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 Entertainment | Books | June 2007 
Author Describes Discovery of Her Ancestors' Stories
 Rigoberto González - El Paso Times
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| | "The Desert Remembers My Name" by Kathleen Alcalá (University of Arizona Press, $14.95 paperback). |
Author of the widely known story collection "Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist," plus a trilogy of novels that take place in late 19th-century Mexico, Kathleen Alcalá now has gathered essays, process notes, speeches and journal entries in "The Desert Remembers My Name." The new book provides insights into the explorations of politics, history, faith and creativity.
Alcalá was born into a family at the "intersection of culture and religion - too Mexican to be Protestant, too Protestant to be Jewish, too Jewish to be Mexican," but also a family of storytellers on both sides of the border. Her early experiences navigating two countries and two languages set her on that path to a lifelong passion: "I began to write fiction in order to explain the world to myself - there were too many fragmented and unfinished stories around me."
Recognizing that her own family provided the rich material for her writing, Alcalá stumbles upon the revelations that "the skeletons in our closet turned out to be ethnic and religious." Her family roots in Northern Mexico were shrouded in mystery, partly because of her family's practice of Judaism before a series of religious conversions. A connection to the indigenous Opata also existed. Both lineages were suppressed "for reasons of social status and, in the past, in order to keep their lives."
A personal, but also a professional, journey commences for Alcalá. She makes many trips to the archives and communities of Mexico, exploring the memories of her ancestors, many of whom left a wealth of information through the legacy of their stories. Alcalá undertakes an exhausting process of recovery and preservation of knowledge, much of which is used in her imaginative novels - a development she now details in these remarkable essays.
The essays also illustrate Alcalá's position as a political thinker. She writes about subjects such as infanticide, terrorism and feminism, grounding an earlier assertion that the good writer cultivates a strong voice through which he or she responds as an active citizen of the world.
Alcalá's own voice is at turns sassy, curious, lyrical and inspirational, but always fluid and confident. She knows she's communicating something important.
"The Desert Remembers My Name" is a must-read for young artists who wish to explore the writer's process and to demystify the research method. But this book will undoubtedly also find a wide readership in those curious about genealogy or the complexities of Mexican history and religion. Those familiar with Alcalá's body of work will certainly benefit the most from the essays that reference her books; those who don't will want to seek them out immediately.
Aside from Pat Mora's "Nepantla: Essays from the Land in the Middle," Chicana literature suffers from a dearth of writings about writing. Alcalá's articulate and engaging collection is an important addition, and one that will enlighten and educate for years to come.
Rigoberto González is an award-winning writer living in New York City. His Web site is at www.rigobertogonzalez.com, and he may be reached at Rigoberto70@aol.com. |
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