Going to Cartagena for Love in the Time of Cholera was by no means Benjamin Bratt's first visit to South America.
His mother was born and raised in Lima, Peru, and he's been there several times to visit family -- and this guy's family history is the stuff of novels. His mother, Bratt says, grew up dirt poor. Her grandmother was a maid for a wealthy American family, and she eventually took Bratt's mother with her to live in San Francisco with her wealthy employers. His mom was 14 when she arrived.
"Two years after landing in San Francisco, my great grandmother passed away, and the family adopted my mother as their own child.
"Truly a rags-to-riches story," he says. "She went to Wilkins, a private high school in Pacific Heights -- an area sometimes referred to as Specific Whites," he murmurs, and he laughs.
Later, when his mom and dad met and fell in love, there was family disapproval. "To my mom's adoptive family, he was from the wrong side of the tracks. She married him anyway and was subsequently disowned."
After seven years of marriage and five children, his parents divorced. Bratt's mother, a social activist involved with the American Indian movement, raised the whole brood on her own. Bratt's childhood included such adventures as living on Alcatraz Island during the occupation of the early 1970s.
He says, "Because of the upbringing I had, I was always a rule follower. I always wanted to do well. I think because of my mom. I could see the struggle she was having. She was alone, she was brokenhearted, we were on welfare for some years. She just didn't need the extra headache of me getting into trouble or being arrested."
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