Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

Gonzalez, Rigoberto. "Butterfly Boy" Memories of a Chicano Mariposa", University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. Angry, Passionate. And Ironic Amos Lassen I have finally gotten around to reading Rigoberto Gonzalez's "Butterfly Boy". It is one of the most moving books I have ever read. We follow a young Chicano as he matures into accepting himself as a gay male and Gonzalez writes about in eloquent beautiful language and with candor. It is enough for one to be gay; homosexuality automatically comes with minority status but to be gay and poor and Chicano is another story altogether. This is not an easy subject to write about but to write about in such exquisite prose makes this book very special. Subtitled "Memories of a Chicano Mariposa", we learn that "mariposa" not only means butterfly but also "faggot". Like other gay coming of age stories, Gonzalez describes the trials of being an effeminate kid with a high voice who enjoys putting on girl's clothing. We also read about how he found homosexual themes in classic literature and his feelings of validation when he read E.M.Forster and Herman Melville. With that rapture also comes sadness when he discovers that he is different from others and the emotions of tears and smiles and anger and acceptance face each other off all through the memoirs. Gonzalez tells this story is prose that is poetic and the story is intense and heartfelt. Gonzalez compromises nothing and he tells it like it is. It is very difficult to write about the sexual orientation of a young person because it is so personal that it is hard to convey. Gonzalez manages to do so with beautiful tenderness. Gonzales not only faced the issue of being gay--he also had to face near-poverty, illiteracy, and abuse. Above these there was love; he loved himself and who he was. The Chicano culture puts great emphasis on machismo and this made self-acceptance that more difficult. Feeling alone in the world, the only sense of connection that Gonzalez had came from a violent relationship with an older man. His mother died when he was twelve and his father had abandoned the family. When Gonzalez found his voice as a writer and also attempted to reconcile with his father, he was finally able to accept himself, claim his identity and bring together the issues of sexuality, race and class. This is a must read and should be on everyone's list. I don't understand why it took me so long to read it.

Years ago Rigoberto Gonzalez did a reading at the University of California, Riverside, his alma mater and the approximate locale where he met the "older lover" who abused him. Someone in the audience asked him why he felt he could write a memoir so young? Rigoberto, then in his early thirties, answered, "Because I write about another time that is no longer my life." BUTTERFLY BOY: MEMORIES OF A CHICANO MARIPOSA speaks to us about cruelties we do not want to confront: physical and sexual abuse among gay men, child sexual abuse, continuing cycles of abuse, poverty among immigrant farmworkers, family abuse linked to socioeconomic conditions, and inequality in secondary and higher education. These are some of the issues most of us have lived, our "dirty little secrets," but very little of us admit to. I praise Rigoberto Gonzalez for his courage to bring this out to light. Without a doubt, BUTTERFLY BOY is an example of taking risks with one's writing. Each scene is more heart-breaking than the last, and addictive. Addictive not in the sadistic sense, but because Gonzalez weaves a narrative that pulls you in, and its unsentimentality and your empathy that won't let you go. His prose is poetic and never dramatic. A read you won't be able to put down. This book will become a classic in Chicano/a and ethnic literature. Worth the buy at any price. Nothing can be more true than when Gonzalez said that he writes about a life no longer lived. He is an accomplished, award-winning writer and a leading figure in Chicano letters, movers and shakers. He is currently a professor in creative wrting at Queens College in New York. It's hard to believe he went through all the events he writes about, plus more I can't imagine, and still become as successful as he is now. Considering his up-bringing and where he's arrived, I hope this book falls into the hands of those who face similar adversities and have shrinking hope.

What makes a writer? This seemingly simple question can elicit many complex answers and even more questions. Case in point: Rigoberto González's poetic and heartbreaking memoir, "Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa" (The University of Wisconsin Press, $24.95 hardcover). González is an award-winning author of poetry, fiction and children's books. He is also a book critic contributing regularly to the El Paso Times. How did González, the son of migrant farmworkers whose first language was Spanish, become González the writer? Answers begin to emerge from his painful assertion of himself as a gay man in a culture steeped in machismo. González tells of his journey into adulthood and a life of literature in a nonlinear fashion, moving back and forth from childhood to adulthood, Mexico to the United States, self-loathing to self-revelatory empowerment. The book begins in Riverside, Calif., in 1990. González, as a college student at the Riverside campus of the University of California, has fallen in love with an older man who, as symbolized by painful yet beautiful "butterfly" marks he places upon González, brings both tenderness and brutality to the relationship. The unnamed lover cheats on González and doesn't hesitate to beat him up to establish his superiority over his young man. At times, González believes he deserves such brutality. Other times, he is grateful to have escaped the oppressiveness of his family and its legacy of dropping out of high school to work in the fields. The escape comes in the form of literature. A sometimes-callous, sometimes-tender teacher named Dolly lends the young González a poetry book and works with him to subjugate his accent. And the fire is lit: "I became a closet reader at first, taking my book with me to the back of the landlord's house or into my parents' room, where I would mouth the syllables softly, creating my own muted music." González then suffers the death of his mother when he is only 12. Compounding this loss, he is shipped off to live with his tyrannical grandfather. His own father -- who abuses alcohol and carouses with women --eventually starts another family, further alienating González. Again, books prove to be González's salvation, eventually leading to his surreptitious and successful application to college. González remains closeted in both his sexuality and intellect, realizing that neither facet of his identity would be understood or appreciated by his family. In the midst of scenes from his college life in Riverside and his adolescent exploration of sex and literature, González recounts a long and agonizing bus trip with his father. He leaves Riverside and travels to Indio, where his father lives, so they can begin their journey "into México, into the state of Michoacán, into the town of Zacapu, where my father was born, where my mother was raised, and where I grew up." This passage home takes on a special aura because González will turn 20 while there. Throughout t