troglestop

You’ve spent many years in El Paso, Texas, which is but a few miles from the Mexican border, and you currently teach at the university there. How has life as a Mexican American helped you dive deeper into the story you’ve told here? What unique and multiple perspectives did it allow you to breathe life into?
El Paso is not a few miles from the Mexico border, it is on the Mexican border—and my border, on the surface, has nothing to do with this particular novel. And yet, inevitably, place becomes a character in all my work, so much so that a reader cannot imagine that the story could have been told from any other geographical setting. I normalize the border instead of sensationalizing it. The border may be murderous at certain times, but there is a helluva lot of living going on. The border isn’t simply a nightmare, conjured up by the two countries it glues together. The border isn’t simply a metaphor, nor is it simply a place where two countries meet and clash and embrace. The border can be seen as an economic, social and cultural safety valve for both the United States and Mexico. But for those of us who live here, the border is home. It does not stand for apocalypse but for normalcy. Mexican Americans who live here understand that, in some ways, they belong to two countries and yet belong to neither.
For your central characters, you’ve crafted the young, complex and introspective Sal, Sam and Fito. In the face of all their struggles and harsh realities, what is it about them that enables them to retain—and evolve—their individual humanities?
When the novel begins, Sal has never had to face any harsh realities. He has lived his life with his father, who is nurturing and protective, and with his extended family; he is a young man who is clearly adored. All his life, Sal has felt comfortable and safe, and he feels perfectly fine right where he is. His father is affectionate and decent, and Sal has never been confronted with the complexities or inconsistencies of life. And then, all of a sudden, he has to deal with events he is not fully prepared to deal with. But precisely because he is so deeply loved and grounded, and precisely because his identity has been forged by a profound love, he is able to grasp that he is not and has never been alone. With the help of Sam and Fito and his dad, he finds the strength to deal with the changes that life, in its unpredictability, throws at him. Download Granny 2.0
In contrast to Sal, Sam and Fito have always had to deal with some harsh realities. Sam and her mother have always had a difficult relationship, and in essence, she is an absent mother both in the literal and emotional sense that those words imply. Sam’s situation forced her to learn very early on in her life to be tough, to be independent and to make her own way in the world. It is those very gifts that help her not only to survive, but to become the kind of person she wants to become. She does not run away from what she feels, but neither is she in control of her emotional life. In the end, she learns to accept the things that befall her with a kind of dignity and grace without sacrificing the most treasure qualities she possesses.