Abstract
Set in the 1980s of a fictionalized Peru, Rosa follows seventeen-year-old Rosa Quispe from the small coastal town of Payanana. After her older sister Lola ran away from home to marry a man their parents disapproved of, Rosa is left wondering what kind of future she wants, only knowing that she wants a life unchanged, a seemingly impossible request as developers begin settling on the edge of her town. Amid rising protests against the Condori Mining Company (CMC), Rosa receives news that her sister died in childbirth and the man had abandoned their son. She ventures to Yachana to pick up her nephew, Percy, and raise him as her own. Unable to return home, she faces a daunting new beginning in the bustling city of Yachana where she faces the grief of losing her sister and the hardship of raising a child on her own. While in Yachana, she befriends her neighbors, including an old woman named Doña Julia, a seamstress that takes in Rosa as her apprentice. After years of practicing sewing and design, Rosa discovers new ways of how to keep her sister alive, with stories woven into fabric ready to be shared with Percy when he’s older. As Rosa begins to heal within her new community, she is finally able to go home to face the man who abandoned her sister and the changes she had always been afraid of.