Writing on Violence and Healing for Young Audiences: An Interview with Rigoberto Gonzalez

Abstract

Iinterviewed Rigoberto Gonzalez in Riverside, California, on March 20, 2009. In our conversation we discussed bis growing up experiences as Cbicano, gay, and a child of migrant farmworkers, and the impact this has had on his writing for children. We also explored the range of his writing across genres and the ways his adult works resonate into his writing targeted toward Latina/o children, including his recent three-book juvenile fiction series, The Mariposa Club (Alyson Books, 2009), focused on the lives of queer Latinal o youth. Our discussion worked from my interest in Gonzalez’s ongoing engagement with matters of violence, most especially economic violence, as well as violence of thought, such as racism and homophobia; the publishing of his children’s books with Children’s Book Press, the nation’s most important publisher devoted to multiethnic children’s picture books; and his position as a visiting writer in impoverished schools and its impact on his writing Soledad Sigh Sighs (2003) and Antonio’s Card (2005), the two children’s books discussed within this volume’s featured critical essay in on violence and trauma in Latina/o children’s literature.