Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

by Rigoberto González

Winner of the American Book Award

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Latinx, Gay, Poetry

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

there is a noble tradition in memoir writing, a tradition that is basically never violated, and that tradition is that you have to leave the reader with something that is not abject misery. however much travail and pain you go through, there must be something at the end that is good and solid and a glimmer of hope.

Butterfly Boy does follow the tradition but only just. this book starts off with serious pain and traces a life trajectory of pain. what makes it not a painful book to read is that it's fucking beautiful. i mean, it's gorgeous.

pain marks the narrator's personal story of queerness, and the slow reveal that masochism was built into his queerness from the start. the extraordinary scenes in which the narrator describes his first sexual experiences with older men are both brutal and tender. he needs to be owned, and fucked, and abandoned. he doesn't tell us why (he doesn't tell us many whys) but his life has been hard and poor and fraught with abandonment, and sometimes being owned and fucked is the best love one can get.

there is tremendous longing here, for a mother, for a father, for a lover, for a country, for financial security, for a culture, for belonging. chicano literature at its finest. repeated border crossings with families spread all over the place. crushing poverty. exploitative labor. rough family loving. cerveza. absent fathers who still love but whose love one doesn't know how to digest. silent but present grandmothers. gonzález doesn't sugarcoat one damn thing. he's always running, and you ache at this running because it's not even remotely good.

the mariposa is both the chicano queer and the restless butterfly, doomed to early death. it keeps on being reborn, but each new birth just lands it in the same miserable patch of dusty desert land.

[Ming · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so beautifully written. There are parts in this book that are achingly poetic and emotionally wrenching. González writes a memoir that has a certain precision which exposes painful memories and raw insights. I had to stop reading after the first chapter or two, immobilized by the physical violence. It felt like a "given," and perhaps somehow acceptable. I'm so glad that I picked up the book again and persevered. The physical and emotional violence is not accepted or acceptable. The energy of that aggression, first from family and then from lover, is ultimately transformed and reconciled but whoa, what a process. The last chapter is devastating.

I find it difficult to write this review now because this book affected me so deeply. The juxtaposition of beauty and pain occurred to me as a reader from reading this book, and this conflict and tension are similarly very much in the book itself. Where was the separation? There is no easy or ready reckoning. The mess and confusion are simply there. And after experiencing this, I am left somehow still pulled, tugged into some sort of state of longing. Longing for what? Longing for the way González makes the ugly palpable and the beautiful ecstatic.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

"My head continues to spin so I drop down on my knees in a dramatic display of grief. And how silly my theater is, I conclude, because behind me the apartment is all windows and clear curtains, and fully of the faces of people who have never learned after all these years how to rush over to a person in distress in a noble attempt at rescue."

"As I nod off to sleep on this first afternoon on the road to Michoacan, I promise myself that I will try harder at communicating with my father the next day. Promises are so easy to make in a warm bus steadily approaching the falling night. My grandmother used to say that in order to remember a thought, she had to go to back the place where that thought was originally conceived because place triggers her memory. By dawn the bus will be in a different town -- a different state altogether, in fact. Tracing the promise back to its source will be impossible. My father and I are both headed forward, at the same speed for a change. Any yet, we continue to go our separate ways."

"Cuentame mas de tu padre," my lover will request in the young man's tongue. And the young man will comply because Spanish is his weakness and because the only muscles that can move in post-rapture are thought and pain and voice."

"The helplessness of adolescence was maddening. I began to wish that I were dead, released from this anxiety that kept me up at nights. Once, when an earthquake shook the rest of the household awake, I thought that my own rage caused it. Since I now slept in the living room, no longer willing to share a room with my father, I was acquiring these special gifts: the gift of become as still and breathless as the couch, the finding holes in the shadows that opened up into distant worlds, and the gift of breaking the earth apart with the destructive energy of my heavy thoughts."

"His fingers, rough as his kisses, press into my flesh with a fury that will leave traces behind. But I want him to remember my body this way. I want him to love me into escape. When he starts with the butterflies I'm thrown into a fierce ecstasy that tells me I'm with another man's body, in another history that unfolds itself apart from my past."

"Where was my father at the moment? I had no idea. If anyone were to ask me that now, I'd give the same answer: I have no idea. My father moved so far from me I wouldn't know where to look. But likewise, I have moved so far from him that I can never find my way back.

"How wonderful it must feel to love a father so much that when he passes by it's like the sweetest reminder that you are not lost, and that if you should ever find yourself in trouble, all you have to do is wave him over."

[Brandon Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best line from this review:
Sex is the leitmotif that is played each time the author's father makes an appearance.

Review: Very pleasantly surprised by this book. I'm reading it for a gay and lesbian book club, and I was expecting either a dry portrayal of gay, middle class Chicano culture or perhaps a boilerplate, flighty gay romance novel. Instead I found a literary work that is both interesting and compelling. In particular, the depiction of impoverished American farmworker life surprised and excited me considerably.

The gay central character made this story very relatable for me, but it is the undercurrent of economic narrative that makes this work novel. As an East Coast-er, the idea of an economic underclass, of which many are American citizens, that roams up and down the country taking less-than-subsistence jobs is horrifying. And as recently as the 80s? Perhaps I am naive, but this is not the story of America that I have been fed.

I'm guessing that something similar continues today. And this sheds new light for me on the issue of black economic repression, which I am more familiar with. I look forward to learning more. It's truly amazing what good storytelling can do to clarify a complex issue.

I'm surprised by how the families in the story seem so trapped in their depressed economic state when they live so close to the immense wealth and opportunity in America. And I don't mean the immense wealth of the few celebrities with places in Palm Springs that were mentioned in the book. I mean the wealth of even a lower-middle class family of Southern California, the members of which would never dream of falling so low as to live in some of the conditions described in the book.

How could a household of 18 not manage to afford their home? Why couldn't the author get an after school job at the mall like the white students? How is it that the white kids in their community were so much better off?

I suppose my failure of imagination has been supplanted by the author's able descriptions of the realities of the poorest in America growing up roughly when I did. Really amazing.

As for the rest of the tale, the descriptions of sex are wrapped up in shocking violence, in marked contrast to the author's self-description as a "mariposa," a butterfly boy. The relationships of everyone in the book seem incredibly unhealthy, lacking boundaries, basic empathy, and compassion.

And the author's relationship with his father is so disturbingly enmeshed with sex. Sex is the leitmotif that is played each time his father makes an appearance. This caused me to consider the author's Electra complex each time he portrays a tryst. It's as if his two fetishes are ... violence and his father.

The literary quality is high but not overwhelming. While the book is the life story of a 19 year old (necessarily quite short), the writing is surprisingly mature. There are moments of brilliance in the book, though I often found some of his metaphors and imagery either trite or too precious. I'm glad they're there, all the same. He may have overreached with a few of them, but at least he reached. And had he not reached, we may not have gotten those moments of brilliance.

I'll end this review with a few of my favorite quotes:

"My grandfather's was the voice with the fury of a pickaxe."

"How the hell do you prove it when you're lying there cross-eyed like a billy goat on a puddle of your own drool?"

"And for the first time I recognized the look of mutual attraction from a distance."

"I found this on top of my cat. Some bastard killed him. And since I can't read, can you tell me what this says?"

"Now leave me alone before I burn your balls off."

Grandmother with a gun: "The day I'm sick and useless I'm putting this to my head." This is why my relatives hide the guns when old people get sick!

[Eavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim at work and am surprised by how good it is. The memoir is beautifully written and appropriately raw, and my heart goes out to the author. It reminded me of the need for queer stories of color and made me miss my Mexican extended family. I just want to give the author a big hug. Just overall—good.

[Gabby M · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read more, and think more critically about what I'm reading, I've become increasingly sensitive to the number of white and heterosexual (and cisgender and able, etc) narratives I read as well. Books force us to really think about people that don't look like us as people worth investing our time and energy in. And so I was intrigued when my book club chose Rigoberto Gonzalez's Butterfly Boy. I'll admit that I was initially concerned about finding something to relate to in this memoir of a gay Latino man's coming-of-age, but I realized how ridiculous that was very quickly. What there is to relate to is the experience of being a human growing up. Although the details of Gonzalez's childhood and adolescence are very different than mine, the broad themes are very similar: trying to figure out who you are and who you want to be, struggling with your relationships with your parents, finding yourself in unhealthy relationships. There's a reason the coming-of-age genre is so popular: everyone's gone through it, so everyone can relate.

Gonzalez centers his narrative around a bus trip he takes with his father to his maternal grandparents' village in Mexico. Gonzalez, at this time a college student, has just had another ugly, violent fight with his lover and reflects on this relationship as well as his life growing up, particularly his conflicted relationship with the man he's traveling with. It's a harsh life he's led: the family's poverty keeps them rootless, chasing unskilled labor jobs, constantly living with relatives to keep a roof over their heads. Their time living with his paternal grandparents is especially bad: his grandfather is physically abusive and rules the home through fear. Gonzalez knows fairly early on that he's gay, and while his sexuality is mostly a topic avoided by his family, his mother encourages him to hide it from his father, so he lives in a constant state of shame and suppression.

Gonzalez's writing is really beautiful, even as he describes brutal violence and searing embarrassment. He mostly avoids telling the reader who people are (himself, his father, his mother) in favor of showing who they are through their own words and actions. When, early in the book, Gonzalez gives his father money for two first-class bus tickets and the older man returns with two coach tickets, overriding his son's decision about how to spend his own money, we can tell what kind of person he is. By the time Gonzalez gets to the end of his story, we understand how the ways he's been taught to hate himself leave him vulnerable to a relationship in which he's treated with contempt. This would probably be a very difficult book to read for people with a history of domestic violence, but I'd recommend it for other readers. Regardless of your background, there's a story here that's very worth reading.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Butterfly Boy is a coming-of-age memoir of writer, Rigoberto Gonzalez. This memoir describes his own childhood up to the point of his early twenties as a Chicano Mariposa, or basically a gay Mexican kid. He was born into a poor family, his parents had managed to see his birth in the U.S. and tried to remained there for his first few years. With financial problems increasing, they move back to Mexico, living under his paternal grandfather's home with other extended family members. His household was cramped, loud and very abusive as Gonzalez's grandfather would often tear them all down or threaten to beat up anybody on a daily basis. His own Dad is not much help, as his father is careless with the money he earns and drinks too much. While his mother does most of the discipling, Rigoberto does share closer memories with her until her premature death from sudden poor health.

Much of his teenage years were spent on developing his academic skills, as much of his family is illiterate. Long before puberty, the author soon discovers his attractions to other males. And early on, he spawned many flings with both boys from his school and older men on the grape fields. He hints at due to the lack of fatherly affection in his life as one of the reasons why he started entering, a rather dysfunctional relationship with an older man when he started college. Since his mother's death, he enters more phases of unhappiness as his father left him to start a new family and his grandfather becoming unsupportive of his education. Very few relatives he can say he has a decent relationship with. As time moved on, he learns more of his family history and struggles with his own sexuality as he aims to escape all his troubles by living on campus. At which, he new life earns him more freedom, yet he still has moments of missing his family.

This memoir is an inside look of someone who had some of the worst experiences brought onto to them. The author doesn't shy away from much of the details nor does he look over a lot of the family abuse he suffered from while he reminisces of his past life. But it is from these memories and broken relationships that he finally realizes his individual identity. No longer feeling as much ashamed as regretful of some of his past actions, he finds some courage to stand up to his abusive lover and leaves him by the end of the book. Though the writing is flat out more tell-all of his upbringing, there is some poetic tone in the writing that captures the helplessness the author felt during his crisis moments, yet shows some hope for himself as he recollects lost memories. While the ending left more to say about his background, I am sure there is more to tell from this gifted writer as he has written many more memoirs following after this one.

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was nothing of what I expected. I haven't decided if that's a pro or a con. I enjoyed reading this literature nonetheless. I just had a hard time reconciling missing pieces to the puzzle and debating whether or not I truly was in love with the story.

I think it touched on very important themes of culture, sexuality, belonging, and identity. I could identify with some of the parts where the main character was cast aside due to his cultural heritage. I could also identify strongly with some of the family issues that one must keep secret. Walking around with such big topics and secrets at a young age is a daunting task!! The pieces about the intimate partner violence made me cringe. The author wrote those pieces in such a way that it made me clearly envision what was happening. I had so many questions about those aspects of his relationship.

All in all, it was a great read but with some missing pieces. I do feel though that those missing pieces had to do with the pieces of himself that he is missing or loses throughout the course of his life. I really enjoyed reading the book and would definitely read it again-missing pieces and all. :)

[X · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heartbreaking memoir about growing up as the queer "sissy" Chicano son and grandson of farmworkers in Indio, CA and Zacapu, Michoacan (my parents' pueblito is right next to that city). He writes about surviving violence, rape, anger, overeating, poverty, farmwork child labor, his mother passing away from a heart condition at age 12, his father abandoning him after her death to marry another woman and start another family, his escape to college, and more. The non-linear structure is quite moving in the sense that he writes about his childhood in chronological order yet inserts bits of a longer narrative about traveling back to Michoacan with his father at 20 years old and an abusive relationship with an ex-lover. He reveals his pain with clarity and honesty. He does not absolve accountability for those who harmed him. His anger and resentment is not resolved by the end and in a way I am thankful for that. Sometimes the trauma and pain doesn't ever go away and it isn't resolved and we learn how to manage with it (or not). Thank you Rioberto Gonzalez.

[David]

Thanks to the poetry of the writing this book about Gonzalez's struggle growing up is very absorbing. I could imagine the author sitting down to tell this story and prefacing it with "Let me describe a really difficult part of my life"- and that is where the story begins and how the story ends. The main character, who struggles in a poor Mexican immigrant family against domestic abuse, alcoholism, and homophobia, tries to escape this pain with an abusive boyfriend. The juxtaposition of these two pieces of his life artfully depicts a very frustrated vision of love.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about the genre of creative memoire. On one hand, talking about oneself is about as American an art form as there is; it's intricately tied to our history of colonialism, religion, migration, democracy, and consumerism. On the other hand, it can feel solipsistic and self-indulgent and, frankly, a little embarrassing to read. But there are times when such a memoire is so tightly crafted, so arresting in its tone, so necessary in its content that any reservations I have about the form are left behind by the force of the prose. This is such a book. For queers, there's a standard "coming out" narrative, a sort of short-hand bildungsroman of becoming queer or of becoming aware of one's own queerness. Because so much of queer writing is centered on whiteness and middleclassness, the particular voices of queers of color and queers of different social classes are especially urgent at this potential turning point in our history. Here González weaves together the themes of queerness with abusive intimacy, father-son relationships, death, migrations and border crossings, coloniality and indigeneity, and masculinity. There is much more to be said for and about González's words and form, but for this brief review I'll just say this. In our time of intensified anti-Mexican, anti-migrant politics, as queer life has been reduced to celebrating assimilation, "sameness," and respectability, González's unabashed, full-throated embrace of the pleasures of gay sex and the joys of being effeminate, a mariposa, from the specific experience of a Chicano growing up crossing borders could not be more welcome. This is not an easy read emotionally, and not a happy story about coming of age or finding a happy gay life. This is the story of a Chicano mariposa navigating the world of his family, within the United States and Mexico, and all of the longing and unanswered questions that entails.

As a side note: I used this book to teach introductory students in a comparative/critical cultures major to think about ethnicity, sexuality, and gender at the same time. The themes of the book were a bit too arresting and difficult for students to focus on the sort of how-to intentions I had for the course. But ultimately, that ends up being a better experience for them than I had intended, as they are grappling with the realities of chicanidad, migrant farm workers, and gay sexuality without apologies from a man whose life this is.

[Heidy Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Butterfly Boy” by Rigoberto Gonzalez is a sad, dramatic memoir that goes into the complexities of identity, sexuality, and family issues. Through his storytelling, Gonzalez takes the reader through his childhood in a Mexican immigrant family in California with the challenges of growing up gay in a traditional Latino community. The book captures how Gonzalez struggles to figure out his dual identity as a Mexican American and gay man while feeling this pressure on social expectations that clash with his aspirations. His exploration of his sexuality is honest and sheds light on the internal conflicts and judgment he faces. One of the captivating situations Gonzalez has in the book is his bond with his family, but more specifically with his father. How the family isn’t very familiar with each other as shown,” My grandmother sits down on the couch to drink a beer and my grandfather starts to tinker with the pots over the stove. I have slipped inside the daily routine of the farmworkers and it makes me feel I’m in the way. I don’t belong here anymore.” (Gonzalez pg 13) As he tries to gain acceptance and understanding within his own family, he confronts the ingrained machismo culture that is another obstacle in his journey of self-love. Throughout the memoir, Gonzalez’s words are poetic and intimate, inviting readers into his world with a sense of vulnerability and authenticity. The storytelling not only dives into the personal experience of Rigoberto Gonzalez but also the larger themes of identity, belonging, and the journey of self-acceptance. Overall, “Butterfly Boy” is a captivating memoir that can resonate with readers on multiple levels. It’s a book that leaves a lasting impression, reminding us of how hard life can hit you but you can overcome that.

[Doreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is beautifully written, honest and authentic. It's a tough read especially for those affected by domestic and familial abuse, racism and poverty. The braided form of the narrative works well to keep us both in the present experiencing Rigoberto’s return journey to Michoacan with his father but also allows for long flashbacks that provide a context to the father and son's tense and often highly antagonistic relationship and to his own complex identity as a queer working class man of color.

The framing of the book as a physical journey allows for other journey motifs to emerge as Gonzalez tells his story. It's about migration, not just from one country to another, but also from his family and the wider working-class immigrant community where he is raised to the college he attends surrounded by those in the middle class. It is only through his determination to escape the confines of his parents' world that he can begin to discover his sexual identity along with a future that does not involve being a migrant worker by excelling in education and eventually going to college. However, his class status does not simply disappear nor does the abuse he experienced as a child because he has escaped. Instead, he must find ways to adapt to his surroundings and learn how to negotiate his identity without feeling shame and dis-ease about his upbringing.

There are no resolutions in this book but rather a focus on how the process of creating a new life comes with many challenges and the past can often follow regardless of how much we want to break out of its cycle.

[Joshlynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir is a beautiful yet painful story about his journey of self-discovery. He is finding ways to understand his sexuality and cultural heritage. Giving people the insight of a boy who is gay, and comes from a family where a man is raised to be very “macho”, and because of his sexuality, he would not be accepted. Throughout the book he reflects on many things in his life, trying to grasp how or why, when what he needs is acceptance. He is tested by life on many occasions with the abuse he suffers in his relationships, however, he continues with his life. This book is very moving in a way that it makes you want to reflect on yourself. This goes very deep for the ones who know what it is like to feel that you are different then the ones around you and causing you to maybe feel confined.

[Adrianna Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gut wrenching, completely raw memoir left me feeling wide awake. Gonzalez holds nothing back when he speaks about his past and his relationships with his family and lover. As I was reading, I found myself not wanting to put the book down because I wanted to know what would happen next. There was not a single moment that made me feel bored. In fact, the entire time I was reading this I felt like i shouldn't be because it was that raw. I felt like I was invading Gonzalez's personal life without permission. The LGBTQ community deals with so much trauma in their lives and Gonzalez was not afraid to tell us about his experience with rape, abuse, trauma, etc. This book is dark but it is real and perfect for those who feel they are alone in a situation. **MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING**

[Isabella Lugo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I expected to see a clearer picture of what I had always imagined—a young woman with a pretty face. But my smile melted away as soon as I was greeted with an old, tired woman who bit severely into an unfriendly frown. She didn’t even look at me at all. Her eyes stared right through me as if I were made of glass, as if her eyes were made of glass.”

Of all the sad turns in this book, this scene really stuck with me because it was one of the last times the narrator had any of his childhood innocence. His perception of himself and his regard for how others viewed him became much more prominent in the storyline and prose once he was able to physically see the world around him.

[Aristeo Quiroz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this when i saw it on a reading list of 22 books to read by latinx authors. This memoir is amazing. The way Rigoberto shares his story with this sort of pure nakedness is something i have never seen in any other book. He shares his story in way where there is absolutely no pandering to any audience as you read this book theres this feel of rigoberto telling you this is me and im unapologetic about me. It is by far a book i recommend reading.

[Lainie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the utter travesty of having been forced to read Wandering Stars for my literature class, I was a little hesitant to pick up this one, certain I'd been assigned another dud. I couldn't be more wrong.
Rich with evocative language, Butterfly Boy is equal parts beautiful and heartbreaking, expertly weaving in themes of abuse, migration, sexuality, identity, and love, and I adored it. The ending broke my heart and I hope the author is better now. It would be an absolute tragedy otherwise.

[Antoni Blanco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Touching and full of honesty

I enjoyed this book so much. I relate to the parental dynamics, and fully appreciate the honesty in homosexuality with the Hispanic culture. Well done and recommend to anyone looking for a real perspective on identity, race, and sexual struggles. I loved it, thank you for your story.

[Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for Chicano/a literature. This was probably my least favorite text we read fro this class, although I still liked it. The memoir style was not my favorite, especially when the narrator is such a flawed being, as all humans are. The story was engaging and the themes surrounding family and love were interesting. 3 stars.

[Nirja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Happy to see that Rigoberto is doing well currently after reading about the myriad of hardships he went through. I wish he dove deeper into his relationship with his father, however, it seemed as though he hadn't fully processed everything at the time of writing.

[Beck Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart-wrenching, devastating, and painfully tender, this autobiography is an ode to queerness and the intimacy and cruelty of family, of intergenerational trauma and class injustices, all written so beautifully it's difficult to put it into words.

[Debs · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 stars

[John LaPine · Rating 3 out of 5]

simple, honest language discusses a gay man's three day long bus trip home with his father from the US to their hometown in Mexico. not the worst, but far from fantastic

[jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

a really beautifully written but heartbreaking memoir.

[Ally Tobler]

this was for school and it was okay lol

[harlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

damn

[Corvus Wilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books was absolutely marvelous. A must read for everyone.

[ASC Library]

813.5 Gon

[Nik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. Captures the intersectionality of being an immigrant and being gay. The circle of intergenerational violence.Thought the ending was a bit abrupt - minus one star.

[Salem · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5