Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds Genres: Mexican American Literature Buy the Book • Goodreads
“A deeply meaningful collection that navigates important nuances of identity.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Top Five 2021 Books on Race and Ethnicity by Diverse Voices Book Review
Nepantla Familias brings together Mexican American narratives that explore and negotiate the many permutations of living in between different worlds—how the authors or their characters create, or fail to create, a cohesive identity amid the contradictions in their lives. Nepantla—or living in the in-between space of the borderland—is the focus of this anthology. The essays, poems, and short stories explore the in-between moments in Mexican American life—the family dynamics of living between traditional and contemporary worlds, between Spanish and English, between cultures with traditional and shifting identities. In times of change, family values are either adapted or discarded in the quest for self-discovery, part of the process of selecting and composing elements of a changing identity.
Edited by award-winning writer and scholar Sergio Troncoso, this anthology includes works from familiar and acclaimed voices such as David Dorado Romo, Sandra Cisneros, Alex Espinoza, Reyna Grande, and Francisco Cantú, as well as from important new voices, such as Stephanie Li, David Dominguez, and ire’ne lara silva. These are writers who open and expose the in-between places: through or at borders; among the past, present, and future; from tradition to innovation; between languages; in gender; about the wounds of the past and the victories of the present; of life and death.
Nepantla Familias shows the quintessential American experience that revives important foundational values through immigrants and the children of immigrants. Here readers will find a glimpse of contemporary Mexican American experience; here, also, readers will experience complexities of the geographic, linguistic, and cultural borders common to us all.
Introduction / Sergio Troncoso —
Nonfiction:
Here, there / David Dorado Romo —
Life as Crossing Borders / Sergio Troncoso —
Losing my Mother Tongue / Reyna Grande —
Día de Muertos / Stephanie Elizondo Griest —
Calle Martín de Zavala / Francisco Cantú —
The Wonder Woman T-Shirt / Rigoberto González —
In(toxic)ated Masculinity / Alex Espinoza —
Piacularis / Domingo Martinez —
All the Pretty Ponies / Oscar Cásares —
Nobody’s Favorite / Lorraine M. López —
Elote Man / David Dominguez —
Paco / Stephanie Li —
The Hole in the House / Sheryl Luna —
Letter to the Student Who Asks Me How I Managed to Do It / José Antonio Rodríguez —
Poetry:
The Last Time I Went to Church / José Antonio Rodríguez —
Duty / Sheryl Luna —
Self-Portrait in the Year of the Dog / Deborah Paredez —
Why You Never Get in a Fight in Elementary School / Octavio Quintanilla —
Jarcería Shop / Sandra Cisneros —
Garden of Gethsemane / Diana Marie Delgado —
You’re tired of your life / Octavio Quintanilla —
The Soul / Diana Marie Delgado —
Fiction:
Dutiful Daughter / Diana López —
Melancholy Baby / Severo Perez —
Mundo Means World / Octavio Solis —
Border as Womb Emptied of Night and Swallows / ire’ne lara silva —
Family Unit / Rubén Degollado —
The Surprise Trancazo / Helena María Viramontes —
Mujeres Matadas / Daniel Chacón —
The Astronaut / Matt Mendez —
