Paula Lopez Crespin

Naive Paula Lopez Crespin

Naive is a humorous and thought-provoking, coming-of-age story set in Denver, Colorado during the mid 1970s. Nina is a girl caught between different worlds. As Denver continues to struggle with forced integration and the civil rights movement, Nina's divorced parents have different views of what it means to be Hispanic, living in the United States. Her mother feels her own fair skin and willingness to assimilate into the white culture are the keys to success. Nina's father is proud of his Mexican heritage and resents his ex-wife and the shame she is trying to instill in their children because of their dark skin. Meanwhile, Dee, Nina's best friend, who is white, has her own troubles fitting into a family where she just doesn't belong. Dee loves dating "foxy", street-wise Chicanos and urges Nina to embrace her Hispanic roots. Instead Nina has fallen in love with Calvin, a young black man on a football scholarship who attends a largely white college in a rural Colorado community. Nina confronts racism, date rape, teen pregnancy, dark family secrets and a hatred so strong that it eventually drives someone to murder.