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Mapping South
American Latina/o
Literature in the
United States
Interviews with
Contemporary Writers
JUANITA HEREDIA
Literatures of the Americas
Series Editor
Norma E. Cantú
Trinity University
San Antonio, TX, USA
This series seeks to bring forth contemporary critical interventions within
a hemispheric perspective, with an emphasis on perspectives from Latin
America. Books in the series highlight work that explores concerns in lit-
erature in different cultural contexts across historical and geographical
boundaries and also include work on the specific Latina/o realities in the
United States. Designed to explore key questions confronting contempo-
rary issues of literary and cultural import, Literatures of the Americas is
rooted in traditional approaches to literary criticism but seeks to include
cutting-edge scholarship using theories from postcolonial, critical race,
and ecofeminist approaches.
Mapping South
American Latina/o
Literature in the
United States
Interviews with Contemporary Writers
Juanita Heredia
Flagstaff, AZ, USA
This edited book of interviews has been a labor of love and much patience.
I am truly grateful to many individuals. This project began with brain-
storming ideas on South America, diaspora, and literature which trans-
formed dramatically into a full-fledged book.
First, I would like to begin with the writers interviewed, Daniel Alarcón,
Marie Arana, Kathleen De Azevedo, Carolina De Robertis, Patricia Engel,
Carmen Giménez Smith, Daisy Hernández, Jaime Manrique, Farid Matuk,
Julie Sophia Paegle, Mariana Romo-Carmona and Sergio Waisman.
Without your pioneer works and precious words, this project could never
have been born. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
My colleagues across the U.S. have been especially supportive on this
journey. I thank Frances Aparicio for giving me the opportunity to write
on South American Latino/a writers in the U.S. in the groundbreaking
The Routledge Companion to Latino/a Literature which set me off in all
kinds of directions in research and reading literature by this expanding
group of authors. I am wholeheartedly indebted to Héctor Calderón who
believed in this scholarship from the start and has been generous with
intellectual conversations and unwavering encouragement in the process.
For all the knowledge and experience that she brings to the table, I am
beyond gratitude of all Suzanne Oboler has written on South American
diasporas, U.S. Latinas/os in general, and continues to do so. Norma
Cantú, Barbara Curiel, María Herrera-Sobek, Lisbeth Gant-Britton, and
Sandra Ruíz have also been instrumental in support of this project.
At Northern Arizona University, I acknowledge the support from a
Scholarly Summer Grant and an NEH Summer Stipend nomination for
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ix
x CONTENTS
Bibliography 229
Introduction: Mapping South American
Latinidad in the United States
have examined how migrations from South America to the United States
have affected the representation of Latinas/os in literature and cultural
studies in a transnational context in the twenty-first century. By South
America, I refer to the geographical region south of Panama/Central
America, particularly Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and
Uruguay, nations that are heritages or homelands to the writers in this
collection. At a moment in time when Latinas/os have become the largest
growing cultural ethnic group in the United States, it is necessary to look
at the diversity within this population, because each group brings its own
history, cultural practices, and literary contributions which make the
Latina/o community very dynamic and versatile in the United States.
Mapping South American Latina/o Literature consists of interviews
with twelve authors who trace their descent from South American coun-
tries mentioned above. They discuss their education, literary influences,
intellectual formation, and journeys between South America and the
United States to demonstrate the historical events that have affected their
lives. This original scholarship points to a new direction in trans-American
literary studies within a broader context of world literature in the twenty-
first century because it examines the global dimensions of authors who
move between nations in the contemporary period, not just a one-sided
terminal migration from South America to the United States. As these
interviews show, the writers answer questions to probe a multi-faceted
identity affected by gender, class, languages, race, migrations, urbaniza-
tion, and social justice.
For this edited collection, I conducted interviews with these twelve
authors as a methodology that allowed me to produce new knowledge
with respect to a trans-American literary movement. This kind of study can
serve as a foundation for critical articles and monographs in research as
well as a useful resource for students in undergraduate and graduate
courses on U.S. Latina/o literature and culture. I interviewed most of the
authors in person in 2013–2015 close to their homes in Los Angeles,
Miami, New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington
D.C. I also had the privilege of meeting a few of them in their heritage
cities such as Lima and Montevideo which also helped me better compre-
hend the author in his/her South American environs. Each segment con-
sists of a brief biography and the interview, offering further understanding
of the historical context of South American–U.S. relations. Each interview
also emphasizes a different period of migration from the twentieth century
to the contemporary period that has affected each author.
INTRODUCTION: MAPPING SOUTH AMERICAN LATINIDAD… 3
its ties to the U.S. Before these nations became independent politically in
the nineteenth century, they were colonies of Spain and Portugal and,
thus, began the process of modernization in the colonial period of the
fifteenth century. Cities in South America like Bogotá, Buenos Aires,
Lima, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, and Santiago have become cultural
centers of globalization and urbanization due to the transnational migration
of their people discussed in collections such as The Lima Reader and The
Rio de Janeiro Reader. Each nation in South America has not only experi-
enced internal migrations with people moving from the provinces to cities
for work and education but these nations have also endured colonial lega-
cies such as African slavery, European, Middle Eastern and Asian immigra-
tions to construct exploding multi-ethnic metropolitan centers. The
authors interviewed are aware of these historical disruptions that have
affected their lives, their families and ancestors and through the writers’
words, they hold onto the memory of these powerful stories.
Many writers in this collection constitute fairly new voices within
Latina/o literary studies, some have gained prominence in both, Latina/o
literary circles and in venues such as The New York Times and The
Washington Post. However, scholars in academia have paid minimal critical
attention to the importance of their literary texts in the trans-American
literary canon. Ironically, some authors in this collection have received
much attention from wider world literature because they address global
issues in their texts that reach a readership beyond U.S. borders.
In many respects, this original scholarship advances the critical dialogue
initiated by José Luis Falconi and José Antonio Mazzotti’s edited The
“Other” Latinos: Central and South Americans in the United States (2008),
a special issue dedicated to South American Latinos in the U.S. in Latino
Studies (2005) edited by Suzanne Oboler, and scholarship by Marilyn
Espitia concerning South American migrations to the United States
(2004). These aforementioned works began the critical conversation
within the context of historical and migration patterns. On the other
hand, Mapping South American Latina/o Literature represents an impor-
tant contribution to the literary and cultural contexts by positioning South
American descent authors as creators of new epistemologies between the
U.S./Global North and South America/Global South. These Latina/o
authors do so by discussing the personal context of migrations to and from
their South American nation under specific historical circumstances, be it
in the narrative form, poetry, essay, or journalism, an endeavor that has
never been done before. Their words serve as testimonies to a kind of oral
INTRODUCTION: MAPPING SOUTH AMERICAN LATINIDAD… 5
Some of the authors interviewed (i.e. Daniel Alarcón, Marie Arana, Patricia
Engel, Jaime Manrique) have also formed personal relationships, friend-
ships, and professional alliances with South American authors because they
have been invited to book festivals at international venues over the years, for
example the annual HAY Festival in Cartagena, Colombia, an event that I
had the pleasure of attending in 2016. These collaborations between South
American and South American descent authors in the U.S. also exemplify a
new chapter in U.S. Latina/o literary studies that wishes to build literary
and cultural bridges across transnational lines. Moreover, it is significant to
underline that these South American descent authors are in general working
with authors of various nationalities in projects such as edited collections or
translations. In fact, the authors interviewed have had their own works of
fiction translated into numerous languages across the globe. One can easily
visit the authors’ websites and learn of the languages into which their works
have been translated or won international awards. This endeavor and effort
by publishers has made their works more accessible to a wider world reader-
ship that is further expanding U.S. Latina/o literature.
The authors interviewed also shared a strong concern with social jus-
tice, especially with respect to gender and racial equality, immigration, and
resistance against political or sexual violence, in their texts and in their
realities. Some have been social activists who defended the rights of
LGBTQ communities of color in the U.S.; others had experience in social
work or nonprofit organizations that also influenced their lives or creative
productivity in one way or another. For example, Daisy Hernández, Jaime
Manrique, Carolina De Robertis, and Mariana Romo-Carmona com-
mented on how revindicating the voices of marginalized communities in
history and society was significant in their works. All the authors in this
collection recognized the social injustices in their respective South
American nations as much as in the U.S. Kathleen De Azevedo, Carmen
Giménez Smith and Julie Sophia Paegle pay particular attention to the
mythology of female figures in history and popular culture. Over time the
authors interviewed have developed the ability to see behind institutional
racism and classism that affects a multitude of people across the Americas.
Perhaps the U.S. experience of diversity and inclusion enables them to
perceive these social injustices across global contexts and makes them
aware as transnational cultural ambassadors.
The interviews with the authors in this collection are listed alpha-
betically. I selected titles that reflected critical elements of where the
author was from, had lived or traveled, to inform something about their
8 J. HEREDIA
ten to a Peruvian mother and Argentine father, she spent her formative
years in San José, California. Although she was educated and trained as a
poet in the U.S., she explains the importance of returning to Lima, as an
adult and becoming immersed in contemporary Peruvian culture and lit-
erature. In addition to earning awards and honors for her poetry and
memoir, Giménez Smith comments on the current status of poetry in the
United States, Latina/o poets in particular, international poets and her
engagement with popular culture.
In “Gender and Spirituality in Colombia, Cuba, and New Jersey,”
Daisy Hernández discusses her evolution from her time at The New York
Times and Ms. magazine to her experiences at Colorlines in the San
Francisco Bay Area. During this time, she developed her vision of social
justice regarding race, immigration, LGBTQ communities and global
health issues. Hernández was born and raised in Union City, New Jersey,
to a Colombian mother and a Cuban father. Attentive to the multiple heri-
tages and languages in her formation as a journalist and author, she also
became aware of the role of media in disseminating local and global news,
realizing that reportage on violence against queer youth of color was rarely
told. This affected the stories she selected for her critically acclaimed
memoir for which she has earned national and international honors and
awards.
In “The Colombiano of Greenwich Village,” we meet author, critic,
and journalist Jaime Manrique who has lived most of his life in New York
City. He was born and raised in Baranquilla and Bogotá, Colombia, until
he was a teenager. While he is a worldwide traveler, having visited coun-
tries as diverse as Algeria, Peru, and Spain for his research, he maintains
close cultural and literary ties with Colombia. He discusses his literary
evolution and transition from Spanish to English since he began publish-
ing his works in the 1970s. He has earned numerous awards and honors
in the U.S. and abroad for his works that range from poetry, essays, novels,
and autobiography to literary and film criticism. Manrique considers the
importance of rethinking canonical authors and recovering marginal fig-
ures in Spanish, Latin American, and U.S. Latina/o literary traditions.
In “A Meditation on Parenting from Syria to Peru to the U.S.,” Farid
Matuk reflects on how his multiple heritages, languages, and travels to
South America have influenced him in becoming a poet, essayist, and
translator. Born in Lima, Peru, Farid Matuk left with his Syrian descent
family in Peru for the U.S. at the age of six and spent his formative years
in Anaheim, California. Having earned honors and awards for his poetry,
INTRODUCTION: MAPPING SOUTH AMERICAN LATINIDAD… 11
JH: When I met you in 2006, you mentioned that storytelling was very
important to you as a fiction writer, especially considering the role
your father played in telling you stories growing up. Could you
expand on how this aspect has influenced your writing, be it fiction
or journalism?
DA: Most writers are consciously or unconsciously filtering other peo-
ple’s stories into their fictional work. In my case, I’ve been inter-
ested in non-fiction and journalism for a long time. I’ve found this
THE TASK OF THE TRANSLATOR: DANIEL ALARCÓN 15
It was not a bit like Scotland Yard as Kathleen Kent had pictured it. It
was a kind of a yard certainly, for the grimy little street, flanked on
either side with the blank faces of dirty little houses, ended abruptly
in a high wall, over which were the gray hulls and fat scarlet funnels
of ocean-going steamers.
The driver of the cab had pulled up before one of the houses near
the wall, and a door had opened. Then the man who had sat with her
in glum silence, answering her questions in mono-syllables, grasped
her arm and hurried her into the house. The door slammed behind,
and she realized her deadly peril. She had had a foreboding, an
instinctive premonition that all was not well when the cab had turned
from the broad thoroughfare that led to where she had imagined
Scotland Yard would be, and had, taking short cuts through
innumerable mean streets, moved at a sharp pace eastward.
Ignorant of that London which begins at Trafalgar Square and runs
eastward to Walthamstow, ignorant, indeed, of that practical suburb
to which the modesty of an income produced by £4,000 worth of
Consols had relegated her, she felt without knowing, that Scotland
Yard did not lay at the eastern end of Commercial Road.
Then when the door of the little house slammed and a hand grasped
her arm tightly, and a thick voice whispered in her ear that if she
screamed the owner of the voice would “out” her, she gathered,
without exactly knowing what an “outing” was, that it would be wiser
for her not to scream, so she quietly accompanied her captor up the
stairs. He stopped for a moment on the rickety landing, then pushed
open a door.
Before the window that would in the ordinary course of events admit
the light of day hung a heavy green curtain; behind this, though she
did not know it, three army blankets, judiciously fixed, effectively
excluded the sunlight, and as effectually veiled the rays of a swing-
lamp from outside observation.
The girl made a pathetically incongruous figure, as she stood white
but resolute before the occupants of the room.
Kathleen Kent was something more than pretty, something less than
beautiful. An oval face with gray, steadfast eyes, a straight nose and
the narrow upper lip of the aristocrat, her lips were, perhaps, too full
and too human for your connoisseur of beauty.
She looked from face to face, and but for her pallor she exhibited no
sign of fear.
Although she was unaware of the fact, she had been afforded an
extraordinary privilege. By the merest accident, she had been
ushered into the presence of the “Borough Lot.” Not a very heroic
title for an organized band of criminals, but, then, organized criminals
never take unto themselves generic and high-falutin’ titles. Our
“Silver Hatchets” and “Red Knives” are boy hooligans who shoot off
toy pistols. The police referred to them vaguely as the “Borough Lot.”
Lesser lights in the criminal world have been known to boast that
they were not unconnected with that combination; and when some
desperate piece of villainy startled the world, the police investigating
the crime started from this point: Was it committed by one of the
Borough Lot, or was it not?
As Kathleen was pushed into the room by her captor, a hum of
subdued conversation ended abruptly, and she was the focus of nine
pairs of passionless eyes that looked at her unsmilingly.
When she had heard the voices, when she took her first swift glance
at the room, and had seen the type of face that met hers, she had
steeled herself for an outburst of coarse amusement. She feared—
she did not know what she feared. Strangely enough, the dead
silence that greeted her gave her courage, the cold stare of the men
nerved her. Only one of the men lost his composure. The tall, heavy-
looking man who sat at one end of the room with bowed, attentive
head listening to a little clean-shaven man with side-whiskers, who
looked for all the world like an old-fashioned jockey, started with a
muttered oath.
“Upstairs!” he roared, and said something rapidly in a foreign tongue
that sent the man who held the girl’s arm staggering back with a
blanched face.
“I—I,” he stammered appealingly, “I didn’t understand.”
The tall man, his face flushed with rage, pointed to the door, and
hastily opening the door, her captor half dragged the bewildered girl
to the darkness of the landing.
“This way,” he muttered, and she could feel his hand trembling as he
stumbled up yet another flight of stairs, never once relinquishing his
hold of her. “Don’t you scream nor nothing, or you’ll get into trouble.
You see what happened to me for takin’ you into the wrong room.
Oh, he’s a devil is Connor—Smith, I mean. Smith’s his name, d’ye
hear?” He shook her arm roughly. Evidently the man was beside
himself with terror. What dreadful thing the tall man had said,
Kathleen could only judge. She herself was half dead with fright. The
sinister faces of these men, the mystery of this assembly in the
shuttered room, her abduction, all combined to add terror to her
position.
Her conductor unlocked a door and pushed her in. This had
evidently been prepared for her reception, for a table had been laid,
and food and drink stood ready.
The door was closed behind her, and a bolt was slipped. Like the
chamber below, all daylight was kept out by a curtain. Her first
thoughts were of escape. She waited till the footsteps on the rickety
stairs had died away, then crossed the room swiftly. The drop from
the window could not be very far; she would risk it. She drew aside
the curtain. Where the window should have been was a sheet of
steel plate. It was screwed to the joists. Somebody had anticipated
her resolve to escape by the window. In chalk, written in an illiterate
hand, was the sentence:—
“You wont be hert if your senserble.
We want to know some questions
then well let you go. Dont make
a fuss or it will be bad for you.
Keep quite and tell us these questions
and well let you go.”
What had they to ask, or she to answer? She knew of nothing that
she could inform them upon. Who were these men who were
detaining her? During the next hours she asked herself these
questions over and over again. She grew faint with hunger and thirst,
but the viands spread upon the table she did not touch. The mystery
of her capture bewildered her. Of what value was she to these men?
All the time the murmur of voices in the room below was continuous.
Once or twice she heard a voice raised in anger. Once a door
slammed, and somebody went clattering down the stairs. There was
a door-keeper, she could hear him speak with the outgoer.
Did she but know it, the question that perplexed her was an equal
matter of perplexity with others in the house that evening.
The notorious men upon whom she had looked, all innocent of their
claim to notoriety, were themselves puzzled.
Bat Sands, the man who looked so ill—he had the unhealthy
appearance of one who had just come through a long sickness—was
an inquirer. Vennis—nobody knew his Christian name—was another,
and they were two men whose inquiries were not to be put off.
Vennis turned his dull fish eyes upon big Connor, and spoke with
deliberation.
“Connor, what’s this girl business? Are we in it?”
Connor knew his men too well to temporize.
“You’re in it, if it’s worth anything,” he said slowly.
Bat’s close-cropped red head was thrust forward.
“Is there money in it?” he demanded.
Connor nodded his head.
“Much?”
Connor drew a deep breath. If the truth be told, that the “Lot” should
share, was the last thing he had intended. But for the blundering of
his agent, they would have remained in ignorance of the girl’s
presence in the house. But the very suspicion of disloyalty was
dangerous. He knew his men, and they knew him. There was not a
man there who would hesitate to destroy him at the merest hint of
treachery. Candor was the best and safest course.
“It’s pretty hard to give you any idea what I’ve got the girl here for,
but there’s a million in it,” he began.
He knew they believed him. He did not expect to be disbelieved.
Criminals of the class these men represented flew high. They were
out of the ruck of petty, boasting sneak-thieves who lied to one
another, knowing they lied, and knowing that their hearers knew they
lied.
Only the strained, intent look on their faces gave any indication of
how the news had been received.
“It’s old Reale’s money,” he continued; “he’s left the lot to four of us.
Massey’s dead, so that makes three.”
There was no need to explain who was Reale, who Massey. A week
ago Massey had himself sat in that room and discussed with Connor
the cryptic verse that played so strange a part in the old man’s will.
He had been, in a way, an honorary member of the “Borough Lot.”
Connor continued. He spoke slowly, waiting for inspiration. A
judicious lie might save the situation. But no inspiration came, and
he found his reluctant tongue speaking the truth.
“The money is stored in one safe. Oh, it’s no use looking like that,
Tony, you might just as well try to crack the Bank of England as that
crib. Yes, he converted every cent of a million and three-quarters into
hard, solid cash—banknotes and gold. This he put into his damned
safe, and locked. And he has left by the terms of his will a key.”
Connor was a man who did not find speaking an easy matter. Every
word came slowly and hesitatingly, as though the speaker of the
story were loth to part with it.
“The key is here,” he said slowly.
There was a rustle of eager anticipation as he dipped his hand in his
waistcoat pocket. When he withdrew his fingers, they contained only
a slip of paper carefully folded.
“The lock of the safe is one of Reale’s inventions; it opens to no key
save this.” He shook the paper before them, then lapsed into silence.
“Well,” broke in Bat impatiently, “why don’t you open the safe? And
what has the girl to do with it?”
“She also has a key, or will have to-morrow. And Jimmy——”
A laugh interrupted him. “Curt” Goyle had been an attentive listener
till Jimmy’s name was mentioned, then his harsh, mirthless laugh
broke the tense silence.
“Oh, Lord James is in it, is he? I’m one that’s for ruling Jimmy out.”
He got up on his feet and stretched himself, keeping his eye fixed on
Connor. “If you want to know why, I’ll tell ye. Jimmy’s a bit too
finicking for my taste, too fond of the police for my taste. If we’re in
this, Jimmy’s out of it,” and a mutter of approval broke from the men.
Connor’s mind was working quickly. He could do without Jimmy, he
could not dispense with the help of the “Lot.” He was just a little
afraid of Jimmy. The man was a type of criminal he could not
understand. If he was a rival claimant for Reale’s millions, the gang
would “out” Jimmy; so much the better. Massey’s removal had
limited the legatees to three. Jimmy out of the way would narrow the
chance of his losing the money still further; and the other legatee
was in the room upstairs. Goyle’s declaration had set loose the
tongues of the men, and he could hear no voice that spoke for
Jimmy. And then a dozen voices demanded the rest of the story, and
amid a dead silence Connor told the story of the will and the puzzle-
verse, the solving of which meant fortune to every man.
“And the girl has got to stand in and take her share. She’s too
dangerous to be let loose. There’s nigh on two millions at stake and
I’m taking no risks. She shall remain here till the word is found.
We’re not going to see her carry off the money under our very
noses.”
“And Jimmy?” Goyle asked.
Connor fingered a lapel of his coat nervously. He knew what answer
the gang had already framed to the question Goyle put. He knew he
would be asked to acquiesce in the blackest piece of treachery that
had ever disfigured his evil life; but he knew, too, that Jimmy was
hated by the men who formed this strange fraternity. Jimmy worked
alone; he shared neither risk nor reward. His cold cynicism was
above their heads. They too feared him.
Connor cleared his throat
“Perhaps if we reasoned——”
Goyle and Bat exchanged swift glances.
“Ask him to come and talk it over to-night,” said Goyle carelessly.