“And Sergio Troncoso is such a beloved writer of the borderlands, there is a public library branch named for him in El Paso. His 'A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son' is simply brilliant.”
Thank you, Luis Alberto Urrea!
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/books/us-mexico-border-books.html
"Currently reading Nepantla Familias: a phenomenal anthology of Mexican American literature on families in between worlds by @SergioTroncoso. Super recommended!!"
—Pati Jinich of Pati's Mexican Table on Twitter
https://www.pbs.org/video/de-sergio-tc2zb7/
"Ysleta with a “Y” is where I grew up, where I went to Ysleta High
School, and where my heart always returns when I need to heal, when I
want to hug my mother. Ysleta is a first principle for understanding my
soul—or as Aristotle would define it, a basic proposition that cannot be
deducted from any other proposition. Ysleta is where I began, where I
was formed. This community is at the edge of the edge of the United
States, and I became an outsider and iconoclast in this country because
of it. My mother belonged to the desolate landscape of Ysleta, yet she
yearned to go beyond it. I admired her, yet when I left home, I knew I
was traveling farther physically as well as philosophically than she
ever could."
https://texashighways.com/culture/people/essay-growing-up-and-growing-old-in-ysleta/
At the end of May, I traveled to Ysleta (my east side neighborhood in El Paso, Texas) to visit my mother on her 86th birthday and to eat tamales and tacos with Pati Jinich (Pati's Mexican Table) at La Tapatia in Ysleta. Pati was shooting a PBS series called "La Frontera," and she invited me to talk about the border, its people, and La Tapatia, which I had suggested as our restaurant. She is such a remarkable human being, and my impression is that she cares deeply about the people and culture of the borderlands. I gave her a copy of Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds (Texas A&M Press and The Wittliff Collections), which I edited.
I returned to New York City, because I have deadlines and a host of responsibilities particularly with the Texas Institute of Letters. I'm the current president. So on June 12th, Pati tweets on Twitter and posts on Instagram, "Currently reading Nepantla [Familias]: a phenomenal anthology of Mexican American literature on families in between worlds by@SergioTroncoso. Super recommended!!"
I'm grateful for her support. She didn't have to do that, but she did. I find that these gestures of kindness are what I remember many years later. Thank you, Pati, for the excellent conversation and for reading Nepantla Familias. I wish you safe travels. (Apparently "La Frontera will air sometime this summer, in late July or August.)
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| Sergio Troncoso and Pati Jinich at La Tapatia in Ysleta, Texas. |
I wrote this piece for El Paso Matters to celebrate Cinco Puntos Press's 35th Anniversary:
"My experience with them has been like coming home as a writer: Lee is a first-class editor with an uncanny attention to detail, and Jessica Powers, their “vice president of imagination,” has been the best editor and reader I have ever had. When I want to have an hours-long conversation about character, a complex plot, El Paso, and the literary history of the border, these are people I trust and listen to and appreciate for their expertise and friendship."
In A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son,
Sergio Troncoso tells skillfully nuanced stories from the perspective
of a poor immigrants’ son who has found success within the world of
America’s elite universities and financial power, yet still feels adrift
and alienated and seeks deeper meanings.
NBC News: Fifteen Great New Books for Hispanic Heritage Month. Thank you, Rigoberto Gonzalez, for putting A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) on this list!
"I
am and always will be the proud son of Mexican immigrants from El Paso.
My parents came from Juárez, Chihuahua, to the United States in the
1950's, newlyweds with only a few dollars in their pockets. In the east
side neighborhood of Ysleta, they built an adobe house that at first had
no electricity and an outhouse in the backyard. Yes, in Texas. They
followed other Mexican immigrants who had been coming to the United
States for decades. They followed even some Mexicans who were already in
the state before Texas was ever Texas. These Tejanos didn't cross the
border; the border crossed them.
"Sergio Troncoso is one of our most brilliant minds in Latina/o Literature. These new stories demonstrate that he is also possessed of a great corazón. This is a world-class collection. Troncoso continues to raise the bar for the rest of us."