Peeling Away Decades of Whitewashing Our History: On the Writing of the Novel, Dispossessed

A guest essay by Désirée Zamorano

When I wrote The Amado Women it was in part to address the pervasive misrepresentation of my demographic, Mexican American women, Latinas, who are so poorly portrayed in the media. Years later, when I sat down to write this novel, Dispossessed, our portrayal has improved, incrementally, it seems, but not quickly or deeply enough. And our history? Buried, forgotten.

            From the 1930s to the 1950s an estimated 2 million people, Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals, were expelled from this country. Few of us know about this essential American history. The famous line, “A single death is a tragedy, million deaths is a statistic,” informed me that that’s how our history would have to be portrayed, through the life of someone buffeted and impacted by this historical event. I kept waiting for someone to write that novel. I looked around and waited some more. I waited long enough to realize that someone was me.

            As the idea percolated, I watched the 2013 film Philomena and was moved by the ache of a mother whose son was taken from her. What, I wondered, would it be like to be that son, in a world before instant searches and connections?

I decided that I would write the life of a boy who was separated from his family during the mass expatriation. How would he survive? Who would he grow into?

The idea kept percolating. I happened to see the film A Man Named Ove, and appreciated the challenge of portraying a man who was essentially good. I wanted to write about that kind of man.

In 2018, I sat down to write Dispossessed and it was like sitting down to write the wind. I knew the characters in my heart, in my soul. I knew what they looked like, their tenderness, their sadness, their losses and great joys. My challenge as a writer was to be sure the readers, too, had a sense of all that.

            In addition to the research required for historical fiction, like all fiction it demands emotional truth. I dug into myself. As a child I attended a small Baptist church that my grandfather was the minister of, and I wanted to be sure to incorporate some of those elements. I had a grandmother whose long, gray-black hair fell to her knees but was usually braided up like a thick halo around her head; I wanted to capture some of that and honor her.

            I also wanted to remind the reader that Mexican Americans were not new to this part of the world. We were here hundreds of years ago, and we will be here hundreds of years to come.

A few months after I started writing this book, our government separated families at the border. Our government caged children. I wanted my novel to be relevant, and timely, but not like this. Five years later, there remained separated families.

When the time came to find an agent I pitched my completed novel to a famous one, and her jaw dropped as I mentioned the mass expatriation. She was immediately skeptical. “Look up Wikipedia,” I countered. “In the 1950s the government called it ‘Operation Wetback.’” How come she had never heard of this? she asked, remaining skeptical, and declining to represent me. (I ultimately sold the book without an agent).

The reason I write, gentle reader, is to peel away the decades of whitewashing of our history and our people and RE-present ourselves, in the complexity of our many challenges, and the dignity in which many of us face them. It is a very strange experience to write scenes that make me, the writer, emotional. I sincerely hope my words, this novel, will have the same impact on my readers.

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Désirée Zamorano is the author of the highly acclaimed literary novel, The Amado Women, which will be re-released by Lee and Low Press in 2025. An award-winning and Pushcart prize nominee short story writer, her work is often an exploration of issues of invisibility, injustice or inequity. A selection of Zamorano’s writing can be found in Catapult, Cultural Weekly, The Kenyon Review Online, and Akashic’s South Central Noir. “Caperucita Roja” was chosen as a distinguished short story in Best of American Mystery and Suspense, 2022. Her novel Dispossessed is out from Running Wild Press. The University of Nevada Press will be publishing her collection of short stories in spring of 2026. Zamorano will be reading from and signing Dispossessed at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, on September 13, at 7:00 p.m.