Beatriz Terrazas and her evocative writing
Several years ago, Beatriz Terrazas, wrote what is still one of my favorite articles about me. She captured exactly who I am, what I wanted to say and how I wanted to be portrayed. I thank her deeply for letting me tell my story. We met today to discuss a possible collaboration and she suggested that I put links to three recent articles on different aspects of Mexican American culture.
In the first she talks about the significance of dichos or popular sayings and how they resonate in Mexican American culture. I too felt that they are an essential part of our lore but when I designed some items with dichos on them for the Zarela Casa line, I was surprised that they weren’t as successful as I had hoped.
There are places in Mexico where entire conversations are held bouncing one dicho after another off each other and part of the success of the Spanish-language version of Like Water for Chocolate is that Laura Esquivel used popular sayings to succinctly describe certain situations or people. They are one of the treasures of the Spanish language. It’s a joy that they haven’t been lost in immigration.
Her newest article on how a name shapes your life is a tour de force. A great writer somehow manages to touch many people on different levels and for varrying reasons. I particulary identified with the subject of a name because it’s been a major force in shaping my life. If you’ve heard the story and I sound like a broken record, I ask forgiveness but it’s an important story to me:
When I was a little girl I complained bitterly to my mother about my name. I wanted a regular name like Gabriela, Letizia, Ana but my mother told me she picked that name because it would look good in lights. Where did she come up with that notion? We lived in a cattle ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico, in the middle of nowhere and she thought I was destined for great things. Did I grow into the name or did it help me get to the life I now lead and a place where my name is seldom pronounced as it should be and often misspelled even by my own staff.: Zarela in Spanish is “sah-reh-lah” and here I am a heavy Zah-rreh-la as in Liza with a Z, the Liza Minelli song. So I take it as my professional name and we won’t get into my last name!
I’d never heard of skirt.com until Beatriz directed me there to read her piece on how Alzheimer’s has flavored her mother’s caldo de pollo (chicken soup.) This woman can write!
http://www.skirt.com/node/2854.
When I was still into myspace I posted an article on washingtonpost.com by Beatriz about the Rio Grande. It bears reading if you missed it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070601730.html
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