Fringe editor-in-chief Lizzie Stark interviewed Issue 2’s Sonia Gutiérrez, whose (de)Classified piece “Shattered Beer Bottles” was reprinted in Issue 21, about writing, Spanglish, and how femininity is constructed in Latino culture.

It’s been three years since we published “Shattered Beer Bottles.” Looking back at the piece now, do any new ideas about it occur to you? Is there anything you’d change?

Oh yes, definitely. I’d make a few changes. Let’s begin with the title. I can see now that the title may be too cryptic for some readers. I’d change the title to “Chicana in the Midst” or “Spider Woman.” I would definitely add another stanza focusing on breasts (Three years later I’m ready to talk about breasts).

Is this piece typical of your work?

Not exactly. Prior to writing “Shattered Beer Bottles,” I hadn’t used Spanglish in my poetry. The school that I attended, Santa Fe Elementary did not allow that language on school grounds. And regardless of the anti-Spanish sentiment of the early ‘80s, my father enforced that we only speak Spanish at home, which haunted and hurt my writing in my college years. Abiding to the strict separation of languages, I’d write a poem in English and then translate it to Spanish and vice versa. In 2005, my writing changed, and to this day I am not a language purist (Modern languages are a mixture of many languages) and am not afraid to mix controversial languages in my work.

How does the inclusion of Spanish words in this piece strengthen the work?

In “Shattered Beer Bottles,” using Spanish is very powerful since the poetic voice is saying: Fuck you! I refuse to give in and conform to your rules. You will not erase me. As history shows us, when the colonizer wants to control a group of people, the oppressor takes away their tongue. As a result, the colonizer eliminates a people’s culture—an identity—which is inextricably connected to their language.

I recently read a passage in Gloria Anzaludúa’s Borderland/La Frontera, where she writes, “If you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity—I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.” I find it fascinating that I find myself echoing the same arguments of women, who are approximately my parents’ age.

Ironically, the only reason I was able to write “Shattered Beer Bottles” was because Lance Newman, a former professor of mine, invited us to experiment blending prose and poetry. This experiment allowed me to unleash my tongue and not be afraid to talk back and answer in Spanish or Spanglish (my closet voice) to that nagging voice that had been eating at me—English Only.

What did you mean when you wrote:

And don’t you dare call me señorita
because when you
do, you minimize my vagina to
the size of a señorita’s
sacred glory hole.

Did you hear about the graduate student who was trying to sell her virginity on eBay? According to the young woman (she uses a pseudonym), she holds a bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies. In her own words, she rationalizes her decision: “And I think it’s a capitalistic society and I want to capitalize on this.” That’s the connotation that the word señorita has—which is not quite the same meaning that the word lady has in English. That is, lady connotes manners, and señorita connotes virginity. There are men who still believe that señoritas are Grade A meat. One bidder was willing to pay 3.7 million to take a peek at her sacred glory hole and take it a step further—tear her hymen.

I believe that in the original draft of “Shattered Beer Bottles” the o in señorita was a smaller font. Literally and metaphorically, to call a woman a señorita is diminutive—a little tiny woman. In addition, in Spanish, when a woman is young, she is called a señorita because she is expected to be a virgin—a tight vagina. It’s funny that now that I am thirty-four strangers are hesitant to call me señorita. In Spanish, a woman’s sex life is made public with one word—quite entertaining to watch strangers bumble between “señora” or “señorita.” 

Do you think there are differences between the way femininity is constructed in white American culture and in Latino culture? If so, how so?

The white American construction of femininity revolves around beauty. Women want the mannequin faces, breasts and those flat bellies. The obvious consequences of men and women’s blatant fixation on physical beauty have led some women to plastic surgery, Botox, and eating disorders…  [Latina women are not immune to this.]… For instance, when I was teaching in Spain, I remember watching the particular case of a young teenager who was requesting from her parents a breasts augmentation instead of a birthday party (that was in Spain—seven years ago).

Here’s the logical fallacy that traps Latin@ culture. If a “woman is ugly,” at least she knows how to cook. If “she’s beautiful,” she’s born with marriage credentials. For Latina women, there‘s more pressure to have babies, to cook and clean—and to be beautiful. Look at Shakira; she’s cutting onions and tomatoes in her video, La tortura. Ironically, later in the video, they’re eating Chinese carryout.

Unlike privileged white American women, working-class Latinas have to work; they can’t just cross their legs and flaunt their beautiful bodies. Upward mobility takes a few generations for working-class Latina women, and for those that posses that beauty, it’s much easier for these women to marry and become the beautiful trophy wives, who do not necessarily do the maid’s work. If popular culture is mass producing and feeding these molds, what are the guys seeing? How is their psyche affected? What are the effects?

Why did you choose to format the very end of the poem in the shape of a circle?

Reality is not made up of isolated instances that are mutually exclusive as most people would like to believe. We use the word Timeline in history books. Seeing time circularly provides an alternative way of looking at time as linear. Without the tic, there is not tac. Our actions have positive and negative consequences. We are interconnected to the past—not just decades but—centuries. Perhaps, we should use the spider web analogy in Native American culture to reflect on our actions. Instead of seeing time as one straight line, individuals must see that one act has multiple ramifications, similar to the silk threads of a spider web. Using a history book approach to understand history, we are only seeing the victor’s story. We are learning and witnessing a fragmented reality—a one world-view perspective. Isn’t the interconnectedness of time and space, what William Faulkner captures in As I Lay Dying?

What is your literary background?

My earliest recollection of becoming interested in reading books is when I was five—Maurice Sandak’s Where the Wild Things Are and Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. Since both my father and mother are illiterate, I was not endowed with a family legacy of literature but instead my parents’ stories. Surprisingly, in high school I read the curriculum: Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby and The House of the Seven Gables (among other classics). In college, my interest inadvertently developed since I signed up for literature classes for fun.

Poets, who I am enamored with, include Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Federico García Lorca and Fernando Pessoa. I was introduced to Pessoa by a group of Portuguese bohemians during my Exchange Lectureship in Valladolid, Spain.