But he is most renowned or recognized for his portraits. The photograph is by Luis Gonzales Palma, and he is a Guatemalan photographer. I felt like it was important to have the cover of the indigenous woman. I’m also curious about the cover art of the book what was your reason for selecting an image of a woman of color? I thought that it was important because of the idea of a nation, a country, what we define as home, not necessarily defined by borders but really by the space where you can grow and develop and explore. But for my childhood, I lived in what would be my patria, my fatherland. So, my motherland is El Salvador-where I was born, where my mom is from. My mother is Salvadoran and my dad is American.
I felt like it was important to have a title related to women and in particular to mothers because it actually is part biographical. The book is titled Matria could you talk a little about the title of the book? The speaker constantly motions to the women in her life: they, in turn, become central to the survival and existence of the self. It’s a continuous thread that runs throughout her book. The sacrifice that motherhood demands bleed across the pages of Matria. Regalado’s version of motherhood is corporal and visceral. In “La Sandia,” Regalado depicts the laborious pain of motherhood:
Everyday women such as la enfermera and la pupusera offer the readers moments of strength and tenderness. In “La Calavera, ” the speaker and her son find themselves in the middle of gunfire after leaving a country club:īut, in Matria Regalado doesn’t just dwell on the violence the women in Matria are central to countering stereotypical notions of El Salvador. In “La Quinceañera, ” Regalado recounts how a fifteen-year-old girl was drowned by members of the MS-13 gang:įifteen days of rain, like the years of her life, swallowedĭocks, swelled mountainsides, unearthed bodies. When it comes to the violence in El Salvador, Regalado doesn’t shy away from its portrayal. Regalado sets up her book like a deck of Lotería cards, beginning with “El Chandelier” and ending with “La Virgen.” But this is not a Mexican Lotería card: Regalado creates her own Loteria board using El Salvador as characters, and illustrates the daily realities faced by Salvadorans: “Ours is not El Apache, La Pera, El Catrín. By Maria Esquinca Image via Alexandra Lytton Regalado.Īlexandra Lytton Regalado ’s debut poetry collection Matria ( Black Lawrence Press, $15.95 ) is on ode to El Salvador, maternity, and womanhood.
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