Authentic Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 in a family of Mexican extraction. She’s currently one of the most complex literary voices of the United States. 
Legend and history, poetry and prose, the radio and music, English and Spanish are interwoven in her writings like the threads that go to make up the warp and weft of a caramel coloured rebozo, the traditional Mexican shawl.
Straddling, as she does, both Mexico and the United States, we talk with her of the borders than run between tradition and modernity and of her capacity for building up a richer culture springing from the meeting of two different cultures, from their mutual contamination and from the impellent need to refresh the codes that make for a sense of belonging to a community.

With your book “Caramelo” you describe the continually altering Mexican-American world. How much does your cultural origin influence the American culture, fruit of a melting pot?
In my lifetime I’ve witnessed an incredible growth of the Mexican population in the U.S. Especially within the last ten years. This is most evident in the most universal area where communities converge: eating. Mexican food has become quite the rage of late. And I mean authentic Mexican food, not the Taco Bell chains that create a facsimile of Mexican cuisine, but the true Mexican food of the interior. This reality came home to me one day when I was aboard an airplane and breakfast was being served. Here we were at 30,000 feet above the earth and we were all eating breakfast tacos: scrambled eggs in a tortilla. I never thought I’d see the day an American airline would serve us the humble Mexican tortilla. These surreal moments happen more and more these days as the Mexican presence becomes so intricately enmeshed with the North American reality. Not only in gastronomy, but in fashion. Note the recent revival of painted Mexican skirts this summer, as well as the adoption of cholo wear fashioned after the Chicano street look. But I’d argue that influence is global. One of the more remarkable items of clothing I bought on my last trip from Madrid was a jacket with a cholo insignia on the back, and it was made by designers from Italy.

What does it mean to speak about Chicana culture?
The term “Chicano/a” is a political term, in much the same way that “feminist” is a word of political choice. There are many Mexican-Americans who do not like, use, or are familiar with the word. And recently I was startled to hear of a younger generation calling themselves “post Chicanos”.
I think of Chicano culture as a politicized culture that is neither Mexican nor American, but born from a country in the intellect. An invented country, perhaps, but certainly by someone who has enough political conscious to claim the word for herself. To call yourself Chicano means to be aware of the struggle and history of the Mexicans on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border. So I guess I’m saying someone has to have some social awareness to call themselves “Chicano/a”. It’s not the word of choice right now. I guess the word of choice is “hispanic” because the media and the government has colonized us with this term. Lately I’ve taken to calling myself Mexican so as not to differentiate myself from the illegal mexicans who are arriving in the U.S. I don’t want to separate myself from their struggle and their troubles, especially now when we’ve seen so much anti-immigrant sentiment. I’ve never seen the Mexicans stand up and call themselves Chicanos to defend us, but maybe this is a way to make them learn about who we are.

How difficult is it to abandon one’s own traditions in order to feel part of a new nation?
I truly do not know the answer to this question as I have never abandoned my own traditions. I am both Mexican and American simultaneously. I grew up eating tamales at Christmas, or making tacos out of the Thanksgiving turkey. U.S culture and Mexican culture has enhanced who I am, and the mix of the two has created something new. Sometimes the values of one is at odds with the other, but I’ve managed to balance both cultures to arrive at who I am. When I am travelling in Mexico, I’m most conscious that I am not a mexicana, and when I travel north from the border, I realize how much I’m not a gringa either. I’m neither this nor that, I’m an amphibian, able to live on land and water, but most at home in the middle place, the muddy loam, the rich place in between.