Writing Intersectional Stories: An Exclusive Guest Post from Jonny Garza Villa, Author of Ander and Santi Were Here, Our May YA Book Club Pick

By Johnny Garza Villa / May 2, 2023 at 4:02 am

Debug Notice: No product response from API

Fans of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe won’t want to miss Ander & Santi Were Here, a heart wrenching and beautiful romance about two teenagers falling in love while the weight of the world is stacked against them. Keep reading for a guest post from Jonny Garza Villa about writing intersectional stories and what books Ander and Santi would gift each other in a book exchange.

Ander & Santi Were Here is both a coming-of-age story centering one non-binary teenager, and a romance between them and the new waiter at their family’s taquería. The main characters are Chicane and are Mexican, are gay and are queer, are non-binary and are cis male, were born here and are undocumented. In all ways it is a celebration of intersecting and recognizing sympathy versus empathy; the power of being able to relate and the equal power of being a support in someone’s life.

Intersectionality, at its best, makes us part of multiple communities. It gives us siblings in a variety of beautiful communities. It gives us specificities in art, culture, inside jokes and also asks us to listen and be present.

But we have to recognize that it, too, comes with its downsides. It can be lonely. It can be used as a measuring tool that serves to limit rather than celebrate. We can be left wondering “Where is my place in the world as someone neurodivergent, someone non-binary, and as a Mexican?” We can see how media — all media — sees the bar for intersectionalism as “as little as we can possibly get away with.” And even then, we should be thankful. We got our little treat.

I often find myself and my writing compared to a certain young adult historical fiction novel about two boys falling in love in El Paso, Texas. One that has been, in my life, a very formative book personally speaking, and its praise deserved. However, it has, regardless of feeling, become our measuring tool that all queer and Mexican young adult books will be deemed as either good or bad. As worthy of being remembered or better left on the bookshelves. Conversely, that this is the story we, as queer and Mexican writers are told that we need to figure out how to compare our work to, so that readers who only have that book as context for our lives and our communities might be persuaded to decenter themselves and take a visit, rather than firstly being able to write for our aforementioned communities and for the young people who look and love and exist like us.

In Ander & Santi Were Here, Ander finds themself in a similar situation with their art. They want to figure out what sort of art is meaningful to them. They want to be able to celebrate their culture and their neighborhood and the city that raised them. They want to be able to attain a self-determination for what they give to the world. But they are often told by the powers that be “paint this” or “study this specific Mexican artist” or “stick to this kind of cultural facet of art” in a way that diminishes that meaning. To create because you love something is different than creating something because it’s a choice within the box we’ve been put in by society.

In conclusion, intersectionalism is at its strongest when it is allowed to thrive. When it is allowed to exist unencumbered. When those who wish to celebrate its beauty are allowed to and not expected to.

So allow us. I promise it only makes the story better.