Current Issue: Reconciliation
2010-2011
A Conversation with Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Whitney Johnson
Dahlma Llanos Figueroa was born in Puerto Rico and lives in New York City. Her novel is called Daughters of the Stone. She spoke with Nonfiction Managing Editor, Whitney Johnson, via email in March 2011.
Whitney Johnson: Mandala Journal’s theme for this year is “reconciliation.” How do you personally characterize and define “reconciliation,” and in what ways have you experienced it in your own life?
Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa: When I think of the theme of reconciliation in my experience, I think of the bringing together of disparate facets of my life. As the child of immigrants, the ability to reconcile the worldview of my parents with that of the dominant culture was crucial. Within the circle of my family and Puerto Rican community, it was clear—I was Puerto Rican and spoke Spanish because that was my heritage. What happened outside the home was secondary to the essence of who I really was.
Outside my home however, it was a totally different story. In school, my white teachers made it very clear that although I was ‘Spanish’ when I entered kindergarten, I had to learn to become an ‘American’ as soon as possible. And above all, I must only speak English. In other words, I had to cease being who I was and become something quite different and ‘better’, the implication being that what I was, wasn’t good enough.
Some African Americans felt my insistence on my Latino ethnicity was an attempt at escaping my African roots. “You think you white” was a phrase I often heard in my childhood. As a black child growing up in a society that didn’t value differences, my race often precluded how I was perceived and treated, at times, even within my own cultural group. Many Latinos took one look at my naturally curly, unprocessed hair and concluded I was African American. On my visits back to Puerto Rico, I was considered too brash, too opinionated and too liberated. I was an “Americuchis”, more American than Puerto Rican. As a normal teenager, more than anything, all I wanted was to fit in.
So my youth wasn’t an easy one. There were many difficult years of searching. Trying to fit into any one of the boxes allotted to me felt uncomfortable and restrictive. The result was that outside the safety of my home, I belonged nowhere. I got used to being the outsider. It was a difficult time but it was also a time that taught me how to be self-reliant, independent, and strong. As I grew into adulthood, I weighed the price I would have to pay to suit someone else’s view of who and what I was. And I was unwilling to pay that price. To deny any part of what was me, was a betrayal of all of what was me. Finally, I decided that it wasn’t my intent or desire (for that matter) to make other people feel comfortable about who I was. My one and only responsibility was to embrace and celebrate all the different facets of my essential self.
WJ: In your novel Daughters of the Stone, storytelling plays an underlying role in the lives of all of the characters, and the characters tell stories to each other. I was particularly moved by all the women’s link to both the new and old “ways of knowing.” What is the connection between the past and your own story?
DLF: I believe that there the oral tradition is the glue that holds families, communities, cultures and society at large together. As children, we create our own narratives, invent imaginary characters, identify with mass produced or commercial characters that abound in our culture. As youths, we try to fit into the pervailing narrative—pop singers, celebrities, movie stars. But as we mature, we see that we are part of a much older, more lasting and larger collective narrative that is often passed down from our elders, our ancestors or our cultures. These stories help to situate us within a larger world, give us a sense of continuity and self-definition. Sitting on my grandmother’s porch and listening to the stories of the old women who came by gave me the security of belonging to a larger, stronger cultural collective that would endure during my lifetime and beyond—if I chose to pass on the tales. And that is exactly what I try to do in my writing, pass on the tales.
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