Sam Atkis

“Nepantla, Rosamaria says, as she turns, without self-consciousness, to face him. That’s the word for being in a place between two places. She touches her wide, flat nose. I am a crossroads inhabited by whirlwinds. That’s what Anzaldûa wrote, about being inside and outside at the same time. A place you come to, but which is always moving. A nepantlera is someone who moves between selves. Am I the good Mexican girl who goes to Mass and prays to la virgencita? Am I the good assimilated girl who doesn’t have an accent? Am I the sad messed-up girl whose mom left so now she has sex under a porch? Am I a poor girl who cares about poor Mexicans? Am I a feminist who cares about women? Who gets my solidarity? I want the answer to be “everyone.” But people don’t like it when you’re too many things at once.”
― Seth Dickinson, Exordia