlos.
Seca lived through the rise of the Nazi Party, the Great Depression, various wars, banana republic politics and revolutions, CIA inspired and directed political Coups, Major Earthquakes, the tumultuous 1970s, great shifts in America's politics, and the transition from an industrial based economy to the age of electronics and high technology. She adapted well to the various shifts, but Seca always struggled with a sense of not belonging, of something missing from her life. In the end, Seca found the part of her missing all those years.