When I was a kid, I never felt like I fit anywhere. I felt like an outsider in almost every situation, like an alien in my own family. There were tim… - Jaquira Díaz
" "When I was a kid, I never felt like I fit anywhere. I felt like an outsider in almost every situation, like an alien in my own family. There were times when being queer and closeted, when being Black and Puerto Rican, meant I felt hyper-visible and invisible all at once. You can see some of this in the book. I spent most of my adolescence hiding who I was, pretending to be someone else. There were times when I thought that what I wanted most was to be ordinary. An ordinary girl. And then something shifted. As I fell deeper into depression, as I got angrier and angrier, I thought an ordinary girl was the worst thing you could possibly be. It was much more about negotiating girlhood, a certain kind of girlhood, and what that meant. By the end of the book, there’s an acceptance, as I embrace the kind of girl I was, and realize that these ordinary girls were capable of amazing feats. They saved me—their friendship, their love. They anchored me.
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About Jaquira Díaz
Jaquira Díaz is a Puerto Rican fiction writer, essayist, journalist, cultural critic.
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The world isn’t kind to black and brown girls, or black and brown women, especially when they come from working-class communities or from poverty. My girls taught me that it’s possible to make our own families, to find our families. They helped me believe in love and friendship and hope. But more than anything, after they had girls of their own, it was their girls who taught me the most important lessons: they helped me see the girl I was…
This is who I write about and who I write for. For the girls they were, for the girl I was, for girls everywhere who are just like we used to be. For the black and brown girls. For the girls on themerry-go-round making the world spin. For the wild girls and the party girls, the loudmouths and troublemakers. For the girls who are angry and lost. For the girls who never saw themselves in books. For the girls who love other girls, sometimes in secret. For the girls who believe in monsters. For the girls on the edge who are ready to fly. For the ordinary girls. For all the girls who broke my heart. And their mothers. And their daughters. And if I could reach back through time and space to that girl I was, to all my girls, I would tell you to take care, to love each other, fight less, dance dance dance until you're breathless. And goddamn, girl. Live.
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My origins as a writer started with my father loving books and, for me, reading about the history of Puerto Rico from my father’s books and learning about this very early. This history deeply affected me and who I became as a writer. But also feeling like this history has been for the most part erased. It’s not something that we’re taught in school and it’s not something that Puerto Ricans or that Latinos learn, unless you go out and search for it. There are not a lot of resources. And, often when you find a history book, it’s not written by women, especially not women who grew up in poverty, so it’s not accessible to everyone.
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