Black Dove. Ana Castillo

      

      Published in 2016 by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York

      The Graduate Center

      365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406

      New York, NY 10016

       feministpress.org

      First Feminist Press edition 2016

      Copyright © 2016 by Ana Castillo

      All rights reserved.

      This book is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

      This book was made possible thanks to a grant from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      First printing May 2016

      Cover photo and design by Drew Stevens

      Text design by Suki Boynton

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Castillo, Ana, author.

      Title: Black dove : essays on mama, mi’jo, and me / Ana Castillo.

      Description: New York : The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2016.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2015048671 | ISBN 9781558619241

      Subjects: LCSH: Castillo, Ana. | Castillo, Ana—Family. | Mexican American women authors—20th century—Biography. | Mothers and daughters—United States—Biography. | Mexican American families—Biography. | Mexican Americans—Social conditions—20th century. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Motherhood. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Single Parent. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural Heritage.

      Classification: LCC PS3553.A8135 Z46 2016 | DDC 814/.54—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015048671

       To all those who dare to dream—not necessarily for riches and fame—but for everyone on the planet to live with dignity.

       And to the loves of my life, my children: Marcel and Mariana Castillo.

       May the future always hold for them grace and joy.

       Contents

       COVER

       TITLE PAGE

       COPYRIGHT

       DEDICATION

Introduction

My Mother’s México

Remembering Las Cartoneras

Her Last Tortillas

Peel Me a Girl

      Bowing Out

      On Mothers, Lovers, and Other Rivals

      When I Died in Oaxaca

      Are Hunters Born or Made?

      Swimming with Sharks

      What’s in a Nombre

      Mi’jo’s Canon in D Major

      Love, Your Son, Marcello

      And the Woman Fled into the Desert

      Searching the Other Side

      Black Dove

      Coda

      Credits

      Acknowledgments

       ABOUT THE AUTHOR

       ALSO BY FEMINIST PRESS

       ABOUT FEMINIST PRESS

       My grandparents María de Jesús and Santos Rocha and their son, Rudolfo.

       Introduction

      Perhaps some of you may come away from this book feeling that my stories have nothing to do with your lives. You may find the interest I’ve had in my ancestors as they were shaped by the politics of their times, irrelevant to your own history. My story, as a brown, bisexual, strapped writer and mother, constantly scrambling to take care of my work and my child, might be similarly inconsequential. However, I beg your indulgence and a bit of faith to believe that maybe on the big Scrabble board of life we will eventually cross ways and make sense to each other.

      If you reside in the United States, whether you are able to vote or pay taxes, then know that you and I have much more in common than not. Know that we may differ greatly in opinion, but only a handful in the world make decisions that affect the majority, and that majority includes you and me. If we question what passes for truth or the veracity of any point of view, these days bombarded and overloaded as we are with random sound bites, know also that knowledge sets you free. Knowledge makes you strong. Not scattershot information gleaned off the Internet or the opinions of Facebook friends, but checking and cross-checking your resources, going to the source, radical curiosity—that kind of knowledge.

      I focus my observations on my own background because it has been critical throughout my life to find out who I am. You see, I never saw me in history books. I didn’t find women who looked like me in the Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnets I fell in love with at sixteen in my secretarial school’s library. That wasn’t me or my mother in the paintings I studied at my beloved Art Institute of Chicago. I didn’t see us on television or at the symphony or the ballet. We weren’t in white smocks in hospitals or running for office. In public schools, I grew up without a single Latino instructor with whom to identify; indeed, I had none in college. The Latino student organization I participated in demanded a Chicano instructor and we finally prevailed in my last year, welcoming a young ABD sociologist not much older than those of us he’d teach. And yes, having that changed my life. What I heard in his class left me astounded and affirmed.

      You may be interested in math and science or business and profit. You might want to work with destitute children in faraway places, or you may be wishing for the chance to make enough money to buy your mother a home someday to say you achieved your dream. We all aspire to something, which is why we are here. The dreams vary, but we remain in the same world at