Interview with Claudia D. Hernández, winner of the Louise Meriweather First Book Prize

Melinda Palacio 

Claudia D. Hernández 

I am so thrilled for this amazing and lyrical memoir, a life in poems and story by La Bloga friend Claudia D. Hernández, 2018 winner of the Louise Meriweather First Book Prize by Feminist Press. Knitting the Fog is a book you’ll want to read and reread. 

MAP:

There is so much fierce courage in Knitting the Fog from the courage of being sent to the mill to bathing in a river without knowing how to swim and then crossing the Rio Grande and in between all the stubborn acts of childhood courage such as sifting though the dump. Can you talk about the courage required to expose yourself in this book and was it something that was easy or hard to summon?              

                    

                                                 

CDH:

It took both emotional and spiritual courage to write this book. Me desgarré like Tía Soila would say. I had to break family bonds and secrets that not one family member dared to pronounce in decades. To give you one example, I begin my book with a poem titled Facts on How to Be Born: Life.This poem explains how at the age of eighteen I learnedthat my real last name should have been Rossi instead of Hernández. It took me eighteen years to find out about this truth and it took me another ten years to process this information and to write about it. It was painful to accept it, but I understood my mother and her struggles. She was a young mother and a wife fighting for her life, forced to be in a relationship that was based in domestic violence rather than love. I don’t blame her.  

It took me thirteen years to write this memoir because it’s a hybrid with essays and poetry. During the process of writing each essay, or each poem, I felt as if I was in therapy. The problem was when I began to submit to journals and eventually these got published and accepted. Exposing my family and myself was killing me slowly, hypothetically speaking. I was revealing all my dirty little childhood secrets as well as my mother’s and my grandmother’s youth. But these are lessons filled with loveand courage and therefore I believe they should be shared. Someone who reads these stories or poems might relate to my mother’s courage, my grandmother’s struggles. Perhaps they might even find inspiration in some of my writing. I admire my mother’s valor for leaving my abusive father behind. She had to sacrifice her three daughters by leaving us behind, but like Tía Soila says, “Your mother has a backbone like no other woman,” she came back for thethree of us three years later to set off on a journey that would forever change our lives.  

MAP:

Knitting the fog is the title of your memoir and an expression for something that cannot be done. I see this also as knitting the different aspects of you and the languages you grew up with. In beautiful prose and verse you've accomplished the impossible in telling your story in a unique and lyrical way. Can you tell us a little more about why you chose the title for both your title poem and memoir and when did you first hear of the expression?

CDH:

The first time I came up with this expression was when I wrote the poem, Tejiendo la niebla, I was on my way to San Francisco on the 101 freeway and the mountains were foggy. I remember clearly saying out loud: Tejiendo la niebla, knitting the fog both in English and Spanish. I know it sounds absurd, something unrealistic, but at the moment I felt inspired and my Spanish poem was born. I was in the passenger seat, so I wrote the skeleton of the poem. Eventually a poem was born and I began submitting it to different presses months later. This poem was nominated as the Best poem and published on La Bloga in 2012. A yearlater, my partner then translated it into English and decadelater, I decided that Knitting the Fog would became the title of my memoir. 

My memoir has many layers of unanswered questions that perhaps will never be answered. I think I will be okay if that’s the case. It also has other layers of painful memories that will never be resolved and I want to be okay with thatas well. Like for example, my mother truly forgiving my grandmother for abandoning her at the age of six. I’m not sure if my mother will ever let that go and let Mamatoya in her heart again. Or my sister Sindy forgiving my mother for bringing her to the US against her wishes. I want my mother and my grandmother to heal and forgive themselves as mothers and move on. Motherhood is difficult and no one teaches you how to be a mother especially when you’re seventeen years old. This was exactly the case with both my mother and grandma—young mothers at the age of seventeen. This is part of knitting the fog. It’s complicated. 

MAP:

Now that you've lived in South-Central Los Angeles (are you still in Cudahy?) for longer than your birth place, do you feel distanced from the protagonist in your memoir? How does place affect who you are? 

CDH:

I no longer live in Cudahy. I live in South Gate, the city that borders it. This is still South East Los Angeles, though. I lived in Cudahy up until I was eighteen years old. When I turned twenty years old I became a Teacher’s Assistant and I worked in Cudahy, at Park Avenue Elementary School for four years, the same elementary school I attended when I first arrived to the US. Soon after I got my B.A., I began substituting all over South East Los Angeles area. When I became a teacher, I got hired at Jaime Escalante in Cudahy. I was elated to be working back in Cudahy, giving back to my own community. I worked at Escalante for one year and a half as a kindergarten teacher up until I was let go due to low enrollment. So I feel like I have never left Cudahy. It’s always in my heart. Who knows, I might come back one day when I build enough seniority with LAUSD. I’m currently working as a fifth grade teacher at Nueva Vista Magnet Elementary School in Bell, which is also in South East Los Angeles and next to Cudahy. I never want to leave this area. This is where I belong. This is where I grew up and this is where I need to be, where kids see me and can relate to me, look up to me and say: Ms. Hernández is my teacher and she’s an artist, a poet, and a writer. I want to be just like her when I grow up. 

MAP:

What do you when you are not working or writing? Do you have any hobbies, obsessions?

CDH:

When I’m not working or writing I love to sleep and run. It makes no sense, I know. But I love both. Not in that order. I love running long distances with friends and short distances by myself listening to my favorite band/obsession right now: Bomba Stereo. I love music: from trova to British pop, from Violeta Parra to Nico from the Velvet Underground. I also like to hike, paint, and do ceramics, but these come with the seasons. Road trips and bookstores are two more of my hobbies. Also, thirty-mile-bike-rides specifically because that’s all I can handle as of now. I occasionally play Soccer, depending on my mood. I love to dance. Did I mention that I love food? And photography is simply part of me, although I’m on an indefinite hiatus and I still don’t understand why. 

MAP:

Are you happy with the production of your book, the cover art, etc. Did anything surprise you about the process of publishing your memoir?

CDH:

I’m very happy with the production of my book. I love the Feminist Press and what they stand for. I love the fact that they have been around for almost fifty years and it’s a nonprofit organization founded to advance women’s rights. I found the perfect home for my book. What surprised me was when they asked me to submit my Spanish poems to go along with the English poems. I loved how they wanted to publish both side by side. I never imagined that I was going to have the opportunity to have my beautiful Español published in such an important book. Another thing that I liked as well was how none of my Spanish words/phraseswere italicized throughout the book. In regards to the art cover, they decided to choose one of my photographs as the art cover. I was very pleased with that. All the content, including the cover art is all my work, my art. I can’t complain. I love the Feminist Press!

MAP:

Anything else you'd like to tell La Bloga?

CDH:

I want to thank La Bloga for always being such a great supporter and sponsor to 

up-and-coming as well as accomplished artists. ¡Muchasgracias!