Daughter, We Are Gypsies

Abstract

The author describes how her poetry collection transformed from a collection of poems based on the oral histories of women like her own mother who crossed the border from Mexico to a more personal collection: “it became impossible for me to distance myself from these poems and inevitable to put myself in them. The final product is now a poetry collection about the relationship between me and my mother and the ever-shifting relationships we each have with Los Angeles and Guadalajara, our two homes. Although my own voice and stories don't appear until the third and final section of the series, I am present in the poems that depict my mom's stories too. Not only because I wrote them, but because these stories shaped who my mom is today and she, in turn, will forever shape who I am. Thus, the poems that tell my stories are also her poems and her stories.”