Review of Ana Castillo's "The Mixquiahuala Letters"

I love to walk through the library or bookstore and browse through sections I have never read from before. One of my favorite little ‘corners’ in the library is the Chicana Feminist Literature section­… and, no, you don’t have to be a Chicana or a feminist to read and enjoy the always artistic and unique works of Chicana feminist theorists.

Among the most popular writers of Chicana feminism are Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Chela Sandoval and Ana Castillo. Ana Castillo’s award-winning The Mixquiahuala Letters is the most recent book I fished out of ‘the corner’ and it is truly one of the best feminist works I’ve read.

The Mixquiahuala Letters chronicles the relationship between two friends. The Mixquiahuala Letters is an epistolary novel, which means it is told through a series of letters from the mestiza narrator, Teresa, and her friend, Alicia. One of my favorite things about this book is the fact that Ana Castillo warns that it is not to be read like a ‘normal’ book. Castillo does not want her readers to be confined to reading her book as a linear piece of writing to be read from front to back. Instead, she suggests different patterns for which to read the letters/chapters for the “cynic” for the “conformist” and the “quixotic” readers, with different outcomes for each reader.

The story takes place during the seventies and eighties, and goes through the changing friendship of Teresa and Alicia during their travels through Mexico and the United States. A main theme in The Mixquiahuala Letters is that of “home.” Both friends are struggling to find their ‘homes’ and their ‘selves’ as mestiza women. For Teresa, writing the letters to Alicia is a way to sort out her identity and her experiences. “When one is confronted by the mirror, the spirit trembles,” Teresa says in letter sixteen on page 55.

The Mixquiahuala Letters is a beautiful novel about relationships between women and trying to find oneself in a society where you are either black or white… no in-between. Ana Castillo is interested in that ‘in-between’ sector of society and writes many other works that deal with this idea: The Guardians: A novel, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma, Peel My Love Like an Onion, and So Far From God.