INTERVIEW WITH MARY HELEN PONCE

Senator Alarón presents MHP with Senate Resolution to commemorate the Lifetime Commitment to Literacy Award from the Friends of the San Fernando Library


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Mary Helen Ponce was born in Pacoima, CA. She attended Pacoima Elementary, San Fernando High School, earned BA and MA degrees from California State University Northridge. She has studied history at UCLA on a Danforth Fellowship, was awarded a UCSB Dissertation Fellowship, and obtained her PhD from University of New Mexico.

Publications include Taking Control, 1987; The Wedding, 1980 & 2008; Hoyt Street: An Autobiography, 1993.

Ponce’s work has been translated into French, German, Spanish and Romanian. She has presented her work at UNAM, El Colegio de Mexico, and published in “Fem”, Mexico’s leading feminist magazine. She taught literature and creative writing at UCLA and UNM. She contributes to “Hispanic Magazine”, “Los Angeles Times”, and “Saludos Hispanos.”

She has raised three sons and a daughter and lives in Sunland, CA. She is currently working on a historical novel about 19th century Mexican-Spanish women.

I see Mary Helen at least once a month at the meetings of the Sunland/Tujunga Reading Group, also known as “One Book At A Time.” We often meet at Mi Casita in Sunland, eat, drink magaritas and get rowdy and discuss like our hair’s on fire. They love us there even though they usually have to kick us out.

So for this interview, I attempted to get professional and sent Mary Helen my questions by email. I believe she took time from her intense writing schedule to jot down some answers, which was more than gracious of her. I have put her thoughts into sentences and now she will undoubtedly send me an email with edits. That’s OK. We are also in a writing group together, so I can get her back.

KTW: You originally wrote and published The Wedding in 1989 and then revised it for the publication in 2008. Is there a story behind this? What changes did you make to the book after almost 20 years?

MHP: Arte Publico (the current publisher) asked to republish the book. I rewrote it because the first edition had many typos and the editing was sloppy. This was difficult because the original manuscript was on old floppy discs which I had to transfer to CD, so I also typed from the book. Ughhh. I cut repetitive words, but overall the story remained the same.

KTW: I was touched by the plight of Blanca, who seemed to have really no future happiness after the wedding, and this appeared typical for women in the barrio. Is this still the case or have Mexican/American women improved their chances of finding a good man and creating a stable family?

MHP: You misinterpret Blanca. She was happy (blind, but happy) as her life would now change, her mother could brag about the wedding and weddings were such fun! Her future was not unlike that of other women, say in Appalachia or the Deep South during the early/late 1940s.

I would argue that Mexican/American women today are a far cry from those of previous generations. Many graduate from highschool. If any one group is living Blanca’s experience, it is newly arrived immigrants from Central America and Mexico. The influence and dictates of the Catholic Church still predominates.

When I wrote Op-Eds for the “Los Angeles Times”, I wrote, “Go forth and multiply, Latina,” as a rebuttal to the pastor’s sermons at my church. I can zap.

KTW: I think your book would touch both Chicana women as well as women in general. When you wrote The Wedding, who did you expect your audience would be? What feedback did you get?

MHP: I got some positive reviews, but one USCB professor, who used it in her teaching, called in a Pachuco novel, as did her students. I saw it more as a love story. Once male critic didn’t like it and men in general thought I was too tough on them. Think I hit a raw nerve?

As to the new edition, there were lots of positive responses. A neighbor (male, 26) loves it. Students at Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, invited me to lecture and read from it. They found it fascinating and relevant. Weddings are still FUN!

KTW: Tell us a good story about your adventures in getting published.

MPH: I published very early in my writing career. I was first published at CSUN (California State University Northridge) in “El Popo”, the student newspaper in about 1980. I submitted three items and all were published.

My biggest thrill was to publish in Mexico (about 10-15 works), Spain (Catalonia), France, Germany, and Romania. The Germans like my work. I learned a lot about Catalonia. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is popular there as they seek autonomy.

KTW: What are you working on now?

MHP: Ay! You would ask. In 1984, while a Danforth Fellow at UCLA in history, I was assigned to research early Mexican/Spanish women in New Spain, as Mexico was called before 1848. The group I studied about was part of the first overland expedition to Alta California, as it was then known. I was intrigued by women who, although pregnant, would contemplate an 800 mile trek to Monterrey to establish a pueblo near the fledgling mission there. I conceived the novel then and wrote the first chapter.

I write in my head, so it has been festering for ages. Once could say it has had a long gestation. I began seriously putting it together about three years ago, then took three or four months to rewrite The Wedding, and in between wrote other stuff. The novel has been in my head for eons.

One problem is I like long, developed chapters (like The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova), so my first chapters were long. Then I saw other authors were into minimalism; even Tolstoy wrote uneven chapters and here I was trying for parallelism. So I cut up chapters, made a mess, recapitulated, and am finally finished with Part One. Now I am tired.

KTW: Is there anything else you would like to say to the readers here?

MHP: I like literary works. Hoyt Street, I’ve been told is very literary, but not The Wedding. Much of what is out there today is trite and not developed. I don’t use a lot of metaphors and similes, as they interrupt narrative flow. Lyricism is one thing but some authors overuse metaphor. Still, it takes time and craft to infuse a story with so much baggage. I prefer to try for lyricism (which is harder), than metaphors, etc.

I once read what I think was the epitome of similes: “Her voice on the phone was like crushed violets.” WOW!

KTW: Thank you so much, Mary Helen. I eagerly await your next novel and wish you luck in getting it finished.

THE WEDDING

The Wedding, Mary Helen Ponce, Arte Publico Press, 2008, 195 pp


A couple years ago I read Hoyt Street, Mary Helen Ponce's memoir of growing up as a Chicana in Los Angeles. As things go in the world of books, I later met Mary Helen through a mutual friend and we are now in a reading group together.

The Wedding also takes place in a Chicano community located on the edge of Los Angeles. It is early 1950s, a time of zoot suits, big hair and big cars. Life in the barrio is grim, jobs are hard to find and about all a girl can hope for is a big wedding which will impress the neighborhood.

The story follows Blanca Munoz, high school dropout, who finally gets a job cleaning turkeys, as well as a boyfriend named Cricket. The boyfriend, whom Blanca has known all her life, is a gang member and lives to rumble. In fact, The Wedding is the Mexican version of S E Hinton's The Outsiders, told from a female point of view.

We follow Blanca's trials and troubles as she prepares for the wedding: choosing the wedding party, the dress, the flowers, etc. Then comes the ceremony and a full day of festivities including a breakfast, pictures, a reception and a dance. The specter of a possible rumble haunts the day but most heartbreaking of all is that Blanca's prospects with her future husband are dim: just children, lack of money, lack of love; really no security or happiness is in store for this couple.

The title says it all. The wedding is going to be Blanca's one big day of happiness. She worked hard to get it and by the end of the day, she has even begun paying for it.

I have not had a Mexican friend until I met Mary Helen. She is highly educated, has taught literature at university level and is a published author, but she came from the barrio, she knows this world and her books put me in it. The writing is simple yet highly evocative of place, people and customs. Quite an accomplishment.

(Both The Wedding and The Outsiders are available on the shelf in the Young Adult section at Once Upon A Time Bookstore. However, both books make excellent reading for adults.)

THE HOUSE ON THE LAGOON

The House on the Lagoon, Rosario Ferre, Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1995, 407 pp

I belong to four reading groups, all of which meet in real time. Because I read so much, I am always dying for people to discuss books with, but reading group picks are an unpredictable mix. What a treat it is then to read a great book I might otherwise have missed if it weren't for those reading groups.

The House on the Lagoon is historical fiction set in Puerto Rico; Rosario Ferre is a Puerto Rican writer, poet and essayist. She writes in both Spanish and English, self-translating her books. The English edition of this novel is apparently out of print, but can be found in libraries and through used book sellers.

Buenaventura Mendizabal, a Spanish immigrant, arrived penniless on the shores of Puerto Rico in 1917 with nothing to recommend him but a good family name. He rose to be a wealthy man in the highest levels of Puerto Rican society and begat a dynasty, passing on the ruthless and violent ways of Spanish conquest. Through the generations his descendants intermingled and even at times intermarried with other levels of society and heritage, as is the way of colonized lands.

When I was in grade school, we were taught that Puerto Rico was an island of friendly people who were proud to live in a United States territory and whose fondest dream was that their island would become a state. So typical of the "Social Studies" taught to us in the 1950s. Reading The House on the Lagoon gave me a much truer picture of Puerto Rican history in the 20th century.

So that is fine on an educational level, but this novel works on many levels, one of which is a clear-eyed look at the position of women in a culture that combines Spanish aristocracy, wealth and business with the indigenous population. In that regard it is a triumph of historical writing including politics, finance, the arts and real social studies, as well as a finely wrought piece of literature.

Isabel Monfort is writing her first novel. It is to be a history of the Mendizabal family, known to her because she is married to Quentin, the grandson of Buenaventura and current head of the family business. In alternating chapters we read Isabel's novel-in-progress and Quentin's reactions to her writing. Thus we are given both the male and female perspective as the history evolves and leads to a stunning conclusion.

Many thanks to the wonderful Mary Helen Ponce, a fine writer herself and member of one of my reading groups, for recommending the book. We eagerly await Mary Helen's next novel!


(The House on the Lagoon is available in English and Spanish, hardcover and paperback here.)

CARAMELO

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Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros, Alfred A Knopf, 2002, 439 pp

Some years ago I bought this book for the title. I had a new kitten, a calico with a caramel colored strip right down the side of her face. Since I love caramel in any form (those chewy candy squares, Ben and Jerry's Caramel Cone ice cream, caramel in coffee drinks, etc) I named her Caramelo.

I am sorry to report that the book is not nearly as entertaining as my cat. It begins with the Reyes family making one of their yearly summer trips from Chicago to Mexico City to visit the "awful grandmother." It take them forever to leave and another few forevers to get there.

This Mexican American family has a history. All families do, in fact I am writing the story of mine. It is a trick to keep it interesting to anyone else but myself. Also like me, Cisneros views the family through herself and the coming of age of Lala, the only daughter and the baby of the family, who has six older brothers.

It took me forever, it seemed, to read. I don't know Spanish and she uses tons of Spanish words which I looked up because they were not always explained by the context. I enjoyed seeing late 20th century life through the eyes of a woman of Mexican heritage. I don't know much about that culture, though I am surrounded by it in Los Angeles, and now have gained more affinity for Mexican Americans. I liked that too.

My problems with Caramelo were a writing style I could not get used to and the feeling that Cisneros failed to keep her readers in mind. Still, I'm not sorry I read it because I don't think I have read any novels by a female of Mexican descent or a female of Mexican nationality, except for The Wedding by Mary Helen Ponce, whom I know personally.

Now that I think of it, Cisneros shows in her novel the cultural reasons for the lack of successful Mexican female authors. It was worth getting through Caramelo just to learn about that. Perhaps I was not her intended ideal reader and she wrote this book for other frustrated Mexican women.

(Caramelo is available in various formats in both English and Spanish by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)

PARADISE

Paradise, Elena Castedo, Grove Press, 1990, 328 pp


This excellent novel was suggested to one of my reading groups by Mary Helen Ponce, who wrote The Wedding. Elena Castedo was born in Barcelona, raised in Chile and now lives in Massachusetts, when she is not traveling.

Paradise tells the story of a family of refugees from Franco's Spain, now living in a city in South America. We see it all through the eyes of Solita, who is not quite ten years old. Solita worships her Papi but he is rarely home as he roams the town looking for work and getting caught up in labor disputes.

One day Solita's mother tells her they are going to Paradise where everything will be wonderful. Pilar dresses her daughter and four-year-old son in their best clothes and they leave their poverty-stricken pensione life among the refugees to become house guests at El Topaz, the hacienda of a wealthy eccentric.

In this glittery world filled with artists, politicians and "all the best people", Solita is expected to exhibit good manners and be an entertainment for the three daughters who live there. She does provide amusement for these spoiled girls who torment Solita in ways only children can.

As the days go by, Solita tries to navigate this treacherous territory while wondering what her mother is up to and when her Papi will arrive. Castedo has written a fabulous satire of the rich and their crazy customs. Gradually the reader begins to discern Pilar's purpose and strategy by picking up the clues from what Solita observes. As we read, we see what Solita sees and yet we bring our grownup perspective to the story. Brilliant.

In one other writing feat, Elena Castedo develops a certain sympathy for Papi and Pilar as well as for Solita. Each one is strong, brave and persistent; not one of them is completely admirable. They do the best they can to work out a possible life in this new land that has saved them from Franco and the Nazis but has no place for them in its culture.


(Paradise is available in paperback by special order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)