‘Tias And Primas’ is an Ode to Latinas & the Power of Storytelling

Author Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez is reminding us that women contain multitudes and that all women are worthy of not just love but understanding. In her debut book, For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, she provided a resource for brown girls to feel empowered in the face of white supremacy. In her latest book, Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us she’s breaking down the archetypes of the women in our lives. Through 20 chapters, each dedicated to a different archetype, she shares what makes up these archetypes (la matriarch, la prima perfecta, la childless tia etc) and how we can love them and how they can love themselves. Mojica Rodriguez, a Nicaraguan immigrant who came to the U.S. as a child, was inspired and informed by her own family in developing this book.

“It was a matter of just paying attention to my particular surroundings. Every book is written by a person with a particular context, mine is one of a Central American immigrant raised in a very traditional and conservative household,” she tells HipLatina. “I picked and wrote from my own experiences with women in my life. I think who people think is more well-known is also a reflection of their context, and so it will be nice to hear who people resonate with.”

In the introduction, she highlights the most common Latina stereotypes in media: the spicy Latina, the maid, and the criminal. These stereotypes strip away our Latinidad, diminishing who we are to meet the status quo. She’s giving the women in her book, an amalgamation of the women she grew up with, the depth they deserve. That includes artwork meant to embody each woman, inspired by the women in her life and meant to be yet another way for Latinas to feel seen. Inspired by a book she bought at Goodwill in high school, Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman, she wanted her book to be just as visually memorable. She sought after artist Josie Del Castillo because her work captivated her in how she depicted herself as a brown Latina.

“I wanted the illustrations to look and feel familiar to my primary intended reader: Latinas. I wanted people to connect these illustrations, to envision themselves reflected in these illustrations.”

Among the illustrations are a few resembling Mojica Rodriguez including “Tu Tia, La Loca” and “Book-Smart Prima” but she’s sees herself in all of them depending on the day.

“Today, the childless tia feels especially tender to me. My sister just became pregnant, and it is something she has wanted for a while now, and I have had to contend with my own grief,” she shares. In the book she opens up about her original dreams of becoming a mother one day and later discovering that she can’t have children without medical assistance, opting instead to remain child-less.

While she is happy and actively chose to be child-free today, she shares it was a complicated journey to get to that point. Not every archetype is going to have the same story, including the child-free tia, she shares, explaining her story involves infertility, limited access to good healthcare when she wanted a child, and internalized beliefs about women. These archetypes don’t encompass the complexities of these women, but they do give us the chance to identify them in our families and in ourselves.

During an Instagram Live with HipLatina, she shared that when she started working on the book, she felt like she was the tia loca and it changes day by day. That’s what this book is meant to do — make us feel seen and allow for storytelling to spark conversations about who we are. And much like her first book, the added element of academic sources helped her contextualize the archetypes which she incorporates through quotes included in each chapter. For Mojica Rodriguez, this book was also a way to have Latina stories told in the some context as academic material often cover the stories and experiences of white women.

“I am doing theory while writing, and those quotes informed how I was going to tell these stories. I read the theory first, before I even decide how it will all sound and feel. The theory grounds me into the story, without it the story is not sparked. But the quotes serve to remind the readers that while they might not read theory they too do theory all the time, there is real data backing these stories and our experiences are not singular experiences rather it is what connects us to each other,” she explains.

In the opening chapter, La Matriarch, she quotes queer Chicana activist and writer Cherríe Moraga: “Since I am a woman, people — men and women alike — drink from me. I am the eternal well of pathos.” This could also be said of Mojica Rodriguez herself whose community building efforts through storytelling comes with a side of sage advice that she invites readers to consider at the end of each chapter. In La Matriarch, for example, she writes on the importance of helping them realize they can rely on others for help instead of taking on the burden themselves. She simply suggests, “become reliable.”

“It was an attempt. In academia, the ending of each book is what is known as prescriptive ethics. I am trying to make people see how we can do better, a light suggestion, sometimes not so light suggestion,” she explains. “And it was bold, I do not like being told what to do and do not know how my readers will do with being told what to do – but I knew I could at least provide a guide, or a starting point for them to see their participation in these systems and how to adjust behaviors.”

During the IG Live, she explained that this book was a different format meant to encourage the same conversations she sparked with her first book on topics including fatphobia, colorism, and gender norms within the Latinx community. Through archetypes including “The ‘te estas engordando’ tia”, “your pretty prima,” and “la tia cuir”, she’s presenting systemic issues within the community but also giving them grace as these women are products of generational traumas and unchecked biases. With Latinxs making up only 4.6 percent of publishing in the U.S. review journal, and literary agency staffers, the book is powerful example of what representation in publishing signifies. The intentional use of Spanish throughout the book is not gratuitous, it’s a reflection of how she communicates. Even the the use of “tias and primas” as opposed to the English words is because those are the words she uses.

“This is just how I move in the world, and it is constant reminder that our stories are not the same, we are not a monolith, and so this is a peak into my world and some people will light up when they read certain words and others might not relate as much. But I write for those who get it, or who dare to center something outside their purview.”

As much as this book is personal, it’s also meant to be a jumping off point for conversations within the community as readers identify these archetypes in their own lives. That was ultimately the goal for Mojica Rodriguez, a way to build community through storytelling.

“I hope that this serves as a conversation starter. If you see yourself in here, wonderful, talk about it. Share yourself to those around you, to your own tias and primas,” she shared. “If you do not see yourself in here, even better, name the ways that make your specific experiences yours. I want it all, I want us to just practice our own storytelling with our friends and loved ones. I want us to reach into our bag of memories and divulge to one another.”