New Mexico Author Q & A Anita Rodriguez

Coyota in the Kitchen: A Memoir of New and Old Mexico, by Anita Rodriguez (2016: UNM Press), is stuffed with fascinating information. Such as how can you determine the temperature inside an horno oven? (Buy an oven thermometer.) What’s a delicious way to cook a freshly caught rabbit? There’s a recipe that involves cornflakes. How do you prepare chicos? You’ll need two days and garden hose. How does a woman establish herself in the hard-core macho world of adobe construction? The answer is worth a book in itself. Taos resident Anita Rodriguez managed to do it and even earned the grudging respect of her male rivals.

Rodriguez has crossed many borders in her life: both material and nonmaterial. Her recipes and stories can serve as metaphors for those borders: Indian, Hispanic, and gringo borders, the border between the U.S. and Mexico, the border between life and death. And the border is where incompatible worlds clash, and create anew.

I adore this book! Reading it was like being tossed into a simmering cauldron of magical ingredients, a soup that can change you down down down through many layers if you let it.

Ramona: Your family was most unusual: your mother a Southern belle and your father a Mexican pharmacist from Chihuahua. That kind of family situation may not be as unusual today, when people travel and move around much more. Do you think it’s easier now for a “coyota” child to avoid prejudice growing up?

Anita: I think that now there is a great deal more intermarriage, and it is more acceptable, although still charged. When my parents married there were still people living who had seen the American conquest, the cannoning of the Pueblo church, the hangings on the Plaza, and the bitterness was very fresh.

Ramona: As a child, you were acutely aware of these different worlds, yet you felt you didn’t fit into any. Do you think that status gave you unusual insight into the different worlds?

Anita: Absolutely. Lots of people live their entire lives and never realize that there are infinite, utterly authentic other cultural universes and believe that the particular bubble they live in is the “right” one or even the only one. From the cradle I was told I was “neither fish nor fowl,” and it was tremendously formative, and in retrospect a gift, a blessing, a rare opportunity.

Ramona: You wrote you were born just after that “historical crucible” when Anglos from the East invaded New Mexico, championed Indian causes, and either ignored the Hispanics or took their land through both legal and illegal deals, all while inventing tourism. Your mother was actually a tourist who met your father on the Taos Plaza. Now that nearly every corner of New Mexico is dedicated to seeking tourism dollars, do you think tourism has helped or hurt New Mexico’s Hispanic population?

Anita: Well, tourism is just another stage of conquest and colonization, and although the conquered can adjust and find ways to circumvent the harms and even profit marginally, I think that far, far more tourist dollars end up in Indian pockets than in Hispanic ones, precisely because Natives are more profitable to promote, more exotic, etc. Born in the interface between old enemies gave me a ringside seat on cultural confluence and conflict and how racism in New Mexico is selective.

Ramona: Your paternal grandmother was no sweet storyteller. Instead she terrified her grandchildren with lurid tales of La Llorona, the devil, haunted places, her people being scalped by Apaches and Comanches, so much so that you were afraid to visit the outhouse at night. And your maternal grandmother maintained a long list of forbidden topics from her Southern upbringing, including any talk about race. In villages and Pueblos across New Mexico, old grievances fester in the dark. As a child balancing between these worlds, you realized how harmful keeping secrets can be. Do you think our society now still keeps too many secrets, or have we gone too far in the other direction?

Anita: Until all  the dirty secrets of our country are told, processed, admitted, and reconciled we will never be at peace but will only repeat the same mistakes again and again. My family just happened to encompass almost all of the country’s atrocities, slavery, genocide, conquest, AND racism. And white people will resist, complain about the discomfort of having to know terrible truths and their fragility will be wounded—but it is the only way—the truth has to be fully told.

Ramona: You wrote that remote Taos was the isolated frontier of mestizaje, where the European root was grafted onto the Indian root. When you were growing up, other children taunted you by calling you “coyota,” meaning the offspring of Hispanic and gringo parents. Would you say this kind of bullying pushed you deeper into your own imagination, forcing you to rely on your courage? Did you have to learn not to be bitter?

Anita: All of those things. My imagination became a refuge, then a tool, a source of inspiration. My isolation became my creative solitude, it honed and polished my courage.  And the moral choice to not be bitter, but as the Dalai Lama says, “Lose—but don’t lose the lesson,” has enriched and empowered me. Bitterness is its own punishment, and rejecting it leads to understanding and compassion.

Ramona: Grandma Coyota, the imaginary magical persona you created to counter the teasing of other children, was a figure of power and cunning. She was your “real relative,” who embodied all the amazing qualities of coyotes, and you made up stories about her exploits. Thus you turned a badge of shame into a badge of bravery. I think you should write a children’s book about her! Did you ever tell anyone about Grandma Coyota?

Anita: Grandma Coyota was my secret until I began to write, then she came loping into the studio, flopped down on the floor, farted, and said, “Why do you hang with those two-leggeds anyway? Let's go kill chickens!”

Ramona: You spent a summer traveling around to villages to find enjarradoras, the women who had formerly comprised half of the construction crews who built adobe structures--from houses to churches. These skilled women did construction, maintenance, and repair of adobe walls. You learned that “collective, cooperative building had been woven into Native and Hispanic culture.” These women, now elderly, were so happy that you sought them out and interviewed them. And you started learning how to make a living with these skills in the modern construction business. You met a lot of resistance from the male-dominated culture, but you persisted, and eventually your 15 years of work were recognized by architects and others in the industry. Did your efforts make a lasting difference in the adobe construction business? Is it any easier now for enjarradoras to work in the Southwest?

Anita: I know of no traditional enjarradoras who are practicing today—it is very hard work.  And I know of no book that tells the whole story and details all the processes in one place. However, I believe I changed the thinking of the industry and a lot of people regarding the material. My formulas are all over the net, my work is featured in various books, but most important the qualities of mud as a building material are now valued.

Mud is universally available, biodegradable, non-polluting, infinitely sculptural, and it can be adapted to any cultural style. The energy it consumes is human—meaning jobs—and the best thing about it is that when no longer needed, it melts back into the earth from which it comes. None of our industrial building materials have these qualities.

Ramona: You started painting at age 47 and a year later had a show and sold half of it. Many artists struggle for years to make it. What inspired your confidence in yourself? And how did living in Guanajuato affect your painting?

Anita: I started painting at 47 and it’s true I have made a living at it, but my work has never received the blessing of a major gallery—only five percent of the world’s major art collections contain the work of women, and if one can eat from her talent it’s a triumph. Guanajuato enormously enriched my painting; one of the reasons I chose to live there is because it is one of the most paintable cities in the world.

Ramona: How would you describe your painting style? It seems unique to me.

Anita: How would I describe my style? I'll accept the mantle my friend Linda Durham, icon of the Santa Fe art world, gave me and claim at least kinship with magical realism.

Ramona: I’ve seen from your posts on Facebook that you take an active role in community life in Taos, especially working to educate newcomers about the culture of the town. Taos is attracting so many ultrarich people now. Has it become a playground for those who can live behind gates and high walls? Do you see any signs that these people want to be integrated into the community?

Anita: Migrants, whether rich or poor, are never welcome. The destructive impact of gentrification on old communities is well known, and so is the sadistic cruelty and corruption great wealth can cultivate. This extreme degree of income inequality is proving to be unsustainable. But I have known and know good rich people.

Among newcomers to Taos there are a few who are sensitive and educated, they WANT to preserve the same things us indigenous New Mexicans do, and as I write some of them are knocking themselves out with considerable expertise and moving dedication to protect Taos from the coming crisis.

And lastly I think everyone craves community; it’s hardwired into the species. And Pueblo and Chicano people have time-tested, historically based, authentic community. Money can’t buy that—but it can destroy it. We will just have to see how things turn out—all we know is that it won’t be the same.

Morada

Ink-jet prints of Anita Rodriguez's artwork are currently carried by Fine Art New Mexico; see   https://www.fineartnewmexico.com/anita-rodriguez. From her artist bio on the website: "Her work reflects her very diverse background, exploring her 'Hispanic-Chicano-Mexican-Mestizo-Indian-Jewish-Gringo virtual country.'"