Ruin & Want interview excerpt, pt. 5
Continuing sharing excerpts from my Sundress Publications interview with Izzy Astuto. Oof. This question had me reflecting on some of the hard truths of writing this project. When I talk about working on myself, it is this interrogation of self and the dismantling of the white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal systems that are ingrained in our Western consciousness.
Do consider pre-ordering my book if you’re able and interested in seeing how this work sounds, feels like. Either way, enjoy my rambling route and stay tuned for more!
Izzy Astuto: Were there any parts of this that felt uniquely difficult to write about?
José: All of it, haha! I mean, what I’ve shared so far about the process of writing this book I hope shows the lengths I was willing to go both in terms of writing craft but also personal growth as well. I knew I had my work cut out for me when my dissertation committee (all white cis-het males) responded to the book by calling it “sexy.” Soon as I heard that response, I realized that I had written it all wrong. My goal hadn’t been to write some Henry Miller-esque text that exalted in toxic heteronormativity, and yet, that was what I had written. Through my formal education, it was all I knew how to write. It was yet another lesson of trusting myself to write from my authentic self rather than some perceived, white idea of literariness.
This has always been the struggle, to write the thing in the way only I can write it. Academia and creative writing are very white spaces. I mean, I’ve shared that my focus for the Ph.D. were Latinx/e poetics and hybrid forms, but I ended up fielding questions about T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the translations of Richard Howard—none of which were on my reading lists or were written about in my exams. I specifically dived into my studies to ground myself in Latinx/e traditions and yet here I was having to talk about the frkn Wasteland and Whitman. That’s what I mean by calling these spaces white. It’s an influence so pervasive that marginalized writers have to actively dismantle and seek out other traditions.
The other aspect that felt distinctly difficult to write about was my queerness as it relates to my family. Only now that the project is done am I able to see the implications of what I named in this project, specifically the homophobia inherit not just in my family but in Latinx/e culture in general. It’s something I teach about—how Latinidad is an imperfect concept and needs to be regarded as living and in need of critique as well as efforts toward restorative justice for its inherent anti-Blackness and homophobia—but in the same way that I wouldn’t let myself see myself as a survivor, I haven’t been able to see myself as affected by it myself. Only recently have I allowed myself to own my queerness, and with the positive of acceptance necessarily comes the acknowledgment of what kept me from accepting myself.
More tomorrow!
José
