Luis Alberto Urrea—The Magical Tale of a Family’s History

By Carlos Rodríguez Martorell -- Críticas, 1/15/2007

With The Hummingbird’s Daughter (Little, Brown & Co., 2005), Luis Alberto Urrea established himself as one of the most successful and widely praised Latino writers of the moment. The Tijuana-born writer and poet, who now lives in Naperville, IL, has written several award-winning works, including the 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist The Devil’s Highway. His latest, an epic saga—now available in Spanish—about his great aunt, la Santa de Cabora (the Saint of Cabora), has immensely expanded his readership and reputation.

La hija de la chuparrosa (Bay Books: Little, Brown & Co., 2006) is the story of Teresita, la Santa de Cabora, the illegitimate daughter of a humble Yaqui girl and Don Tomás Urrea, a powerful rancher. After following the teachings of a curandera named Huila and miraculously escaping death, Teresita becomes a revered icon for the poor and even influences the Mexican Revolution.

In his conversation with Críticas, Urrea comments on his own family research that inspired the novel and his plans to bring Teresita to the big screen.

The Hummingbird’s Daughter has received critical acclaim and even won the 2006 Kiriyama Book Prize. How has La hija de la chuparrosa been received in Mexico?

The Spanish-language version is just now appearing in Mexico. There will be a Spanish version coming as well, which could be catastrophic since I don’t know if the Spaniards will be able to capture Sinaloa’s rural slang. There had been an international edition in English available all over the world, including Mexican airports, so I have received a steady stream of positive responses. My recent visit to the Guadalajara International Book Fair was also extremely positive.

Teresita, la Santa de Cabora, was not only a real woman but also your great aunt. Can you comment on the 20 years of research on your family?

Simply put, I spent many years digging through archives, books, etc. If you consider family conversations research, then I suppose you could say that I spent 40 years working on this book. In many ways, I have always been steeped in stories about the Saint of Cabora. She was the shadow behind much of my family and their obsessions with spiritism, miracles, etc.

Your most well-known work, The Devil’s Highway, is a true account about immigration and tragedy on the U.S./Mexico border. Why did you turn to fiction for your family’s story?

It was the work with curanderas and medicine men that convinced me that it had to be a work of fiction. Their reality was as dreamlike as a good novel. Furthermore, I never intended to be an essayist or nonfictionist. I always intended to write poems and be a novelist. I felt that the great Mexican novel would be the best I could do in my life to offer in her honor.

Teresita’s story can be seen as a parable of Mexico itself: the illegitimate daughter of an indigenous girl and a patrón—which echoes of la Malinche—who becomes a Saint for the underprivileged—echoes of Guadalupe. Was it your intention?

Sometimes life hands you metaphors. North American fans constantly bring up the hidden feature you didn’t mention, the similarities to Christ. The humble beginning, the death, and resurrection. There is another element that lent itself to this real-life story and that is the fairy tale element. Poor Cinderella had a wicked stepmother before she became a princess and so did Teresita. In some ways, I was given the gift of what I’m starting to suspect is a paradigmatic heroine’s journey.

You write, “Every Mexican was a diluted Indian....Yesterday is within today. Yesterday never dies.” How different—or similar—is Mexico today from these words intended to describe how it was 100 years ago?

I think it is an eternal struggle. If you look at the border crisis closely, you will see that in many ways it is an indigenous struggle. I refer all readers to Octavio Paz’s Labyrinth of Solitude.

One of the most endearing characters is the curandera Huila. What can you tell us about her and the Yaqui shaman traditions?

Huila, a.k.a. María Sonora, was a real woman. She was Teresita’s teacher and the head of the domestic staff of the ranch. Since conquerors wrote history, she was excluded from some of the official texts. Her teachings are based on the real-life teachings of a Mayan medicine woman named Maclovia Moroyoqui, the grandmother of my cousin Esperanza Urrea.

You must understand that my book is not a textbook on Yaqui faith. Many curanderas forge their own medicine and follow their own medicine path. Maclovia definitely had her own way of doing things.

A critic wrote that your novel revitalized the “magical realism” genre. Do you agree with him?

That is a heavy mantle to wear. I never intended to write a magical realist book in the first place. That being said, I bet if you asked [Gabriel] García Márquez when he was working on Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) if it were “magical” or “realist,” he might have said realist. In other words, I told the story as best as I understood it. The “magical” elements are all in the historical record.

How was your experience in recreating your character’s voices for the audiobook?

It’s a good thing I used to be a drama major when I was in college! I was amused at the way the voices asserted themselves. There were times when I felt like a radio receiving a broadcast.

You have mentioned the possibility of a sequel and even a movie. What other projects do you have coming up?

Definitely a sequel but not immediately. I am completing a very modern, very dark novel right now. The sequel to Hummingbird will follow. As far as the movie goes, I am awaiting [Mexican film director] Luis Mandoki’s first draft of his script. Once that’s ready, I’ll take a whack at it, and we will proceed together.

What is the last book—or books—you’ve read in Spanish or that were written by a Latino? Alternatively, what have you been reading lately?

The last book I read in Spanish is El hombre colectivo by Luis Alberto Quesada. I tend to see a lot of Latino books because I’m asked to blurb them all the time. I’m reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow (Nieve) right now. My next big reading project in Spanish will be Paco Taibo II’s gigantic Pancho Villa. Una biografía narrativa.