WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:01.400 I get to like write what I want to write 2 00:00:01.400 --> 00:00:03.040 and teach what I want to teach. I didn't have 3 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:06.040 to capitulate to that fear. So it's timing. Some of 4 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:08.039 it is making a decision to be like I'm just 5 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:10.640 going to do this and I'm not going to be 6 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:13.760 a politician, Like I'm never going to be elected president. 7 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:15.760 That's fine, Like I'm just doing the thing I want 8 00:00:15.760 --> 00:00:15.960 to do. 9 00:00:20.200 --> 00:00:23.040 From futuro media, it's let you know, USA, I'm Maria 10 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:27.280 Nikosa today. A portrait of Carmen Maria Machado, the award 11 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:31.080 winning writer whose work pushes the boundaries of fiction, memoir, 12 00:00:31.400 --> 00:00:41.920 and contemporary horror. Got Maria Machado is a modern day 13 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:47.360 literary phenomenon. Her writing defies genre. She's dabbled in horror, 14 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:52.919 sci fi, and speculative fiction, across personal essays, memoir, and 15 00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:57.720 more recently, even comic books. Last year, Carmen debuted The 16 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:02.279 Lolow Woods, a limited run horror series from DC Comics. 17 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:06.760 Gotaman is a New York Times bestseller, a Guggenheim Fellow, 18 00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:11.120 and a Nebula Prize finalist. Her short story collection, Her 19 00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:14.520 Body and Other Parties, was a fiction finalist for the 20 00:01:14.560 --> 00:01:18.240 twenty seventeen National Book Awards, one of the highest honors 21 00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:22.560 a writer can receive. In twenty nineteen, Carmen released her 22 00:01:22.600 --> 00:01:27.480 experimental memoir In the dream House to near universal acclaim. 23 00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:31.720 The book centers on her abusive relationship with her ex girlfriend. 24 00:01:32.440 --> 00:01:34.360 She is the first woman who yokes herself to you 25 00:01:34.440 --> 00:01:37.640 with the label girlfriend, who seems proud of that fact. 26 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:40.720 And so when she walks into your office and tells 27 00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:42.480 you this is what it's like to dat a woman, 28 00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:46.400 you believe her, and why wouldn't you? You trust her, 29 00:01:46.600 --> 00:01:48.600 and you have no context for anything else. 30 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:52.640 In the dream House is a rare work of literature 31 00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:57.040 that honestly and sometimes painfully documents abuse in a queer, 32 00:01:57.360 --> 00:01:59.520 specifically lesbian relationship. 33 00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:03.920 I enter into the archive that domestic abuse between partners 34 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:08.240 who share a gender identity is both possible and not uncommon, 35 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:10.200 and that it can look something like this. 36 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:14.080 The book lays bare the lack of historic records on 37 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:16.840 the subject and its silent taboo nature. 38 00:02:17.760 --> 00:02:20.920 I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of 39 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:24.520 my story into a vast crevice, measure the emptiness by 40 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:25.480 its small sound. 41 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.680 The memoir was also applauded for its experimental form. In 42 00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:34.280 the dream House doesn't have conventional chapters for starters. They're 43 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:37.480 really short, and they're more than one hundred and forty 44 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:37.839 of them. 45 00:02:38.600 --> 00:02:43.000 Dream House as noir. She is not your first female crush, 46 00:02:43.160 --> 00:02:46.320 or your first female kiss, or even your first female lover, 47 00:02:47.160 --> 00:02:49.120 but she is the first woman who wants you in 48 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:52.240 that way desire tinge with obsession. 49 00:02:53.160 --> 00:02:57.240 They read like little revelations over time that don't follow 50 00:02:57.280 --> 00:02:58.560 a chronological order. 51 00:02:58.880 --> 00:03:03.000 Dream House as Dejah, dream House as proof, Dreamhouse as myth. 52 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:06.320 Some of them are only a sentence. 53 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:11.200 Long, Dreamhouse as epiphany. Most types of domestic abuse are 54 00:03:11.200 --> 00:03:12.079 completely legal. 55 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:17.120 The memoir also has a Choose your Own Adventure section, 56 00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:20.120 where Carmen invites the reader to pick what to do next. 57 00:03:20.919 --> 00:03:23.840 You were moving all night, she says, your arms and 58 00:03:23.880 --> 00:03:28.880 elbows touched me. You kept me awake. If you apologize profusely, 59 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:32.160 go to page one sixty three. If you tell her 60 00:03:32.200 --> 00:03:34.080 to wake you up next time your elbows touch her 61 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:36.400 in your sleep, go to page one sixty four. 62 00:03:37.240 --> 00:03:40.600 Earlier this year, in the dream House caused outrage among 63 00:03:40.720 --> 00:03:44.080 parents from a Texas school district after it was included 64 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:47.360 on a recommended reading list at a school board meeting, 65 00:03:47.440 --> 00:03:50.440 one parent took a pink strap on dildo as a 66 00:03:50.480 --> 00:03:54.520 prop and argued that letting students read Carmen's memoir could 67 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:56.400 be considered child abuse. 68 00:03:56.960 --> 00:04:01.240 The next is from the chapter Dreamhouse is erotic and 69 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:04.680 just because you can buy everything on Amazon, this is 70 00:04:04.680 --> 00:04:06.200 what we're asking our children to read. 71 00:04:06.320 --> 00:04:07.440 It's a scrap on dildo. 72 00:04:08.200 --> 00:04:10.240 In an op ed in The New York Times, Carmen 73 00:04:10.320 --> 00:04:13.640 responded to the backlash, condemning what she described as an 74 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:18.400 act of censorship. In Carmen's words, preventing children from reading 75 00:04:18.400 --> 00:04:21.400 my book or any book, won't protect them. It may 76 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:24.839 rob them of ways to understand the world. For this 77 00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:28.000 episode of Latino Usay, I sat down with Godmin Maria 78 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:32.520 Machado for an open conversation about her craft, her Latin identity, 79 00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:36.960 and finding inspiration amid the real life horrors of a 80 00:04:37.000 --> 00:04:44.159 global pandemic. Hello Godamin, Hello, where's Cardiman Maria Machado? Right now? 81 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:46.000 Where they're on the Mayamas. 82 00:04:47.520 --> 00:04:51.240 I'm in West Philadelphia. I've been here for oh God, 83 00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:52.000 eight years. 84 00:04:52.040 --> 00:04:54.160 Now, how you doing? How are you holding up? 85 00:04:54.960 --> 00:04:57.520 I'm doing okay. We all have our health. 86 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:00.560 My wife and I moved to our first house from 87 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:03.800 an apartment right before COVID. So we are lucky that 88 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:06.800 we also like have space. I mean, I am going 89 00:05:07.320 --> 00:05:10.359 stir crazy and I am I am struggling a little 90 00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:12.520 in that you know, mental health way that I think 91 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:14.960 a lot of people are. All right, let's talk a 92 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.599 little bit about that space, you know, struggling with mental health. 93 00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:22.200 And I'm wondering what it looks like for you, Like 94 00:05:22.520 --> 00:05:25.280 do you think maybe there's another book in you? Or 95 00:05:25.800 --> 00:05:28.200 are you feeling like you know, everything did need to 96 00:05:28.240 --> 00:05:33.080 slow down. I was literally touring my memoir when COVID happened, 97 00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:35.880 So I was traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling, and of course 98 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:37.919 horribly was like, God, I'm so tired. 99 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:39.080 I just wish I could get a break. 100 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:43.240 It's like I manifested COVID because I went from being 101 00:05:43.440 --> 00:05:46.040 just having a full calendar to it just being completely empty. 102 00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:48.159 And I think, again, it's hard for me because I 103 00:05:48.200 --> 00:05:51.320 do love traveling and seeing people and meeting people and 104 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:54.279 meeting readers and doing events. I like that sort of 105 00:05:54.320 --> 00:05:57.479 in person energy. I like the sort of the energy 106 00:05:57.520 --> 00:05:59.920 in a room when you're like interacting with a class. 107 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:02.440 I do a lot of my writing at residencies, like 108 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:04.719 I usually go away to write, and I haven't been 109 00:06:04.720 --> 00:06:05.360 able to do that. 110 00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:07.480 I was supposed to write a book last year, like. 111 00:06:07.440 --> 00:06:09.960 I had taken off from teaching to finish a new book, 112 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.839 and I've done almost nothing because I've just been treading water. 113 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:17.719 You take us into these deep, dark, pretty scary places 114 00:06:17.760 --> 00:06:20.440 in your work, and it sounds like you've been visiting, 115 00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:24.159 you know, pretty dark places of your own over the 116 00:06:24.200 --> 00:06:26.840 past year. And I mean, I wonder if you can 117 00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:29.200 talk a little bit more about that this notion of 118 00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:30.440 treading water. 119 00:06:31.200 --> 00:06:33.320 Part of it is that I'm just an I'm an extrovert. 120 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:38.599 I function best when I'm able to really connect with 121 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:41.680 and interact with other people. You know, you can do 122 00:06:41.760 --> 00:06:43.640 that on some level, you know, you can talk on 123 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:46.320 the phone or talk online or whatever. But i just 124 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.880 like being with other people. And I've always been that way, 125 00:06:48.960 --> 00:06:51.480 and I mean my dad is that way, my grandfather 126 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:54.000 was that way. Like that's just like a Machado trait 127 00:06:54.520 --> 00:06:58.520 is that like level of extraversion and just really loving 128 00:06:58.560 --> 00:06:59.400 to be around. 129 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:01.480 Other people and like being present in that way. 130 00:07:02.279 --> 00:07:03.839 And I think it's resulted in, like I mean, a 131 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:05.960 low grade depression like this sort of the day to 132 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:08.400 day that kept my life sort of air raid and 133 00:07:08.440 --> 00:07:11.240 effervescent and like help me move around, because when I 134 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:13.880 move around, I'm like thinking and I'm interacting, and I'm like, 135 00:07:14.200 --> 00:07:16.080 this part of my brain is getting sort of nourished 136 00:07:16.080 --> 00:07:19.440 by just the world, and I feel like that has 137 00:07:19.520 --> 00:07:22.600 just been completely cut off and it feels like a 138 00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:24.600 limb that's like atrophying and dying. 139 00:07:24.760 --> 00:07:27.360 You know, are you writing about all of this sense 140 00:07:27.400 --> 00:07:30.400 of kind of laws or is it mostly just still 141 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:32.160 too much in your head in your heart. 142 00:07:32.440 --> 00:07:34.120 I have not written about it a lot. 143 00:07:34.520 --> 00:07:36.240 A few months ago, I got asked to write about 144 00:07:36.280 --> 00:07:39.320 one year in COVID, and I was just like, I 145 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:42.280 can't do it. I mean, I just feel like a 146 00:07:42.320 --> 00:07:46.080 weird blob, you know, sort of psychologically physically like all. 147 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:47.240 And it's again, that's not. 148 00:07:47.200 --> 00:07:49.280 The way I normally feel like. I normally feel so 149 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:54.320 alive and happy and vivacious, and I just love people 150 00:07:54.400 --> 00:07:56.400 and I get so energized by people. 151 00:07:56.200 --> 00:07:58.400 And like, I don't know, I feel like I've become 152 00:07:58.440 --> 00:07:59.160 like afraid. 153 00:08:00.040 --> 00:08:02.280 The way you're kind of talking about this brings up 154 00:08:02.320 --> 00:08:05.640 a lot of questions around fear and things that are scary. 155 00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:10.240 And I have to tell you that before I started 156 00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:14.360 reading in the dream House, I was scared. I loved 157 00:08:14.440 --> 00:08:16.520 the book. I love the fact that you took me 158 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:19.520 to these places. But why horror? 159 00:08:20.800 --> 00:08:21.320 Yeah? 160 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:26.560 So I have always found horror very provocative and interesting, 161 00:08:26.840 --> 00:08:31.480 despite being a gigantic, scaredy cat and a hypochondriac since 162 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:34.800 I was very small. When I was young, I was 163 00:08:34.880 --> 00:08:37.120 afraid of everything. I was afraid of death, and I 164 00:08:37.160 --> 00:08:38.720 was afraid of monsters and the dark. 165 00:08:38.760 --> 00:08:39.800 And I would read. 166 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:43.160 Horror novels and I would read novels about illness, like 167 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:46.960 I remember reading The Hot Zone. It was like I 168 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:50.200 don't know, eight or nine, which I had gotten at 169 00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:51.040 like a yard sow. 170 00:08:51.559 --> 00:08:54.719 I was a real masochist as a child's and. 171 00:08:54.679 --> 00:08:57.040 I would like not sleep and my mother would ban them, 172 00:08:57.040 --> 00:08:59.360 she'd take them away from me, and I would go 173 00:08:59.520 --> 00:09:02.560 get new ones and I'd read them, and I think 174 00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:04.559 she truly did not understand. She was like, if you're 175 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:06.959 so scared, why on earth would you do this? I mean, 176 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:09.880 I'm really interested in fear and anxiety and like what 177 00:09:09.920 --> 00:09:14.199 that says about us. And I think that horror literature 178 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:16.520 or horror film it's like going on a roller coaster. 179 00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:19.360 It's like a controlled adrenaline rush. It's something that's like 180 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:23.400 terrifying and scary and it's arousing your emotional sort of state, 181 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:26.400 but it's all contained, right, Like ultimately it's safe. It's 182 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:30.800 not real, it's fictional. And so I think that horror 183 00:09:30.800 --> 00:09:34.440 has the potential to be incredibly subversive and interesting and 184 00:09:34.440 --> 00:09:36.680 also on some level just scratches an itch that I have. 185 00:09:37.400 --> 00:09:39.559 Last Halloween, I went through like a kind of an 186 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:43.000 eighties horror phase. So I watched all the Nightmare in 187 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:45.000 Elm Street movies. I don't even know seven. 188 00:09:45.040 --> 00:09:46.080 I watched all the old ones. 189 00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:49.280 They're wonderful when they're horrifying, but they're like really interesting. 190 00:09:49.400 --> 00:09:52.560 I love old school special effects. So I watched like 191 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:58.880 all the night We're in Elm Street movies. I watched Halloween, 192 00:10:00.080 --> 00:10:02.679 watched The Thing, which is like a real classic. Oh 193 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:08.719 the Thing is so good, And I watched Slumber Party Massacre. 194 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:13.680 I convinced my spouse. My spouse hates horror. She can't 195 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:17.440 stand it, but occasionally she'll let me. She'll let me 196 00:10:17.520 --> 00:10:20.319 show her something if I like spoil it for her. 197 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:23.079 So as long as I've told her what's gonna happen, 198 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:25.400 she can watch it. And so we watched The Descent, 199 00:10:25.760 --> 00:10:28.079 which is a real classic that I really love, which 200 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:30.040 is about this group of women. It's an almost all 201 00:10:30.040 --> 00:10:33.560 female cast and they're spelunking in a cave and also 202 00:10:33.559 --> 00:10:35.480 there's like monsters in the cave, and it's just like 203 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:37.240 so good, it's so good. 204 00:10:41.280 --> 00:10:44.080 Oh my god, you're scaring me just by insane these 205 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:48.000 But let's talk about your family for a minute. You're 206 00:10:48.040 --> 00:10:52.000 growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Your family is from Cuba. 207 00:10:52.120 --> 00:10:54.359 And this is the part that got me really interested 208 00:10:54.800 --> 00:10:59.040 in your particular family story, which is that your grandfather 209 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:02.439 who leaves the island, comes to the United States. He's 210 00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:04.600 actually deported during the McCarthy era. 211 00:11:05.280 --> 00:11:07.360 The version that I have is like a little spotty, 212 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:09.800 but my understanding was that he came to the US. 213 00:11:09.880 --> 00:11:12.920 He was studying at Tennessee Tech, which is this very 214 00:11:12.920 --> 00:11:16.080 small technical college in Tennessee, which is just so funny 215 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:18.480 to me, and he didn't speak an English and like 216 00:11:18.520 --> 00:11:20.200 it took him a very long time to finish because 217 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:21.880 he first he was deported and then he managed to 218 00:11:21.880 --> 00:11:24.600 come back. He ended up fighting in the Korean War. 219 00:11:25.160 --> 00:11:27.600 He finished his degree like ten years later or something like. 220 00:11:27.640 --> 00:11:29.680 It took him a really long time to finish, and 221 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:31.240 then he moved to DC, which is where he met 222 00:11:31.240 --> 00:11:33.920 my grandmother and where he lived the rest of his life. 223 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:36.600 But he had a really different relationship with Cuba. He 224 00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:38.360 has two brothers who also came to the US, but 225 00:11:38.400 --> 00:11:40.480 then he had other siblings that stayed behind who I 226 00:11:40.520 --> 00:11:42.760 had never met and have never met because they've all 227 00:11:42.800 --> 00:11:43.520 they've all passed. 228 00:11:43.600 --> 00:11:46.319 Wow, So a real divided family completely. 229 00:11:46.400 --> 00:11:48.120 Like I went to Cuba few years ago and it 230 00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:49.520 was the first time that I had met a lot 231 00:11:49.520 --> 00:11:50.240 of the people there. 232 00:11:50.760 --> 00:11:54.640 All Right, so Cuba, But can we talk about Allentown, Pennsylvania. 233 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:58.200 The way you write is really a part of the 234 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:03.960 great American right tradition. Your style of writing is so unique. 235 00:12:04.040 --> 00:12:07.079 That's why people love you so much, because you're like, whoa, 236 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:09.319 this is not like any other book that I've read, 237 00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:13.600 this particular way of telling stories. And so I'm like, 238 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:17.680 so did Carmen figure that out someplace along the line 239 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:20.200 when she was growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania? Is that 240 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:20.959 what's happening? 241 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.520 That is such a kind thing to say. I don't know. 242 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:27.320 I'm trying to think how much Allentown or Pennsylvania has 243 00:12:27.400 --> 00:12:29.880 to do with that. My parents met in Wisconsin, which 244 00:12:29.880 --> 00:12:32.080 is where my mother was from, and my dad was 245 00:12:32.120 --> 00:12:34.280 in grad school at the University of Wisconsin, and they 246 00:12:34.280 --> 00:12:36.240 met there and they moved to Allentown because of his job. 247 00:12:36.760 --> 00:12:39.080 Right when I was born. My mom would tell stories 248 00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:41.440 about how, like when she moved to Allentown that like 249 00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:43.360 somebody said to her, like, oh, I've heard Allentown's like 250 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:44.000 a rough place. 251 00:12:44.640 --> 00:12:47.079 And there was a lot of tension when I was 252 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:47.600 growing up. 253 00:12:47.679 --> 00:12:50.440 In the first home we lived in, there was tension 254 00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:53.679 with the neighbors who really did not like us and 255 00:12:53.920 --> 00:12:55.880 would say things to my mother like that they hoped 256 00:12:55.880 --> 00:12:58.840 that cars would run us over. They they told my 257 00:12:58.880 --> 00:13:00.840 father he wasn't on the right side of Allentown, like 258 00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:02.400 he had to go to the other side of Allentown. 259 00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:04.920 And so my father's like response was to have my 260 00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:07.000 mother cut his hair on the front lawn while he 261 00:13:07.080 --> 00:13:09.720 was like shirtless and like drinking red wine and like 262 00:13:09.760 --> 00:13:11.000 blasting salsa music. 263 00:13:11.520 --> 00:13:14.120 And it was just like, hey, neighbors. 264 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:18.440 That is like the best ever. Yeah, it was. 265 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:21.000 It's pretty It's a pretty funny story. I love that story. 266 00:13:21.040 --> 00:13:23.760 It's my favorites about my dad. It was weird was 267 00:13:23.760 --> 00:13:25.920 these neighbors were also like a gay couple, so the 268 00:13:26.160 --> 00:13:28.480 first gay people that I ever met in my whole life, 269 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:31.319 and I like didn't fully understand. There's like a lot 270 00:13:31.360 --> 00:13:34.120 of weird sort of racism and weird energy, and it 271 00:13:34.160 --> 00:13:37.120 was just kind of a strange time. I don't remember 272 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:39.280 a lot of this because I was fairly young. We 273 00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:41.960 moved to a different house in a different sort of 274 00:13:41.960 --> 00:13:44.920 area of town, like when I was god like eight 275 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.160 or nine, So we moved to a little more of 276 00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:49.320 a rural area the second time, like a little more 277 00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:52.199 out sort of toward the corn Basically, I feel like 278 00:13:52.240 --> 00:13:54.840 it was this weird mix of like urban and rural, 279 00:13:55.040 --> 00:13:57.840 and then there was this sort of this really natural beauty. 280 00:13:57.880 --> 00:13:59.960 And also I feel like Pennsylvania has this deep like 281 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:03.080 Gothic energy, the sort of like shadow of itself, this 282 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:05.440 deep sense of like place that I feel very Gothic 283 00:14:05.520 --> 00:14:07.520 to me, and I was like very I feel like 284 00:14:07.520 --> 00:14:08.720 aware of that idea. 285 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:11.400 All right, So I'm thinking about you in that place, 286 00:14:11.520 --> 00:14:14.520 a young Latina growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the 287 00:14:14.520 --> 00:14:16.520 fact that you've written and talked a lot about, you know, 288 00:14:17.080 --> 00:14:20.360 nothing new being a Latina essentially struggling with her identity, 289 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:24.120 and I'm wondering, how would you describe where you are 290 00:14:24.280 --> 00:14:29.360 right now? How are you perceiving your relationship with your 291 00:14:29.400 --> 00:14:32.040 own identity now? It is as. 292 00:14:31.920 --> 00:14:33.200 Always, it is complicated. 293 00:14:33.440 --> 00:14:35.880 I was actually asked to write like an essay for 294 00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:39.240 some anthology about LATINIX identity, and I said yes initially 295 00:14:39.280 --> 00:14:40.400 because I was like, Oh, this will be a good 296 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:42.120 chance for me to like work out some stuff on 297 00:14:42.160 --> 00:14:44.400 the page. And then I ended up not doing it 298 00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:47.080 because I was just really struggling, and I was really 299 00:14:47.080 --> 00:14:50.640 struggling with trying to articulate this piece of myself that 300 00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:53.320 I feel in some ways and have felt sort of 301 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:56.480 very complicated feelings about and like felt isolated from. I 302 00:14:56.480 --> 00:14:59.360 don't speak Spanish very well. We didn't grow up speaking it. 303 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:01.280 My dad doesn't really speak it, you know, sort of 304 00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:03.760 a language that like died between my grandfather and my father. 305 00:15:04.440 --> 00:15:06.520 That is sort of a source for me of great 306 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:11.040 anxiety and shame. And it's something that I struggle with 307 00:15:11.280 --> 00:15:13.920 and I think about a lot. People sort of ask me, 308 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:16.280 like what am I? I feel like the answer is 309 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.600 so complicated and it shifts, and like recently, especially thinking 310 00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:22.520 about black lives matter. I've been thinking about like my 311 00:15:22.560 --> 00:15:26.160 own relationship with whiteness and like what that looks like. 312 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:28.280 But it's like I don't have like an answer I 313 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:30.920 can kind of returning to the same sort of struggle 314 00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:32.680 kind of over and over, the same sort of set 315 00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:36.760 of questions, those questions being I present as white, Aren't 316 00:15:36.800 --> 00:15:38.880 I just white? Like it's like a question that I 317 00:15:38.920 --> 00:15:41.440 worry about, like an anxiety that I have. Is it 318 00:15:41.560 --> 00:15:44.000 weird or appropriative to say that I'm Latina when like 319 00:15:44.040 --> 00:15:46.960 I don't speak Spanish very well? Like how am I 320 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:50.920 complicit in white supremacy? I think these are all questions 321 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:53.200 that like everyone should be asking themselves, But for me, 322 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:55.520 it just feels so tied up in this piece of 323 00:15:55.520 --> 00:15:58.360 me that I just don't have a lot of clarity on, 324 00:15:58.400 --> 00:16:00.480 which is weird because I feel like I have clarity 325 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:02.440 on like other parts. 326 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:03.040 Of my identity. 327 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:06.680 But people think of racial groups as monoliths right where 328 00:16:06.680 --> 00:16:09.480 they're like, oh, there's like a LATINIX identity or experience, 329 00:16:09.560 --> 00:16:11.880 or there's like a Black experience or Asian experience. 330 00:16:11.880 --> 00:16:13.200 You know, It's like no, there's there's like a. 331 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:15.320 Million of them, right, And like I had one particular 332 00:16:15.400 --> 00:16:17.960 kind but in many ways makes me feel very isolated 333 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:20.160 from that piece of my identity and so don't know 334 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:20.760 what to do with that. 335 00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:24.120 And basically I would say, in many ways, all of 336 00:16:24.160 --> 00:16:28.080 that that angst is in fact the definition of being 337 00:16:28.160 --> 00:16:33.000 Latin or a Latina in the United States of America. 338 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:36.600 Like if people could just realize, like yo, if you 339 00:16:36.640 --> 00:16:40.280 are in a constant state of like identity ang okay, 340 00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:50.040 then you're Latino or Latina. Coming up on Latino USA. 341 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:53.440 We continue my conversation with award winning author god Man 342 00:16:53.480 --> 00:16:58.120 Maria Machado. Our conversation turns to writing about sex relationships 343 00:16:58.440 --> 00:17:01.840 and her award winning memoir In the dream House, Stay 344 00:17:01.880 --> 00:17:11.320 with Us. 345 00:17:07.800 --> 00:17:30.119 And Young Nowhere Latina where h h h h h. 346 00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:59.280 H Hey we're back. We're going to continue now with 347 00:17:59.320 --> 00:18:02.960 my conversation with Godmin Maria Machado. She's the award winning 348 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:05.840 author of a memoir called In the dream House, where 349 00:18:05.840 --> 00:18:09.720 she writes about her experience in an abusive queer relationship. 350 00:18:10.080 --> 00:18:12.280 We talk about In the dream House and discuss the 351 00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:17.000 art of writing memoir and sex scenes. I don't know 352 00:18:17.040 --> 00:18:21.600 how you kind of categorize your writing around sex. Do 353 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:25.159 you like the term erotica and how you, as a 354 00:18:25.240 --> 00:18:28.840 Latina were kind of figuring that space of writing and 355 00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:31.000 being vulnerable in that way. 356 00:18:31.760 --> 00:18:34.240 The word erotica is really interesting. I don't think I 357 00:18:34.280 --> 00:18:37.280 write erotica, but not because I feel like people say 358 00:18:37.280 --> 00:18:38.440 that often as like a judgment. 359 00:18:38.840 --> 00:18:40.320 I sort of have this theory about it. 360 00:18:40.359 --> 00:18:42.639 When you have sort of sexually explicit content in a 361 00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:47.520 piece of art, sometimes the content purpose is to sort 362 00:18:47.560 --> 00:18:50.480 of tell a story, and so the sex is serving 363 00:18:50.520 --> 00:18:53.240 the story in some way. And then sometimes you're writing 364 00:18:53.280 --> 00:18:55.639 something where the point of the story is to be 365 00:18:55.880 --> 00:18:59.199 tipilating or arousing or erotic, and I think of that 366 00:18:59.320 --> 00:19:02.199 latter than as erotica, and the former is just sexually 367 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:06.000 explicit whatever it is like fiction. So for me, I 368 00:19:06.040 --> 00:19:08.919 have written erotica like I have written stories where I 369 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:10.960 sort of was like, Okay, I need to maximize the 370 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:14.240 amount of boning happening on the page, and that is 371 00:19:14.320 --> 00:19:16.959 like the whole point of like what I'm doing. But 372 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:19.320 the work that appears in my memoir and in my 373 00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:21.840 short story collection, I think of that as like the 374 00:19:21.880 --> 00:19:23.040 sex is a part of the story. 375 00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:24.239 That's sort of my take on that. 376 00:19:24.800 --> 00:19:27.080 I did have a lot of fears in the beginning 377 00:19:27.080 --> 00:19:29.440 about what it meant to write that I think writing 378 00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:33.800 it as Latina, as a woman, as a queer person, 379 00:19:34.080 --> 00:19:36.600 there's like a lot of sort of potential sort of 380 00:19:36.760 --> 00:19:39.720 pitfalls and anxieties. And I was really worried about what 381 00:19:39.760 --> 00:19:42.439 my family would think. I was really worried about, you know, 382 00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:44.680 if I could get a job. I was really worried 383 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.960 about who would publish. It was like an ongoing sort 384 00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:49.520 of set of fears, and eventually I kind of decided, well, 385 00:19:50.640 --> 00:19:51.640 I want to do this. 386 00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:54.880 I would not want to have a job. 387 00:19:56.080 --> 00:19:58.520 Or a life that like I'd have to hide this 388 00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:01.680 part of my work, and so I might as well 389 00:20:01.720 --> 00:20:03.760 just lean into it and sort of the chips will 390 00:20:03.760 --> 00:20:05.560 fall where they may, Like, I'm just going to see how. 391 00:20:05.520 --> 00:20:06.320 It start works out. 392 00:20:06.600 --> 00:20:10.320 Make it your superpower right precisely? Does it bring you 393 00:20:10.480 --> 00:20:14.720 particular kind of well, I guess this is okay, pleasure 394 00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:17.200 to wonder if that's. 395 00:20:17.080 --> 00:20:17.880 What you were going to say. 396 00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:25.000 I mean, as a Latina reading it, I'm like, not 397 00:20:25.040 --> 00:20:26.800 only in my loving the writing, but I'm kind of 398 00:20:26.840 --> 00:20:29.960 loving thinking about got in writing about this and got 399 00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:32.040 in being the writer who's writing this. 400 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.919 I remember when I first sort of began writing the 401 00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:37.760