Maria Mcshea

Alma's Colors Maria Mcshea

It is the 1950s and eight-year-old Alma is no stranger to struggles. While growing up in a one-bedroom house in Argentina, Alma discovers there are two things she knows for sure: she will not be poor, and one day something extraordinary will happen to her. What she does not know is that just four years later, she will be on her way to America as an immigrant. As life leads Alma and her parents to a new home in Philadelphia, she soon becomes aware that Americans have many preconceptions about her. While the chaos of the Civil Rights Movement brings unfamiliar challenges that include unfair racial labels, Alma must also fight to protect her mother from her father, learn a new language, and adapt to the culture of her new land. As life leads her into adulthood and beyond, now it is up to her to summon the inner-strength she needs to change the colors of her life. Alma's Colors tells the story of an Argentinian immigrant as she adjusts to a new life in twentieth-century America.