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The Mixquiahuala Letters
Focusing on the relationship between two fiercely independent women--Teresa, a writer, and Alicia, an artist--this epistolary novel was written as a tribute to Julio Cortázar's Hopscotch and examines Latina forms of love, gender conflict, and female friendship. Ana Castillo's groundbreaking first novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters, received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and is widely studied as a feminist text on the nature of self-conflict.
138 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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1545 people want to read
About the author
Ana Castillo
66 books337 followersAna Castillo (June 15, 1953-) is a celebrated and distinguished poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Castillo was born and raised in Chicago. She has contributed to periodicals and on-line venues (Salon and Oxygen) and national magazines, including More and the Sunday New York Times. Castillo’s writings have been the subject of numerous scholarly investigations and publications. Among her award winning, best sellling titles: novels include So Far From God, The Guardians and Peel My Love like an Onion, among other poetry: I Ask the Impossible. Her novel, Sapogonia was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has been profiled and interviewed on National Public Radio and the History Channel and was a radio-essayist with NPR in Chicago. Ana Castillo is editor of La Tolteca, an arts and literary ‘zine dedicated to the advancement of a world without borders and censorship and was on the advisory board of the new American Writers Museum, which opened its door in Chicago, 2017. In 2014 Dr. Castillo held the Lund-Gil Endowed Chair at Dominican University, River Forest, IL and served on the faculty with Bread Loaf Summer Program (Middlebury College) in 2015 and 2016. She also held the first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University, The Martin Luther King, Jr Distinguished Visiting Scholar post at M.I.T. and was the Poet-in-Residence at Westminster College in Utah in 2012, among other teaching posts throughout her extensive career. Ana Castillo holds an M.A from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D., University of Bremen, Germany in American Studies and an honorary doctorate from Colby College. She received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for her first novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters. Her other awards include a Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry. She was also awarded a 1998 Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago. Dr. Castillo’s So Far From God and Loverboys are two titles on the banned book list controversy with the TUSD in Arizona. 2013 Recipient of the American Studies Association Gloria Anzaldúa Prize to an independent scholar. via www.anacastillo.net
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
August 26, 2015
“In the modern U.S., i married a poor man out of love. Poverty had won out and separated us. i was of the multitude and survival and perversions were ingrained. i had been instilled with cynicism and, very soon, the only door opened to me to escape the banal destiny planned from birth
exploded
into a billion splinters of sheer farce, without a sound.”
– Ana Castilo, The Mixquiahuala Letters
I read this on the heels of reading Anzaldua, another Chicana feminist. It was good timing because I was able to recall what I learned about Chicana feminism from Anzaldua, and identify the same themes in this book.
The format of this book was a series of letters from Teresa to her friend, Alicia, two creative women who refuse to follow traditional roles. The letters were very revealing; not only do we experience the friends’ travels around Mexico, we’re also able to read their thoughts and also understand the society they lived in, and the inner conflict they experienced.
Being a woman is evident in every letter that is written, in everything the women experience and how they experience it. Race plays a major part, as does privilege as Americans and English speakers. The letters didn’t have to directly or explicitly address a situation, for example colourism, sexism, yet the themes were very clear, and a reminder of how Chicana feminist theory, comes from lived experiences:
“From years afterward you enjoyed telling people that I was from Mixquiahuala. It explained the exotic tinge of yellow and red in my complexion, the hint of an accent in my baroque speech, and most of all, the indiscernible origin of my being.”
“My cousin’s a very nice looking guy. He’s been trying to get into films but I’m sure it’s his dark complexion, and Huichol-like features that are standing in the way of Hollywood discovering him. Some years ago he had a small part on a TV show where he played a gang member from the barrio. He was told to speak with a heavy accent although my cousin Ignacio speaks four languages and all flawlessly.”
Throughout there was also some discussion about feminism, wifehood, and women feeling trapped in their relationships and societies. This book was written in the 1980s so I’m sure things have changed since then, but so much has also stayed the same:
“When a woman entered the threshold of intimacy with a man, she left the companions of her sex without looking back. Her needs had to be sustained by him. If not, she was to keep her emptiness to herself.”
I haven’t read many travel stories from women of colour so I found this to be an interesting account of the minority traveller experience, especially as a woman:
“…We has abruptly appeared in Mexico as two snags in its patterns. Society could do no more than snip us out. We would have hoped for respect as human beings, but the only respect granted a woman is that which a gentleman bestows upon the lady. Clearly, we were no ladies. What was our greatest transgression? We travelled alone.”
Definitely recommended.
exploded
into a billion splinters of sheer farce, without a sound.”
– Ana Castilo, The Mixquiahuala Letters
I read this on the heels of reading Anzaldua, another Chicana feminist. It was good timing because I was able to recall what I learned about Chicana feminism from Anzaldua, and identify the same themes in this book.
The format of this book was a series of letters from Teresa to her friend, Alicia, two creative women who refuse to follow traditional roles. The letters were very revealing; not only do we experience the friends’ travels around Mexico, we’re also able to read their thoughts and also understand the society they lived in, and the inner conflict they experienced.
Being a woman is evident in every letter that is written, in everything the women experience and how they experience it. Race plays a major part, as does privilege as Americans and English speakers. The letters didn’t have to directly or explicitly address a situation, for example colourism, sexism, yet the themes were very clear, and a reminder of how Chicana feminist theory, comes from lived experiences:
“From years afterward you enjoyed telling people that I was from Mixquiahuala. It explained the exotic tinge of yellow and red in my complexion, the hint of an accent in my baroque speech, and most of all, the indiscernible origin of my being.”
“My cousin’s a very nice looking guy. He’s been trying to get into films but I’m sure it’s his dark complexion, and Huichol-like features that are standing in the way of Hollywood discovering him. Some years ago he had a small part on a TV show where he played a gang member from the barrio. He was told to speak with a heavy accent although my cousin Ignacio speaks four languages and all flawlessly.”
Throughout there was also some discussion about feminism, wifehood, and women feeling trapped in their relationships and societies. This book was written in the 1980s so I’m sure things have changed since then, but so much has also stayed the same:
“When a woman entered the threshold of intimacy with a man, she left the companions of her sex without looking back. Her needs had to be sustained by him. If not, she was to keep her emptiness to herself.”
I haven’t read many travel stories from women of colour so I found this to be an interesting account of the minority traveller experience, especially as a woman:
“…We has abruptly appeared in Mexico as two snags in its patterns. Society could do no more than snip us out. We would have hoped for respect as human beings, but the only respect granted a woman is that which a gentleman bestows upon the lady. Clearly, we were no ladies. What was our greatest transgression? We travelled alone.”
Definitely recommended.
April 27, 2016
4.5/5
No one wants a woman of color in the halls of postmodernism (although the politics of that statement's tricky cause there's plenty of white Latinxs on both sides of the nation state, and if you've ever parsed the matters of Latinx and Hispanic and black and white brown you know how easily the power relations break down and why one's never permitted to think. intersctionality, y'know), so we've got this postmodernist epistolary novel shoved in Womens and School and Feminism. Alright, then. Let's roll with how the novelty's not much beyond the Hopscotch structuring and the inevitability of talking about menace and abortion and gang rape when it comes to women and even more so when it comes poor women and even more when it comes women with physical evidence of indigenous blood. As it states, nothing new. The socioeconmoics of colorism and fetishization. I am reminded of So Long a Letter with two friends of great divergence and long acquaintance, except those two never drifted along the roads of grit and ghosts and godforsaken lies. Spring break Tijuana or whatever college kids do these days, except that's where one's family resides. Tacos and tequila and drug mule delights, except that's where one's history bleeds. My local supermarket keeps fucking around with Day of the Dead make up and, regardless of whether you refer back to The Book of Life or the sex worker-led protests against the female homicides of Ciudad Juárez, that shit's all sorts of bad faith. The irony of my atheist self being more respectful of other spirituality's than whatever Christian majority's setting the market price wore off a long time ago.
Maybe it's the survival aspect that turned me off from this branch of feminism I'd eventually have to learn to respect if I ever wanted to get anywhere in life. Sordid conspiracies and violent cartels are far more titillating when one follows the trail of bodies instead of side-tracking forevermore behind the ones who got away, and it's harder to thrill at the dramatic reports of Mexico when one considers the women who live through them. The young rebel, the family rejects, it falls apart, the less young come back, the least young conform, the family accepts, the drugs fall off, the children live, an inheritance of pre-colonial civilization and post-colonial livelihood becomes the day to day requirements of food, security, love. When that happens, one can no longer label the violent events of time as excitement, freedom, necessary experience, a tale to tell the grandchildren, anything but what they are. She could've been raped, but she wasn't. She could've been killed, but she wasn't. White girls travel to Mexico in order to perk up their lives a little, but the shields of physical wealth and that military industrial complex of a US breathing down the other's neck does wonders for the perks of survival. For two women who lack such measures, there is a record of friendship that may yet, may not, may still.
Mexico. Melancholy, profoundly right and wrong, it embraces as it strangulates.There are many gaps in my reading record, but one of the largest and/or most unforgivable is that of Chicana/Xicana literature. My return to the university has brought me even closer to that country my homeland loves to bleed, the food and the views and the people of that Latino/Latina/Latinx extraction, fueler of drug lord narratives and political plans of the Great Wall of Texas, or whatever is the name of the latest US scheme to control absolutely what along this particular borderland is injected and extracted. I've indulged in Bolaño and Márquez and Allende in a half-assed attempt to understand the whole of the countries in the south of this unnaturally spliced continental mass, but it's not the whole that's cleaned my house every month for as long as I can remember. It's not the whole that's railed against on public television with implications of single mothers and welfare and the utmost need for women like me to sterilize the likes of them out of duty to nation and kith and kind. Academia has its ills, but shoving me through whatever ice was keeping me from books like The Mixquiahuala Letters is not one of them.
Destiny is not a metaphysical confrontation with one's self, rather, society has knit its pattern so tight that a confrontation with it is inevitable.
No one wants a woman of color in the halls of postmodernism (although the politics of that statement's tricky cause there's plenty of white Latinxs on both sides of the nation state, and if you've ever parsed the matters of Latinx and Hispanic and black and white brown you know how easily the power relations break down and why one's never permitted to think. intersctionality, y'know), so we've got this postmodernist epistolary novel shoved in Womens and School and Feminism. Alright, then. Let's roll with how the novelty's not much beyond the Hopscotch structuring and the inevitability of talking about menace and abortion and gang rape when it comes to women and even more so when it comes poor women and even more when it comes women with physical evidence of indigenous blood. As it states, nothing new. The socioeconmoics of colorism and fetishization. I am reminded of So Long a Letter with two friends of great divergence and long acquaintance, except those two never drifted along the roads of grit and ghosts and godforsaken lies. Spring break Tijuana or whatever college kids do these days, except that's where one's family resides. Tacos and tequila and drug mule delights, except that's where one's history bleeds. My local supermarket keeps fucking around with Day of the Dead make up and, regardless of whether you refer back to The Book of Life or the sex worker-led protests against the female homicides of Ciudad Juárez, that shit's all sorts of bad faith. The irony of my atheist self being more respectful of other spirituality's than whatever Christian majority's setting the market price wore off a long time ago.
Maybe it's the survival aspect that turned me off from this branch of feminism I'd eventually have to learn to respect if I ever wanted to get anywhere in life. Sordid conspiracies and violent cartels are far more titillating when one follows the trail of bodies instead of side-tracking forevermore behind the ones who got away, and it's harder to thrill at the dramatic reports of Mexico when one considers the women who live through them. The young rebel, the family rejects, it falls apart, the less young come back, the least young conform, the family accepts, the drugs fall off, the children live, an inheritance of pre-colonial civilization and post-colonial livelihood becomes the day to day requirements of food, security, love. When that happens, one can no longer label the violent events of time as excitement, freedom, necessary experience, a tale to tell the grandchildren, anything but what they are. She could've been raped, but she wasn't. She could've been killed, but she wasn't. White girls travel to Mexico in order to perk up their lives a little, but the shields of physical wealth and that military industrial complex of a US breathing down the other's neck does wonders for the perks of survival. For two women who lack such measures, there is a record of friendship that may yet, may not, may still.
The hour that was for them, for us, all who had awakened one morning to see their fields covered with blood rather than the harvest, who didn't seek to change the world but lived in good faith and prayer offered to an imposing God, for the young women who mended their mens' clothing and held their sons' mouths to the purple nipples of sweet breasts, for the man who watched the sun descend behind the mountain every evening and dreamed and when his sons were grown, passed on his dreams, for the black nights when guitars harmonized with the wind's song, to the bottle of regional brew, and a hand-rolled cigarette, to the baptism and a dance of celebration, to the aroma of soups simmering on wood-burning stoves and filled the bellies of those who worked the fields, to a candle that burned in vigil while a hungry mind gulped the printed truth of another's legacy, to the owl that called from between the moon and earth while lovers enwrapped their passion on silver tinted grass, to the history of the world and to its future, to all that had lived and died and had been born again in that moment as i approached an opaque window and pointed my weapon.
June 22, 2022
Every once in a while, a book comes around to remind you that beauty and strength are the true commerce of words.
July 26, 2009
This book was highly recommended to me a while back, and I quickly added it to my wish list as it looked exactly like the kind of book I love to read. Honestly, I'd say this book was a disappointment. All the men were losers, manipulative or abusive or cruel. The women seemed to wander from man to man, from loser to loser. And that was the plot of the book. The two main characters in the book write letters to each other, bemoaning the men in their lives and celebrating their strength as powerful women. I didn't see any powerful women in this book. Instead, I saw women who defined themselves over and over in terms of whether or not they had a man. In the book's defense, the copyright date is 1986, so perhaps the characters in that time frame in that culture were revolutionary. I wouldn't recommend this book, not even to women friends who are part of this culture.
December 26, 2007
i loved that there were three optional orders for reading the letters instead of a table of contents, and i thought it was beautifully written, but i found the two main characters extremely irritating.
i suppose it just wasnt my cup of tea...
however i LOVE ana castillo's poetry, and would suggest checking that out
i suppose it just wasnt my cup of tea...
however i LOVE ana castillo's poetry, and would suggest checking that out
March 18, 2019
“Destiny is not a metaphysical confrontation with one’s self, rather, society has knit its pattern so tight that a confrontation with it is inevitable.”
The Mixquiahuala Letters are a work of creative genius and I know that I wasn’t fully able to grasp it. When I finished reading the letters, I was left unsatisfied with the ending. I went back to read the author’s note and I seriously wanted to give a standing ovation. The letters aren’t meant to be read in the order we are used to. In fact, she warns the reader about this in the beginning, she then breaks down the different journeys you can take with the book. The options are “for the conformist”, “for the cynic” and “for the quixotic”. The letters allow us a literary voyage following the lives and relationship of Teresa, a writer and Alicia, an artist. The summary of this book claims that we are “focusing on the relationship between two strong and fiercely independent women” and I’m not here to contradict that statement but I will tell you that this book would majorly fail the Bechdel test.
Every single experience presented to us surrounded men. That doesn’t take away from the beauty of the book and I believe it’s done on purpose to show how much conforming to the expectations, demands, and danger from men hampers their growth. The letters are from Teresa to Alicia, so we are only able to glimpse one side of the relationship. Teresa is a wonderful guide but I wouldn’t say she’s a reliable narrator as we are only able to see the intervening years through her perspective. There was a point in the book where Teresa intersperses her letters with poetry. It caught me by surprise but it was an amazing addition to the story.
I want to say so much about this book, one that captures so many themes in only 138 pages, but there is so much I still have to comprehend. I will definitely be reading this book in a different order many times more. I wonder how much my interpretation of the book will change then.
The women presented in this book aren’t perfect but they are rebels. They refuse to adhere to the conventions of the time that means to shackle them. They travel to Mexico by themselves, drink and smoke, sleep around with men, leave their husbands, subvert and play around with the roles and scripts thrown at them, and spout their opinions and ideas to everyone. They are flawed but they are human. They are fighting against a world that refuses to accept them as they are and continues to want to mold them, against their wishes, everywhere they go.
If you are looking for a Chicana, feminist literary text then this is the book for you. If you want to fall in love with words, then this is definitely the book for you. Ana Castillo’s lyricism shouldn’t be missed. I am definitely not giving you a great review here and that’s because there is so much to unpack and it will require more readings for me to get at the heart of what Ana Castillo wrote. Just give this and her writings a chance. I am sure that it will be an enriching experience.
The Mixquiahuala Letters are a work of creative genius and I know that I wasn’t fully able to grasp it. When I finished reading the letters, I was left unsatisfied with the ending. I went back to read the author’s note and I seriously wanted to give a standing ovation. The letters aren’t meant to be read in the order we are used to. In fact, she warns the reader about this in the beginning, she then breaks down the different journeys you can take with the book. The options are “for the conformist”, “for the cynic” and “for the quixotic”. The letters allow us a literary voyage following the lives and relationship of Teresa, a writer and Alicia, an artist. The summary of this book claims that we are “focusing on the relationship between two strong and fiercely independent women” and I’m not here to contradict that statement but I will tell you that this book would majorly fail the Bechdel test.
Every single experience presented to us surrounded men. That doesn’t take away from the beauty of the book and I believe it’s done on purpose to show how much conforming to the expectations, demands, and danger from men hampers their growth. The letters are from Teresa to Alicia, so we are only able to glimpse one side of the relationship. Teresa is a wonderful guide but I wouldn’t say she’s a reliable narrator as we are only able to see the intervening years through her perspective. There was a point in the book where Teresa intersperses her letters with poetry. It caught me by surprise but it was an amazing addition to the story.
I want to say so much about this book, one that captures so many themes in only 138 pages, but there is so much I still have to comprehend. I will definitely be reading this book in a different order many times more. I wonder how much my interpretation of the book will change then.
The women presented in this book aren’t perfect but they are rebels. They refuse to adhere to the conventions of the time that means to shackle them. They travel to Mexico by themselves, drink and smoke, sleep around with men, leave their husbands, subvert and play around with the roles and scripts thrown at them, and spout their opinions and ideas to everyone. They are flawed but they are human. They are fighting against a world that refuses to accept them as they are and continues to want to mold them, against their wishes, everywhere they go.
If you are looking for a Chicana, feminist literary text then this is the book for you. If you want to fall in love with words, then this is definitely the book for you. Ana Castillo’s lyricism shouldn’t be missed. I am definitely not giving you a great review here and that’s because there is so much to unpack and it will require more readings for me to get at the heart of what Ana Castillo wrote. Just give this and her writings a chance. I am sure that it will be an enriching experience.
July 24, 2008
Reading The Mixquiahuala Letters felt, as the title suggests, as if I was following a correspondence, albeit a once sided correspondence. As all the letters were by the narrator to her friend reminiscing on their past experiences and ultimately their relationship. With each letter Castillo’s thoughts come and go, one leads to the next, snatches of memories, longer bits, short flashes – her train of thought. Making the “story” not about them, but how someone actually “reminisces.” Unfortunately because of this there is a disjointed feel, and it took me a while to get into the book as I wondered where Castillo was going. However what was interesting is in using this format Castillo evokes the way we write our correspondences. We tap into an energy as if we’re talking with/to the person we are writing to. The reader can feel the anger, love, fear and remorse that fill Castillo letters. And even though the book itself, for me, wasn’t successful, the concept was.
August 16, 2008
Castillo’s epistolary novel left this reader feeling voyeuristic. Her characters, especially male, did not feel round or complete. The novel, possibly as a result of her structure felt disjointed and at times hard to follow. Historically, epistolary novels, Fielding’s Pamela come to mind, have text between the letters to help remove the reader a step from the intimacy of the letter writing process; without that step between there is a level of discomfort created in the reader. I almost wonder if this was a deliberate strategy by Castillo to make the read as uncomfortable and perhaps unhappy as the letter writer.
October 12, 2007
I love the idea of this book: a narrative of multiple options, bifurcated/trifurcated paths, story lines that curl back upon themselves, then skip forward. At the beginning of the book, she gives three options for moving forward: for the conformist, the cynic, and the quixotic. I couldn’t decide which I was, or which I wanted to pretend to be, and so I plunged forward. I read Letter #1 and then realized none of the three options began with the first letter. So I continued to read, straight through – nonconformity through conformity.
January 6, 2009
I found this at the used book store after I had read So Far From God. I expected a similar crazy romp, but this is a more serious book. The past is remembered here, of two young women traveling Mexico together. The air of the novel is hazy, as if recollections weren't entirely solid, or even necesarrily the way it happened. By design, surely, but I didn't enjoy this book very much. I still have it on my shelf so I may go back and read it again.
May 3, 2017
I wanted to like this book, I really did. I had to read it for my Mexican-American Literature class and the summary in the back pulled me in. I really tried. However, the fact that the book isn't in order made it a hard read for me and it was even hard for me to connect with the characters. It was a hard read for me.
October 10, 2024
I read The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo for a class on ethnicity in American literature. I liked this novel a lot. The story was told through letters and has a list of different approaches you can read it through. I read it through the conformist point of view so I didn’t get to read all the letters at once, I then went back and read the rest of the letters I didn’t read with this approach.
I feel like this novel had no concept of contiguous time. I honestly liked that a lot, I felt like I was able to understand the two characters, their relationship, and their experiences together more than I would have been if it was chronological. I was able to get such a sense of their strong and unique bond. I feel like it forced me to focus on their cores and the way that their cores were intertwined with each other and made me realize the disconnections between them.
I feel like Teresa was more invested in their story than Alicia was. I know we only got Teresa’s point of view, however, within that I felt like I could see how much Teresa was wound up in their world. Alicia seemed like the person she factored into her life, that she cared to factor in, and that seemed worth it to include in her life always because Alicia doesn’t compromise her freedom.
I interpreted their relationship as more than just friendship. I think they had a deep friendship but they also were involved romantically and very intimately. Their story felt more like a love story to me than anything else. I feel like Teresa spoke about Alicia and their relationship as loving and admirable but she also framed some of their experiences with great pain and anguish and sometimes came across as jealous. In my opinion and reading, that level of pain and anguish that Teresa feels for experiences that aren’t hers communicates a deep, intimate, and romantic love.
Reading this novel was an odd experience but one that I really enjoyed. It felt beautiful and heartbreaking and extremely poetic (sometimes literally through poems). I liked its ambiguity and style and I liked its narrative. It was tough and painful and I think, a great character study and a study of an intricate relationship.
I feel like this novel had no concept of contiguous time. I honestly liked that a lot, I felt like I was able to understand the two characters, their relationship, and their experiences together more than I would have been if it was chronological. I was able to get such a sense of their strong and unique bond. I feel like it forced me to focus on their cores and the way that their cores were intertwined with each other and made me realize the disconnections between them.
I feel like Teresa was more invested in their story than Alicia was. I know we only got Teresa’s point of view, however, within that I felt like I could see how much Teresa was wound up in their world. Alicia seemed like the person she factored into her life, that she cared to factor in, and that seemed worth it to include in her life always because Alicia doesn’t compromise her freedom.
I interpreted their relationship as more than just friendship. I think they had a deep friendship but they also were involved romantically and very intimately. Their story felt more like a love story to me than anything else. I feel like Teresa spoke about Alicia and their relationship as loving and admirable but she also framed some of their experiences with great pain and anguish and sometimes came across as jealous. In my opinion and reading, that level of pain and anguish that Teresa feels for experiences that aren’t hers communicates a deep, intimate, and romantic love.
Reading this novel was an odd experience but one that I really enjoyed. It felt beautiful and heartbreaking and extremely poetic (sometimes literally through poems). I liked its ambiguity and style and I liked its narrative. It was tough and painful and I think, a great character study and a study of an intricate relationship.
July 31, 2023
I want to give this book to every important woman in my life. If Barbie movie had a darker and morenpoetic friend, it would be This book.
This book accurately portrays the factors that affect a friendship between two women: love affairs, jealousy, ideals. And it also does a genuinely good job of describing what it’s like to be a Mexican-American woman in the 80-90s.
All the discrimination, the endless forces men subject women to. The endless pain of being dominated by men that don’t truly believe their female lover to be worthy of respect and love, but rather assume her to be a disposable non-reciprocal source of tenderness. We give, we give, and we can’t ask for anything back. We give, we give, and they leave without a fair goodbye. Aaaaa I CAN’t get over the genius depiction of gender norms. It is written in such an original way.
Ana writes so well, that sometimes I struggle to follow her (undoubtedly, due to my own inferiority in the domination of the English lnguage). I unearthed this book from a second-hand shop in Naxos, Greece and it was my best decision. Exquisite literature. Exquisite! Ajkgirjr love ittttt
This book accurately portrays the factors that affect a friendship between two women: love affairs, jealousy, ideals. And it also does a genuinely good job of describing what it’s like to be a Mexican-American woman in the 80-90s.
All the discrimination, the endless forces men subject women to. The endless pain of being dominated by men that don’t truly believe their female lover to be worthy of respect and love, but rather assume her to be a disposable non-reciprocal source of tenderness. We give, we give, and we can’t ask for anything back. We give, we give, and they leave without a fair goodbye. Aaaaa I CAN’t get over the genius depiction of gender norms. It is written in such an original way.
Ana writes so well, that sometimes I struggle to follow her (undoubtedly, due to my own inferiority in the domination of the English lnguage). I unearthed this book from a second-hand shop in Naxos, Greece and it was my best decision. Exquisite literature. Exquisite! Ajkgirjr love ittttt
October 19, 2024
Before I wrote this review I decided to browse some of the other comments on this book. Many readers said that they felt the format to be "clunky" and the female characters to be "unrealistic and all over the place." I could not disagree more with these reviews as I felt that the epistolary element captured a raw connection between the two women. The construction of the narrative (which approach to take in reading) was very interesting as there was a different impact on each reader. By doing this, Castillo was opening up different ways to interpret the character's memory in the novel. Additionally I never quite felt lost as others said they did throughout the novel. There were times when I would confuse Teresa and Alicia, but I felt that it added to the storytelling aspect of the letters. As far as the women being underdeveloped I generally disagree with these claims as we generally only see one perspective (Teresa) and they are pretty young for a majority of the novel.
November 23, 2020
I enjoyed the two main characters in this book and their willingness to help each other out in their struggles and understand each other’s struggles.
September 2, 2022
I feel bad for straight women but I would also like to have the opportunity to have a casita in Yucatán
September 26, 2023
A poststructuralist dream tbh
May 31, 2024
04/2022
Lucky you. For whom this will be but one of three reviews you get of the same book. The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo is a beautiful, intimate, and truly heart-squeezing novel. The likes of which I have never read before and perhaps will never read again. A thought that saddens me. But then, it would not hold the same power over me if there were others like it.
One of the truest joys to come with reading this novel is the way the author has presented it. Writer: Teresa, and artist: Alicia spend the better part of a decade experiencing the pitfalls and rugged battery that life offers to Chicana women. We read this through a series of letters numbered one through 40. However, Ana Castillo offers the reader a personalized experience with three indexes. The three options to read the novel number different letters in different orders, even omitting some letters altogether. The indexes are as follows: to read as the conformist, to read as the cynic, or to read as the quixotic. She also adds that one might choose to read each letter as its own, unique story. And thusly many of these letters are written in different tones and styles to support the idea.
I chose to read as the quixotic. This book is a book written for women by a woman. I write that with the pride of being from the fairer sex I gained from this novel. The relationship between Tere and Alicia is a rocky one formed almost out of necessity. These two women need each other to survive not just in the literal sense as they are traveling through Mexica alone. But also in the sense that they are a haven for one another. A rare constant that is only achieved through mutual experience and complete independence from one another. My favorite letter is letter 27. I have already re-read letter 27 three times since completing the novel. This book gently filled and patched cracks in my heart I wasn’t aware I had.
10/10
05/2024
This book read from the Index of the Cynic is a testament to the pain a woman will endure should she forge her own path outside the standards of the patriarchy. Teresa and Alicia must always be watchfully on guard. Always with an exit strategy, a story, or a distraction that might lead them to safety.
The Mixquiahuala Letters is a testament to our station as objects among men. Where our only true companions can be one another.
This story always makes me want to travel. To vagabond from pueblo to city in Mexico. But I also find that it does not romanticize this country for what it is not. A woman traveling alone is a whore. Two women traveling together are two whores and still, in fact, alone. Every man, whether colleague, dinner partner, fellow artist, or passerby knows that you are his. And knows further that it is only a matter of time until you know it too.
We cannot truly rely on men, or our mothers whom we shame. We cannot rely on our partners, for we are nothing to them if we are not present. We can only rely on other women who have chosen life as we have, for they are damned the same way we are.
But these women will still be all we want to be and cannot be. And we will take pride in being everything they are not and wish to be.
Truly, it amazes me the way rearranging chapters has made me a cynic.
10/10
Lucky you. For whom this will be but one of three reviews you get of the same book. The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo is a beautiful, intimate, and truly heart-squeezing novel. The likes of which I have never read before and perhaps will never read again. A thought that saddens me. But then, it would not hold the same power over me if there were others like it.
One of the truest joys to come with reading this novel is the way the author has presented it. Writer: Teresa, and artist: Alicia spend the better part of a decade experiencing the pitfalls and rugged battery that life offers to Chicana women. We read this through a series of letters numbered one through 40. However, Ana Castillo offers the reader a personalized experience with three indexes. The three options to read the novel number different letters in different orders, even omitting some letters altogether. The indexes are as follows: to read as the conformist, to read as the cynic, or to read as the quixotic. She also adds that one might choose to read each letter as its own, unique story. And thusly many of these letters are written in different tones and styles to support the idea.
I chose to read as the quixotic. This book is a book written for women by a woman. I write that with the pride of being from the fairer sex I gained from this novel. The relationship between Tere and Alicia is a rocky one formed almost out of necessity. These two women need each other to survive not just in the literal sense as they are traveling through Mexica alone. But also in the sense that they are a haven for one another. A rare constant that is only achieved through mutual experience and complete independence from one another. My favorite letter is letter 27. I have already re-read letter 27 three times since completing the novel. This book gently filled and patched cracks in my heart I wasn’t aware I had.
10/10
05/2024
This book read from the Index of the Cynic is a testament to the pain a woman will endure should she forge her own path outside the standards of the patriarchy. Teresa and Alicia must always be watchfully on guard. Always with an exit strategy, a story, or a distraction that might lead them to safety.
The Mixquiahuala Letters is a testament to our station as objects among men. Where our only true companions can be one another.
This story always makes me want to travel. To vagabond from pueblo to city in Mexico. But I also find that it does not romanticize this country for what it is not. A woman traveling alone is a whore. Two women traveling together are two whores and still, in fact, alone. Every man, whether colleague, dinner partner, fellow artist, or passerby knows that you are his. And knows further that it is only a matter of time until you know it too.
We cannot truly rely on men, or our mothers whom we shame. We cannot rely on our partners, for we are nothing to them if we are not present. We can only rely on other women who have chosen life as we have, for they are damned the same way we are.
But these women will still be all we want to be and cannot be. And we will take pride in being everything they are not and wish to be.
Truly, it amazes me the way rearranging chapters has made me a cynic.
10/10
September 25, 2019
hooked me, was afraid throughout the middle parts (traveling alone surrounded by men and ghosts!) but didnt want to put it down. effective with the epistolary form. even heartbreaking. although i don't get the purpose behind scrambled reading orders--i read the "quixotic" order.
September 9, 2019
Don’t remember if I bought this or someone left it at my old house in Gainesville. A “story” told in a series of letters from one friend to another — with a few different suggested sequences by the author. i chose quixotic (after having to look up a reminder of what it meant. Ironically it was prob the most straightforward).
This short book was at times bewildering (because if it’s post-modernist language?) and at times saddening. I’d prob give 3.5 stars if I could as I faltered a bit in the middle. But in the end enjoyed the experience and raw emotion.
This short book was at times bewildering (because if it’s post-modernist language?) and at times saddening. I’d prob give 3.5 stars if I could as I faltered a bit in the middle. But in the end enjoyed the experience and raw emotion.
March 14, 2016
I am completely impressed with the intelligence and craftsmanship of this first novel. She suggests three different plans to read the letters of Teresa written to Alicia--one for the Conformist, another for the Cynic, and a third for the Quixotic. I chose the Quixotic because that is just the kind of guy I am, but of course, after I had finished reading it as such, it meant that I had to go back and read the chapters that were excluded from my list and included in others.
Also, I utterly respect the book for its message of feminism and women's roles in our age. I think that there is a great deal to mine in these pages and I would recommend it to a class that had such topics.
Lastly, it is graphic in places. It is the kind of graphic content that really wrestled my attention and touched me in my core. Some violence is just for the effect of brutality and is merely icing on a cultural cake; but here it is clearly impacting my appreciation of the book. That is why I cannot give five stars and admit that I loved it, but I can admit that I really liked it.
Also, I utterly respect the book for its message of feminism and women's roles in our age. I think that there is a great deal to mine in these pages and I would recommend it to a class that had such topics.
Lastly, it is graphic in places. It is the kind of graphic content that really wrestled my attention and touched me in my core. Some violence is just for the effect of brutality and is merely icing on a cultural cake; but here it is clearly impacting my appreciation of the book. That is why I cannot give five stars and admit that I loved it, but I can admit that I really liked it.
July 20, 2012
"i, the poet, never praised you lyrically, instead scolded to put an end to your timid inhibitions; i've imagined it's done no good. They were only the words of another woman." (52)
"i nodded, alert, having already begun to open the sealed passages to those months. 'i'm writing about it,' i confessed. You shuddered, went to bed." (53)
I had difficulty entering the story, finding a shape that would allow a sustained interest. Conceptually, it's intriguing: a one-sided epistolary near-novella, to be read in various order set out by the author, though I opted for chronological by page. There is a relentlessness for a good while: abusive or disgusting male-encounter while traveling after another. But there's a turn toward the end, a grounding in something more substantial, that makes sustaining the reading worth it.
"i nodded, alert, having already begun to open the sealed passages to those months. 'i'm writing about it,' i confessed. You shuddered, went to bed." (53)
I had difficulty entering the story, finding a shape that would allow a sustained interest. Conceptually, it's intriguing: a one-sided epistolary near-novella, to be read in various order set out by the author, though I opted for chronological by page. There is a relentlessness for a good while: abusive or disgusting male-encounter while traveling after another. But there's a turn toward the end, a grounding in something more substantial, that makes sustaining the reading worth it.
April 30, 2013
There are some books that lack a compelling single narrative. I find most of these annoying. The Mixquiahuala Letters appears to be more of a collection of half-finished stories than a traditional novel, but I thought it was beautiful and riveting.
My entire experience of this book, in fact, was of being pleasantly surprised by forms that I would usually find pretentious. Some of the "letters," for example, are indistinguishable from free verse poetry. They are nevertheless lovely.
My favorite: Letter eleven,
"When i say ours was a love affair, it is an expression of nostalgia and melancholy for the depth of our empathy." I don't know if I've ever read a better sentence about female friendship.
My entire experience of this book, in fact, was of being pleasantly surprised by forms that I would usually find pretentious. Some of the "letters," for example, are indistinguishable from free verse poetry. They are nevertheless lovely.
My favorite: Letter eleven,
"When i say ours was a love affair, it is an expression of nostalgia and melancholy for the depth of our empathy." I don't know if I've ever read a better sentence about female friendship.
July 28, 2015
I wasn't quite in the mood for this book, but it read so easy and the writting was so lyrical and nice to read that I couldnt stop. I really like Teresa's letters: it's a mix of poems and thoughts. I read Ana Castillo's ''For the cynic'' list of letters and yes, I completely agree with that name. I might read ''For the optimist'' next time; because there will be a next time.
This book is a definite re-read because I feel like I could take something out of it everytime and at every moment in my life.
This book is a definite re-read because I feel like I could take something out of it everytime and at every moment in my life.
August 19, 2009
Great book. A collection of letters from Teresa to her gringa friend throughout their travels and lives, from when they meet in Mexico into middle age. The author suggests that you read them in three particular orders, omitting some depending on what "mood" you choose. I chose "quixotic" and it was lovely. Then I went and read the letters I skipped and got a different perspective on how she's crafting her narrative. Castillo is a Chicana poet and a fantastic writer. Highly recommended.
October 19, 2010
A very engaging tale that continues to build the readers relationship with the two protagonists even though we only hear the voice of one of them. It also is a discussion of gender roles that is very powerful. Most interesting to me at this moment, because I am also re-reading A Room of Her Own by Virginia Woolf and, even though miles apart in story and time, these two women are discussing this issue approaching it from totally different angles.
June 20, 2013
this book is so, so important to me. not only was it beautifully written and powerfully felt, but it really struck a chord with me, considering the place i'm in right now. i value my loving friendships with women so deeply, and having had almost the same exact friendship as teresa and alicia (also spurred forth by the exchange of letters) with my best friend, the mixquiahuala letters was an intense and necessary read. i want to reread it already.
November 25, 2009
Recommended to everyone male and female but more for females. This book I have since recently loaned to Vanessa. I have read it about 6 times. Speaks a lot on the depth of female relationships, friendship, heartaches, life, etc. etc. The format in which it is written makes for a wonderful read if you are one who enjoys not only reading but reading letters.
November 14, 2013
Gosh, for being such a small and thin book, I could not get into reading it. I tried at least 3 different times, 3 different starts to the book, and I found it uninteresting. It came recommended by a Chicano/Chicana studies student and I was disappointed to say the least that I could not appreciate the book. I will try again another time.
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