Mario Huacuja
One of the most striking memories of my early childhood is that of my encounter with the Statue of Liberty. I would have been four or five years old, and the sight of it filled me with awe; I had never seen a woman so big. Everything about her was larger than life. Her green copper colour, the strength of her arm raised to the sky, the elegance of her tunic, the golden flame of her torch and her vacant expression marked me forever. It was as if the world had been arranged to bring about that moment; my mother and I had boarded the ferry at Battery Park after walking around the walls of Clinton Castle, and I had barely begun to rock with the waves in one of the ferry’s indoor seats when sleep overtook me. On waking, before I’d completely shaken off my slumber, the Statue loomed over me with all the force of her two hundred and twenty tons, and as my bewildered eyes passed over her figure I couldn’t decide whether she was the colossal virgin of a Catholic church or a petrified monster that had escaped from my worst nightmares.
