Narrating the Border: An Interview with Lucrecia Guerrero

 

by Wendy Caldwell

Francis Marion University

 

 

 

            A new voice to contemporary Mexican-American literature, Lucrecia Guerrero explores the hybrid nature of border culture in the U.S. through her writing. In her narratives, the author creates a series of fragmented images in which indigenous, Mexican, and North American identities, each with its own internal diversity, interweave to form a unique, albeit complex, intercultural tapestry. Perhaps the most distinctive attribute of Guerrero’s work to date lies in her multifaceted portrayal of the border effect. As in the case of her short story collection, Chasing Shadows (2000), her protagonists’ lives become inextricably connected as they find themselves confronted by an intricate system of internal and external barriers that surround them and their community. In effect, her carefully crafted characters serve as vehicles through which Guerrero examines the intersection of memory, myth, displacement, language, culture, race, gender, and social class.

            Presently working on her first novel, Guerrero has published numerous short stories in well-known literary journals, a book of short stories entitled, Chasing Shadows, for which she received a Pushcart Prize nomination, and was recently included in Fantasmas: Supernatural Stories By Mexican-American Writers (2001). The following is an interview conducted with Guerrero in Dayton, Ohio in the spring of 2002.  It offers insight into the writer’s self-journey and presents a distinct perspective on the act of writing as a tool of empowerment for the Chicano community.

 

WC: Where did you spend your childhood?  What are some memories that come to mind?

 

GUERRERO: My family and I left Ohio when I was very young.  My father’s family is from Puebla and Mexico City, so we spent a lot of time with family there.  Also, my father’s business had offices in different cities in Mexico, so we traveled quite a bit.  English was my first language.  My father insisted that my sister and I learn to speak English first since we were Americans born in the U.S. and were American citizens.  However, when we went to Mexico, he told us, “This is Mexico.  Here we speak Spanish.” I was very young, and I don’t remember thinking of this as a problem.  We played with our cousins and friends and soon were speaking Spanish.  Once we were to begin school, my mother, an Anglo-American from Kentucky, wanted us to attend American schools, so my father opened an office in Nogales, Sonora and we lived in Nogales, Arizona.  That’s where I grew up.  And I should probably add that I believe that the way I think, the way I write, has been influenced by the Indians of that area, mostly Yaqui.  They were Chicanos, yes, but with that background.  I read an interview of Alberto Rios once where he explained how we pronounce some words (Spanish) differently in that area—he attributed this to the Yaqui influence.  Quién sabe?  I do know it was common to hear “nadien” for “nadie,” “bichi” for “desnudo.”  Also, some of my friends’ mothers would often tell us stories that may be considered scary or supernatural, I guess, in this part of the country, but for us, it was common to hear of someone seeing a spirit...

 

WC: For you, what does it mean to be Chicana?  Do you feel the “border effect” that so many Chicano writers portray in their works?

 

GUERRERO: For me, it is a particular culture, one that is strongly influenced by Mexico and the U.S. and yet has developed into a culture of its own.  Chicanos are a mix of Spanish, indigenous, and “American.”  I definitely feel the “border effect.”  It will always be where I feel most at home. 

 

WC: To what extent have you experienced the marginalization and displacement that some of your characters seem to portray?

 

GUERRERO: I am a very private person, so I don’t like to discuss my personal life.  I can say, however, that I have always felt as a bit of an outsider, no matter where I am.  I suspect many writers share this feeling of being different. 

 

WC: What are you currently writing? 

 

GUERRERO: [I am] currently working on a novel.  I don’t like to talk about a story while I’m writing it—seems to kill it.  [...]  The main reason for not talking in detail about it is that I believe, as do many writers, that if you tell the story you risk losing the desire to write the story.  In general, it is a story of redemption.  It will be told from three points of view: an aging Mexican woman, now impoverished, but once a member of an affluent family; a thirty-ish woman in Indiana whose marriage is crumbling; a Chicano visual artist who volunteers to work among some of Mexico’s orphans.

 

WC: How long have you been writing?

 

GUERRERO: I remember writing poetry as a child but stopping suddenly for some reason I don’t recall.  I don’t keep journals the way many writers do and didn’t write a short story until my senior year in college.  My professor was very encouraging, but life was full of responsibilities after graduation, and I wouldn’t write again until years later.  It was a “now and then” type of thing until about five years ago when I had a near death experience.  I made a list of things that I always wanted to do, but had never had (or never made) the time for—writing a book topped the list.  It was then I began to write seriously, determined to write a book even if it was never published. 

 

WC: Why do you write?

 

GUERRERO: I need to.  Now that I always make time for some writing in my life, I don’t know how I existed all those years without it.  It helps me understand myself and the images that haunt me, some for years.

 

WC: Let’s talk about Chasing Shadows.  How did these stories come to you?

 

GUERRERO: I began with one, “The Girdle,” and fiddled around with it for some time.  It was critic and writer, Joe David Bellamy, who first suggested I write “a bunch of these” after he had read the story.  “The Girdle,” like many of my stories begins with a haunting mental image, sometimes of something I remember, other times an image that simply forms in my thoughts and stays with me.

 

WC: The title, Chasing Shadows, could be interpreted in a variety of ways: chasing shadows from the past, trying to grasp an intangible future, etc.  What does it mean to you? 

 

GUERRERO: It began with an image—I distinctly remember chasing the cloud shadows that so often race across the Sonoran desert.  The name felt right for these characters, who, like so many of us, delude themselves about a reality that they cannot or will not accept.  I only know that I knew that it fit as a metaphor for the people of Mesquite.

 

WC: Is Mesquite Nogales, where you spent your childhood?  Or is it your own mythical Aztlán?

 

GUERRERO: Although Nogales is also a border town, Mesquite is not Nogales.  It can be all that is Nogales and more—all that I make it.  I don’t know that I would call it my Aztlán.

 

WC: Do you identify with a specific character(s) in your book or with all of them?  For instance, Cookie mentions having lived in Ohio—any connection to you?

 

GUERRERO: I chose places that were similar to those I’m familiar with.  At least that’s true for Ohio—Cookie could have been living in a number of states and it wouldn’t have made any difference to her character.  The border, however, was crucial.

 

WC: Do all of the names of your characters have symbolic meaning?  Joaquín, for example is from Joaquín Murrieta...How about the other characters?  Do they all draw on mythical figures?

 

GUERRERO: Yes, I did think of Joaquín as a bigger than life character, a myth that gives people hope and courage.  Does it matter that hope and courage are based upon such a person?  Who knows?  I was playing with the idea of the Virgin of Guadalupe (the medal around her neck) with which the Spanish would try to replace the Aztec deity.  And of course, the hummingbird, small, beautiful, but fierce fighters. 

 

WC: Even though this is a book of short stories, the stories are woven together through recurring characters.  Any thoughts?

 

GUERRERO: It didn’t begin that way, but rather developed in that direction.  Once an agent saw them and agreed to represent me, she encouraged me to link them even more to make them more marketable.  The publishers, in fact, did like the linking, wanted even more than I originally had.

 

WC: How much did the publishers affect your authentic voice?

 

GUERRERO: Very little.  I feel these were mostly structural changes and did not affect my authentic voice.  My editor, Jay Schaefer, was great.   

 

WC: In your first story, “Even in Heaven,” there were moments when you describe Cookie’s past life that brought to mind Laura Esquivel’s Como agua para chocolate.  Do you feel that there are any writers who have affected or shaped your own writing? 

 

GUERRERO: At sixteen, I adored Herman Hesse.  As an undergraduate, I liked Fitzgerald.  Later, I would come to admire Faulkner.  These days, I like Sherman Alexie, Junot Diaz.  I’ve probably been influenced by these writers and many others.  But if so, it’s not a conscious effort. 

 

WC: It’s interesting that your principal influences seem to stem from male writers, some of them from the traditional canon.  Do you identify with Chicana writers and their movement?  How do you feel about the notion of “women’s writing?”

 

GUERRERO: I certainly can’t argue with your observations.  I did name all men.  [The] fact is, each time I’m asked this question, the list may vary.  [It] depends on what I’m reading at the time or my mood.  I very much like Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Sandra Cisneros, Tillie Olson, and so many others.  A writer (another man) that I’ve read quite a bit of...and would have to add to my list is Luis Alberto Urrea.  [There are] so many good writers out there.

            During my studies at a small midwestern university, the assigned readings were usually from the traditional canon, so, yes, that influence is definitely there.  I managed to complete a B.A. and M.A. in English without ever being exposed to one Latina writer.  Even today, many people don’t understand the difference between a Latin American and what is now referred to as a Latino writer.  It’s much more than the fact that one writes in Spanish and the other usually in English.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked if someone translated my book into English.  This even though I’m standing there speaking English without a foreign accent!

            I identify with writers who are serious about the craft and art of writing.  I want to write good stories.  So far, all my stories have included characters who are Chicano or of Mexican-American descent, and I don’t see that changing.  I would like my writing to be judged on its merits, rather than as a curiosity.  My writing should sit alongside of other American writers, be they male or female, Latino, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish, Chinese, or any of the other many diverse voices in our country.       

 

 

A List of Lucrecia Guerrero’s Works:

 

1996. “Blanca Rosa.” El Locofono 2: 71-80.

 

2000. “The Chameleon.” Colorado Review 27: 122-36.

 

2000. Chasing Shadows. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 

 

1997. “The Girdle.” Dayton Daily News (18 July). 

 

1999. “Gloves of Her Own.” ByLine Magazine (April): 20-24. 

 

2001. “Hotel Arco Iris.”  Fantasmas: Supernatural Stories By Mexican American

            Writers, ed. Rob Johnson, 139-150. Tempe, Ariz.: Bilingual Press.