Aida Salazar’s The Moon Within should be required reading for middle schoolers. It impacted me, as an adult who menstruates, and it reminded me of my own struggles with menstruation. Aida writes with a voice that is compassionate and holds up a mirror for you to look at yourself and unlearn what you think of gender, and then encourages you to keep passing on that mirror so that others can do the same. In this interview, we talk about gender, how menstruation is closely tied to gender construction, and the need to write narratives that tend to be taboo within Latinx communities.
Your debut novel, The Moon Within, was written in verse. How does writing in verse compare to writing prose? Is there a version of the story in prose that you then convert to poetry?
Celi’s voice came in verse. Within a week, I had thirty pages and so much more to say. I’d also recently read The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney which my daughter and I loved. It was both the need to say more and the great example of this book that inspired me to expand Celi’s story into a novel in verse. It never strayed from verse though some poems do the work of moving the story along more so than other contemplative poems.
I love writing in verse because there is a depth you can explore by using poetic techniques that you can’t achieve with prose. Metaphor, internal rhyme or the music of the line, form, white space, etc. all lend themselves to give the reader a deeper relationship to the characters, to their world view and ultimately to the story. However, you have less real estate, so to speak, to communicate the story. A verse novel’s language has to be precise and economical and this is one of the hardest parts for me.
In The Moon Within, Celi encounters many questions about femininity and gender, and the celebration of menstruation (in the character of Celi’s mom) versus the taboo of it that is enshrined in many teens, especially teens of color (in Celi’s character). Why was it necessary to explore this binary through this relationship?
There is a legacy of shame and silence around menstruation and gender expansiveness (really any sort of sexual or gender queerness) that has been pervasive across cultures and ethnicities for centuries. These puritanical and patriarchal ideologies have created a narrative that looks at menstruators and gender expansive folks with disgust and contempt. This is especially true in communities of color that have been devastated by colonization. So many of us have internalized this shame and silence and do not talk about our bodies, we don’t even know what our genitals look like, we don’t know about menstruation or ovulation or procreation and much less how our bodies are connected to the moon cycle. As a Xicana feminist, I wanted to dismantle these narratives, to show how one family – a Xicana mother and her very private child – worked through these long-held and backward beliefs. I wanted to explore how they could undo some of the damage done. I wanted readers to see deeper connections to the moon and to the self and find in them inspiration, celebration, and resistance.
Another theme you put under the microscope is the idea of menstruation being a sign of womanhood and how inherently transphobic this thought is, especially with the character of Marco, and as Celi starts learning more about gender and unlearning her own thoughts around the construct of gender. This is especially important to see as kids start developing a sense of self and exploring their identity. Why is middle grade the best way to delve into these themes?
Life changes at an exponentially fast and profound rate during puberty. Though we each change differently in this process, one thing is constant and true about all of us, we leave childhood and enter adolescence. This is when change is most life altering. Any number of feelings come up – grief, excitement, shame, silence, confusion, etc. It is when we make many mistakes but it all leads to understanding and defining oneself as a grown person in the world. In The Moon Within I wanted the traditional blossoming of my MC, Celi, to parallel the blossoming of Marco as a xochihuah (genderfluid). I wanted to explore this space from a decidedly feminist and allied perspective. I wanted to call out my community on its historic transphobic and anti-queer ideas. I wanted to show how it was possible for Celi and Iván, her crush, to become allies to their genderfluid friend.
In my research, I learned to disentangle myself from the concept that only girls or women menstruate. I now refer to those that menstruate as “menstruators” really as a loving and inclusive gesture much like I use the term Latinx to be inclusive and loving. It is a small adjustment and really a demonstration of the evolution of language and our expression of language to describe our diversity. Some transgender and nonbinary people menstruate and give birth. I actually can’t wait for an #ownvoices person to explore this more in depth because I could not really speak to it other than to simply point to it. The New York Times review of TMW called me out for this, said I didn’t explore “uncharted terrain.” What they failed to understand is that I did not explore Marco’s menstruation more deeply because it was not my story to tell. I could write about how to be a good ally to Marco and could make readers aware menstruating folks come in all genders but really that is all that I should and could speak to with authenticity and respect.
Middle grade readers are exploring menstruation more than any other group of people. It is a travesty that my book is the second in nearly fifty years since Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret to center menstruation in its narrative. It is the first ever for the Latinx community. It makes me incredibly sad for Latinx menstruators and really, all menstruators. I hope that this book will make it possible for more novels and explorations because as we all know we aren’t one story.
You have free reins to collab with another Latinx creative and they’re free and on board as well, who are you picking and what are you making?
Ay, this is hard but if I had to pick just one, that would be Guillermo del Toro. My next book, The Land of the Cranes, is about a child who believes she is a migrating crane. Her world comes tumbling down when her father is captured and she and her mother are caged inside a family detention facility. She writes picture poems about the horrors she witnesses and experiences inside detention to her father who has been deported to Mexico. It would be so amazing to see what Guillermo could do with this novel on the big screen.
How does your identity affect your writing?
My identities are multiple, and sometimes contradictory, and shifting. As I learn more about myself, especially from others who are also seeking to define themselves, there is never a constant. For instance, ethnically, I went from identifying as Mexican to Chicano to Chicana to Chican@ to Xicana to Xicanx; but also, from Latino to Latina to Latin@ to Latinx. For a big part of my childhood I identified as “tomboy” – only wanted to dress like a boy – and in college I was pretty butch. These gender expressions have shifted to and from cisgender expressions as I explored. My sexuality ebbed in the same way, constantly discovering and uncovering. I’ve considered myself bisexual but because I am in a monogamous relationship of nearly twenty years with a cisgender man, my sexual preferences aren’t seen as relevant. Yet, that doesn’t make me any less queer. Actually, at the moment I’m learning about pansexuality which seems true for me but again, I’m always learning. I think part of liberating ourselves from our colonial mentality is constantly questioning and challenging the names and restrictions given to our identities. All of these thoughts make their way into my writing. These are the questions I seek to explore. I’m lucky if I am able to answer them in my work.
Who do you write for?
I write for Latinx kids, mixed POC kids, for children who have never seen their community, their families and themselves reflected in books.
With what movie(s) would you pair your book?
The first one that comes to mind is Period. End of Sentence. The documentary about a menstrual product industry revolution led by women in India. It sheds light on how much work we still have to do in the world to have people understand and support menstruators.
We haven’t seen a fictional coming of age story about an eleven-year-old Latinx nor a genderqueer Latinx on screen because the mainstream default is white and cisgender. *Screams - Hello Hollywood!! However, here is a list of instances where menstruation made cameos on screen put together by Bustle.
Shout out a Latinx writer or creator whom you admire!
I recently attended the Macondo Writer’s Workshop and had the absolute honor to study with Helena Maria Viramontes. Helena is a phenomenal writer. Her stunning work (The Moths And Other Stories) paved the way for many Chicana and Latina writers to exist. Not only is she a trailblazer in writing but also in education, she is an excellent teacher with decades of experience as a writing professor (one of the few of color) at Cornell University. To have attended her workshop was a dream come true. It was a rare moment for me to receive a master class in craft from a Chicana. I’m reading her book, Their Dogs Came With Them right now and it confirms why she is one of our stars.
Anything else you can share about your upcoming projects?
I’ve got two unannounced projects in the works – a picture book and another middle grade project. I wish I could scream about them from the rooftops! For The Moon Within, look for the release of the Spanish edition on May 1, 2020 and also (whispers) the paperback version but I’ll have more on that later. Next year, The Land of the Cranes will be released in Fall 2020 right before the election and I hope folks will use it as a tool to gain empathy for the human rights violations our government is enacting against migrants across the country. Jovita Wore Pants: A Story of a Revolutionary Fighter will hit shelves in Spring of 2021.
In Las Musas, I’m going to be making the transition from being a debut Musa to an alumna as will all the 2018-2019 Musas. We are trying to figure out how to do that since Las Musas has grown to include a mentorship program and beautiful support network. We know that this is a big need in the Latinx kidlit community and we want to make sure it survives beyond the founding group.
The Moon Within is available now!
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Aida Salazar
Aida Salazar is a writer, arts advocate and home-schooling mother whose writings for adults and children explore issues of identity and social justice. She is the author of the middle grade verse novels, THE MOON WITHIN (Feb. 26, 2019), THE LAND OF THE CRANES (Fall, 2020), and the bio picture book JOVITA WORE PANTS: THE STORY OF A REVOLUTIONARY FIGHTER (Spring, 2021). All published by Scholastic. She is a founding member of Las Musas - a debut Latinx kidlit author collective. Her story, BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON, was adapted into a ballet production by the Sonoma Conservatory of Dance and is the first Xicana-themed ballet in history. She lives with her family of artists in a teal house in Oakland, CA.