Ep. 302 We Shouldn’t Be Asking You This Question with Carolina Ixta

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Listen EDIT SITE HEADER Ep. 302 We Shouldn’t Be Asking You This Question with Carolina Ixta

Educator and author Carolina Ixta joins The Stacks to discuss her debut novel Shut Up, This is Serious. Set in East Oakland, the story explores teen friendship, generational cycles, and authenticity. Carolina talks about the process of writing about sex in Young Adult fiction, and confronting anti-Black racism in Latine communities.

The Stacks Book Club selection for January is Erasure by Percival Everett. We will discuss the book on January 31st with Zach Stafford.

 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
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Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read that I’m your host Traci Thomas and today I am speaking with educator, author and fellow Oakland native Carolina Ixta. She is here to talk about her debut young adult novel Shut Up, This is Serious. It is a witty social commentary set in East Oakland and was shaped by Carolina’s own experiences as a critical race theory educator. The story follows Belen and Latty best friends and daughters of working class Mexican immigrants during their senior year of high school. Today I talk with Carolina about racism and sex and how they both show up throughout this novel and otherwise a books. We also discuss acknowledgement Sections and of course our love of Oakland. Don’t forget our book club pick for January is Erasure by Percival Everett. I will be discussing that novel with Zach Stafford on Wednesday, January 31. Everything we talked about on today’s episode can be found in the link in the show notes. Everybody you know what’s up, it’s a new year and it is a perfect time to join the stacks pack at patreon.com/thestacks. That is our community over on Patreon for people who like the show and want more bookish fun in their lives. When you join you earn perks like our virtual book club and access to our Discord channel. Plus, you get access to our brand new mega reading challenge that is a 52 book challenge that has prompts like read a book under 200 pages, read a book that is in translation from an author outside of Europe and revisit a book that you are assigned in high school. It’s a really fun challenging way to expand your reading. All right now it is time for my conversation with Carolina.

All right, everybody. I’m really excited. Today I’m getting to talk with an author of a brand new why a novel called Shut Up, This is Serious. The book takes place in my hometown of Oakland, California, which is always thrilling as you know. Carolina Ixta. Welcome to The Stacks.

Thank you for having me; I’m very excited to be here.

I’m so excited to talk to you, a fellow Oakland girlie, we always start here in about 30 seconds or so can you tell us about the book?

Oh, this book follows a girl Belen Dolores who was just struggling with her father’s departure. At the same time, her best friend named Letty is pregnant and Belen kind of thinks, You know, it’d be perfect if I just distract myself from my own grief by helping other people and doing other things until she realizes that distractions really, they only work for a limited time, and has to really confront what she’s been through.

Yes, I really enjoyed this book. I had so much fun with the girls. And I had so much fun with Oakland. And I just like there’s a part in the book where they go to a party at Cow at UC Berkeley. And I don’t know about you, but because you grew up in Oakland, right?

I did. Yeah, I did.

Like that’s what I did in high school, we would go to like, frat row and go to those parties. And I just like, kept as I was reading the book, I kept just like giggling at all of the little things that that happened. And I’m just like, I want to start with Oakland, because that’s like the center of me. Why? How did you think about making Oakland sort of a character in the book?

I started writing this book when I was an undergrad. I went to UC Santa Cruz. And I think you like I thought about this question quite a bit. I think I was just very homesick. Santa Cruz is like an hour and a half from the bay. It’s really not far. But it’s for those who know like, it’s different. You’re in the middle of Taurus. At the beach, like there’s no diversity. There’s no drive throughs like it’s just such a weird little beach town. And I was really homesick and I was thinking about like growing up as a kid and being in Fruitvale. And so I knew that when I started writing, I had to set my I stories in Oakland in college, all of my stories, all of my stories were set in stone, Oakland, I was just so homesick. And I could come home my senior year, every weekend. So my senior year of college, I was home every weekend. And that’s where I was like, Man, I’ll get to this some some day like I was writing all of these short stories, they weren’t working. And I think all the time I spent Back in Oakland, my senior year, and then moving back for graduate school, because I went to Cal was everything I needed to be like, Okay, this is exactly what I want to do. And I wanted to characterize Oakland very realistically, like it’s my favorite place in the world. It’s beautiful. It’s dangerous at times. It’s greedy at times. But mainly, I wanted to categorize it as like, what I think is the best city in the world, only rivaled by New York.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Do you ever live outside of Oakland again?

I’ve thought about that. I don’t know. I used to be like, confidently No, like, this is where I belong. I have thought about moving recently, where I’ve been like, I don’t feel like there’s anything specifically tying me to the Bay Area. So I don’t know, maybe one day but not right now. Okay. Okay.

We’ll talk about the book. Now. I just had to get the Oakland stuff out of the way though. I’m sure there’ll be other things. I’ll be like, Oh, my God, that’s okay. Um, so this is a why a novel. But one of the things that I personally really loved as a non young adult, as a full fledged adult, I guess, with young personality is that there’s a lot of sex in this book. And I’m curious about that. I guess both from a publishing standpoint, like if you received pushback about that, if, if you struggled about how much you could put in or not put in because I was always told when I first got into doing the show, I would ask like, What’s difference between why an adult and a lot of people would be like sex, like, if it gets to sex, then that becomes adult like if the young people start having sex, it basically becomes an adult book. And if not, it can stay in the YA world. But your book, like not only talks about sex, because there’s a pregnancy but also talks about like casual sex and like losing your virginity in the not like love of my life. We’re gonna get married way and the like, I want to fuck away. Yeah, so I’m wondering about that. But I’m also, I’m also wondering, I guess, about audience, because a lot of things I’ve read recently is that like, young people are not intersex in media, like there’s too much sex in movies or too much text and TV shows. So I’m wondering if you were thinking about that at all? Because I’ve also heard that for young people maybe that it’s like, they’re just not into gratuitous sex or like unnecessary sex, but the sex in this book feels like deeply tied to the plot. So I guess we’re just starting with sex. So yeah.

Yes. I think there’s been a lot of sticky conversations around sex and YA recently, I was mentored through writing this book by my fantastic like God, mother of a person. Her name is Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, she wrote Amul Fuentez fell in love with the universe, which won the Nobel Prize award a couple of years ago. And that book has a lot of sex in it. And when I it was the first time I’d read YA, where she’s like, being like, I’m having sex to have fun. People call me a slut. I like being with this guy. I like being with that guy. And it’s really about her coming to terms with her own sexuality. And so I read that and I was like, Wow, I feel like we’ve made some progress. But conversely, I remember, every book I’d read as a young person that had sex in it was always narrated through the vantage point of a boy. Like, I remember the first time I read Looking for Alaska, and the kid gets a blow job. And the book is banned, I think, mainly for that reason. And John Green has talked, you know, extensively about how like, it’s, it was meant to be an uncomfortable moment. I think that happened and like, either, it’s kind of a funny story by Ned mzini. Like, that was the way I grew up reading, but it was always narrated from the perspective of boys. And then when I would read YA, narrated by the perspective of young women at that time, which was like the 2010s Nothing, it was nothing. And then I returned to why a and like 2018 and there had been this renaissance in my lapse of reading, where I was suddenly reading like the Pokedex and I am not your perfect Mexican daughter, all and I read yolk by Mary HK Choi where I think she has I love her. She’s so cool. I read her book, and she has this really interesting scene where she like, sleeps with this guy who’s like super hot. And she’s like, I almost came. And I was like, that’s a great sentence because that’s so real. And so I was thinking like, Okay, I want to write about sex. I want to have this like, what is the thing virgin Madonna kind of dichotomy of like, but it’s switched, the best friend who is so Catholic who’s so like, such a nerd is pregnant. Belen, who would represent like the stereotypical trope of a voluptuous, sexy hot Latina. It’s like I I just want to fuck someone, I don’t care. Like, I don’t have to be in love. I’m just trying to get the shit over with and ends up in a really what I would say is an unsafe situation. But I wanted young women to walk away from the book being like, virginity is something that is so false. And also, like, when I was growing up, like I said, every virgin virginity scene was like, and he’s the love of my life. Like, really, you know, you’re 16 years old, give it two, three years, like, I hope you break up. And I just wanted girls to be like, well, I can have sex and it doesn’t have to be with the love of my life. Should it be with some weird guy who’s older than me? Probably not. But like, yeah, actually, definitely not. Let me say that. But um, I wanted to have that in the book. I was worried there was more visceral scenes, not just, I don’t think this is a spoiler at all, but she gives a blow job in the book. And earlier in drafts, it was a descriptive thing. Okay. My editor did not say anything. She’s so great. She was like, whatever you feel she needs to say. You can say, when we were on sub, I do remember though, one of the folks who I ended up not signing with, when I asked about like, hey, what would your vision for the book be? Their specific feedback was just about like, your protagonist gets boggled by men too much like to the point that it’s distracting. And I said, oh, like we cannot work together. Because that was the point of the book, you know, to discuss how she’s overly sexualized, and struggles with that herself. It was hard, but I think the market is ready. The one thing I did hesitate about, which you know, people on the internet live, sometimes on the internet, I’d see these discourses on Twitter. And I’ve hopped off, I’ve hopped off Book, Twitter and publishing Twitter, because I’m just like, oh my god, this is an echo chamber of older folks like adults saying any sex and why a is like child pornography. And I was like, oh my god, are you guys crazy? Like there are teen girls and teen boys who are having sex and to speak to the crux of the novel, not discussing sex with your teen kids can lead them to get pregnant or to have these like really unsafe sexual encounters. So I muted those because I was like, this is just not real, teen, young people are having sex. And I think they need to have an author or an adult, as a teacher, like, explain to them, Hey, like, this is what happens, this is what can happen. And often not explaining those things can lead us to some really sticky situations.

And I think also, when I think back to myself, like being a young person and reading, I read a lot of adult stuff, because a lot of young people stopped didn’t speak to the things that I was like interested or curious about. And like, I’m just remembering, like, the only book I can think of that I read as a young person, that’s like, why a wish I had sex and it was Go Ask Alice and that was like a very traumatic sex situation. And it was like, like, it was very clearly like, Well, I definitely don’t want that. But I can’t think of any, like, good depictions of sex, or like, because one of the things about Belen is that she, while she does have like this relationship with this older guy that is not safe. Like there is she is in control, in a sense, like, it’s something that she has at least like gone for, I think it gets out of control for her for sure. But like, it is not something that happened to her. Like, it’s not something that she’s not, you know, pursuing. And I really found that powerful. Because like you’re saying, like, there’s just not that many depictions or there weren’t. When we were coming up, though, I’m much older than you like that allowed for young girls to be like to have autonomy over their own bodies and their virginity and those things. And so both of the girls have, you know, sex sex encounters that they at least are at the start enthusiastic about?

Totally. Yeah, I think the Lynn and I won’t spoil it. For folks who haven’t read it, she learned some information about her sexual partner, which I think too many would be like the Hey, no more, no more. You know, like, I’ve learned what I needed to learn and I gotta go. And the most interesting part with writing her was was me saying she’s gonna make a choice to continue doing this. And it’s gonna come from a place of a lot of deep, deep hurt and a lot of wounds that I think someone who’s not privy to, like a healing journey or understanding young people is very complex would be like, Oh my God, what a slut. She’s crazy. But I was like, the whole point is to say like, she is making a choice. Is it the correct choice? I don’t know. And she’ll grow to get there, but we have to see her through that. very raw, real growth.

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s what again, like, what makes the book really special and like, what makes the what made the book for me as an adult, like, also enjoy it is because I felt like she was in control and that like you weren’t trying to like, teach us a lesson, which is something that I really hate because I remember being young, and authors like trying to, like, make a point and me being like, Yeah, bitch, I fucking know, like, abstinence is the best like, right? Like, it’s like, okay, they can Yeah. So I like that, that this book like I, I would feel excited to give it to a young person. But I also like, felt excited. And I like read it in two days, because I was like, great. This is stuff that I’m like, I don’t feel weird reading about it. But I also don’t feel annoyed that it’s like so precious. Like I just I that’s like the one thing I hate about some way. It’s like, it’s so precious. And it’s so preachy. And I just as a young person, I didn’t like being spoken to that way. And I’m glad that like, you’re not speaking to your readers that way. And I guess part of that is because you’re you are a teacher, and you work with young people. And so I’m wondering like, did your students like conversations that you’ve had with your students, or just like relationship solutions that help you to understand like how far you could push? And how, like to avoid some of those, like precious traps?

Yes. So I was a fifth grade teacher for a long time. My first class is now in high school. So it’s really interesting to be like, Oh, my God, you couldn’t read this book, and where we’re gonna have really interesting conversations. But teaching that grade level, I had to teach sex ed, and I have this really progressive curriculum around, you know, the inclusion of queer folks and trans folks, so great. But you know, I had to speak about sex very, I don’t know, politically, to say like, this is what happens when you get pregnant. This is what happens when you get a period. But when I took sex ed, and I think it was written in the book, it was taught as something that was very precious of like, well, you just don’t want to have sex with anybody. You could get pregnant. Like such a, there was a consequence around exploring sex. In the grade level I taught, I couldn’t say that. But I approached teaching about sex. And my friends laugh at me all the time about it, but I was like, you gotta give it to them straight up, like just give it to them. For real. This is what happens. This is what an STD is. This is what pregnancy is. This is what a penises This is a diagram of a vagina. We’re not using any fake flowery terms around this, we’re not using any nicknames. This is it. And I would love to say that all teachers do that. But they don’t even you know, today, some teachers just skip the sex ed unit, because it’s so much easier to I teach 100% Latino kids. And so my history, I’m like, I’d say 95% of us in this room right now are Catholic. And you know, what Catholics don’t do? We don’t talk about sex. So if I don’t tell you that this is what’s going to happen. Literally, nobody might. There are so many girls I’ve had in my classroom who are like, I think I got my period. What’s a period? What do I do? Because their mothers won’t sit down because we have such a Shamy culture about it, where I’m like, Okay, I’m the adult in the room right now. Like, okay, this is what you have to do. You’re okay, everything’s fine. But I did think about that. And I was like, you know, even in the first chapter, I was like, I have to give it to them straight up, the girl was pregnant. She wanted to have sex with the guy. Now, it’s a whole race issue. But it did it. The whole book was colored by my perspective as a teacher, not only around sex, but when I thought about my young female students who I’m like, Oh, my God, they’re like having their kids in yet as right now. I’m just so protective of them. Or I’m like, What could I wish I could have told you that I couldn’t tell you because I can’t because it’s not in the curriculum, because it’s not appropriate. I wish I could tell you don’t talk to that guy. I wish I could tell you run, like run as fast as you can also, like, if you want to have sex, go ahead, just please do it safely. Those are all things I wish I could have said. But I couldn’t that I was like, You know what, I can put this in the book. And hopefully they can, they can get it.

So another thing that you just alluded to, and that I found really fascinating with his book was like the discussion about anti black racism, specifically in these Mexican American communities, specifically in lefties family, lefties, the gal who gets pregnant she’s like this straight A student, strictly Catholic family. And I also love that she’s one who gets pregnant because it like subverts the idea of like, who gets pregnant like that. It’s like only the bad girls or like the slutty girls can get pregnant and like not in this case. But I’m curious sort of how, again, how you were thinking about talking about this stuff and like, how you were like, how, how can you teach this to your reader without like that preachy feeling?

Yeah. The book kind of took over me when I started writing it like I wrote the first line, and the rest kind of just came around, like, I guess she’s pregnant by like, her black boyfriend, what would happen? I was like what would happen in a Latino family, if we came home with a biracial baby that was half black, it would not be good. We have a big problem like in our culture. And I learned that being a teacher, I learned that in my family, like there’s a scene where like, in early work, let these mom like, turns her hands over. And it’s like, Oh, my God, I wish he was a slight. I’ve seen that happen in my family. So often me as like a white Latina, my sister, like, looks like a black Latina. And we have the same parents, it’s just interesting how that happens. My life was so easy, like, everyone was like, You look like a little porcelain doll, you know, and I, you know, have all the privilege because of it. And I became a teacher. And the first thing that happened, I teach bilingual students. So I teach in Spanish, a lot of the time, there’s the Spanish class, and then there’s the English only pathway. So the English only pathway had all of the black students and all of the Asian students and everybody else really strange, segregated system. And my first year teaching within the first two, three days of school, I heard things coming out of my students mouths that I was like, where did you learn that word about black classmates? And I’d sit down with their parents and be like, okay, you know, so and so said this about so and so we have to have a conversation, and parents would very much be like, what’s the problem? And I was like, Oh, I see, you know. And so I was reminded that racism is really taught, right? Like, these kids don’t come out of their parents houses, just knowing this language or these terms, very advanced terms, very advanced comparisons. It’s what they’re hearing at home, right? So as a teacher, I was like, Alright, we have to have this curriculum around this. And I turned to the learning for justice standards around it. And I really thought, and I hope this doesn’t come off as like a murder heroic teacher narrative, because that’s not how I feel. I feel like I’m just doing my job. But I was like, if I don’t teach them about this, I truly don’t think anybody will. They might have to go through what I went through, which is going to university paying exorbitant amounts of tuition, going into fat, fat debt, to understand things about Misty Saket. And colorism and anti black racism in our communities. And some of them truly may never do that. Like they may never go and learn these terms, because no one might, might teach them. So I found it to be my actual job to do that. And so when I wrote the book, as I was teaching my students about this, I was like, Well, I’d like to teach readers about this in a way that feels organic. I’d read and I read a lot of YA about Latina girls. And it’s always an I don’t mean that this is no discredit, because I’m like, I truly feel like I stand on the shoulder of lots of giants. But it’s truly about how the world is so cruel to Mexican people. I’ll speak in the Mexican specifically, but I’m like, yo, we’re so fucked up sometimes. And growing up in Fruitvale. I see it often where I’m like, it’s a dense immigrant community. And we’re just trying to make ends meet, but like, a black person walks by and we’re like, clutching our purse, like, what are we doing? So I really wanted to speak about that in a way that felt normal. And so I thought, let the represents a lot of my family. Her family represents a lot of my family, a lot of my friends families of like, not only do we wish you weren’t so dark, now you’re having a baby with a black man, what are you doing? And it’s interesting, because, you know, I think the culture around biracial children in the US, like I think about when Northwest was born, for example, and how everyone was pitting her against Blue Ivy saying like, Oh, my God, Blue Ivy is so ugly, and I was like, just nobody realized that this is profoundly racist and super fetishy. You know, having a mixed race baby in the US, usually with a white person is like, Oh, what a cute kid. And then like Latino communities, you have a mixed race baby with a black person. And it’s like, what have you done? Like you like disparaging our community? So I wanted to speak about that, because I’m like, I’m sure lots of readers have this experience. Or I’m sure lots of readers are observant of the experience and don’t know what to do. So it was the biggest thing I wanted to discuss in the book.

It’s interesting that you say that about like, like having like a black person and a white person having a kid versus like a black person in a Mexican prison having kid because there’s definitely white communities that are like totally up the bloodline also. It’s just, you know, anti blackness for sure. I mean, I say that as a mixed person, but also a mixed person from the Bay Area who was born in the 80s, which was like a very long time to be a mixed person.

And when that happens, right, like, yeah, it’s just funny how that happens. But no, you’re totally correct. It’s just such a strange culture where I’m like, Man, this is so weird.

Yeah, yeah. And I think in the book, you talk about it a little bit of like, like in Mexican communities, there’s this sense where like, we have been shut on by so many people. So like, we can’t start like we can’t shut on other people because like, have you seen how we’ve been treated? And I really appreciated that perspective, because it does sort of like, not humanize the racism, but it does like help to shed light because I mean, there’s so much in the black community, there’s so much colorism and like anti blackness in the black community as well. And I think sometimes it’s hard to understand why or how that could happen. But even just as simply as you kind of put it in the book, which is like lefties die doesn’t think he can be racist, because he’s been shit on and like, treated badly and has had a hard go of things. And like, I just, I thought that was really like, an like, not easy, but like a quick way to, like illustrate a lot. A lot. A lot of history.

And I think, you know, the, the election in 2016 shed a lot of light on that for me of like, yeah, obviously, like specifically Mexican people dragged through the mud by the Trump administration, rapists like drug traffickers, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, you know, that’s it’s untrue. It’s awful. But the response I saw for my community was to somehow dig their heels into like, we are oppressed, and so we don’t oppress others. And I’m like, yeah, really, like we have actually a large migration issue in Mexico of Mexicans are so so discriminatory towards Central Americans. And then we come here and a lot of us are discriminatory and racist towards black people. And I think the definition of racism gets really murky at times, people are saying, like, if you’re not white, you can’t be racist. And like, Sure, we can tell we can treat people like shit. How about that? Like we? Sometimes we really do, we really do. So I really did want to discuss that to my best ability in that book,

I think you did a really, really great job with it. And I think like it opens up the conversation, because like you’re saying, like, I think for a lot of adults, when it comes to like, I think broadly like the Latin X community. A lot of people didn’t, a lot of people who aren’t in the community. And I think from what I’ve heard from friends, who are, they just hadn’t really thought about, like racism and colorism as like, political capital, I think maybe as a way of saying it. And I think it’s like the 2016 election, when you see those graphics that are like this percent of white women voted for Trump, and this percentage of black people voted for Trump. And this percentage of like, Latino voters voted for Trump. And all of a sudden, you’re looking at these numbers, and you’re like, What the fuck is going on here? And I think like, with like, they’re just nationally, maybe there hadn’t been a conversation about like, the inter politics of the Latino community. And like the fact that it’s all these different countries and people from different ethnicities, and like that there are white Latino people and black Latino people. And like, I think 2016 was really instructive for a lot of people on the fact that you were able to put some of that into the book, I just think gives your young readers like a head start, right? Like, it’s not everything, but like, it’s like, hey, we can at least kind of like think like plant that seed. Maybe if it’s the first time they’re coming to it. We talked about race, we talked about sex, we’re doing all the hard stuff. First, I got there’s something fun I want to do later, I want to talk about college admissions. Oh, because that’s a part of this book. And I’m pretty removed from college. I started college 20 years ago this year, which is insane to me. I cannot I think I’m still 24 I am not. But one of the big like plot points is everyone’s trying to get into college and the book, or at least have to write their college essays. And all of the kids choose the same prompt, which is like, what’s the time where you had to overcome adversity or whatever, which like such a horrible prompt. And they all all the kids in the book are kids of color, their black kids are Mexican kids. And these admission questions are essentially forcing kids to be like, here’s my trauma value me for that. Yes. And I’m curious how you feel as an educator and a person who, you know, has relationships with young people. Is there ever like a world where that’s not how kids get into college? And if not, or if so, right now, how we’re doing it? What are we teaching young people about their worth? And their trauma and like that relationship?

Yeah. Man. I think I’ll start by saying that like, my background is like an educational the study to be a teacher. or I was so pissed off when I wrote this book because operation varsity blues had just broke.

Oh yeah. Get into college scandal. Yeah, the band, whatever, a big full house fan too.

So it really hurt my feelings. And I actually recently sat next to Olivia Jade her daughter at like a restaurant in in Soho with a friend. We were at brunch. And I looked at her and I don’t think God bless her. I’m so sorry, Olivia. If you ever hear this? I don’t think you will. I looked at her and I don’t think I could I concealed my rage enough. Or she stood up and left. And you did I know, I felt so powerful. Because I remember that shit broke. And I was like, you have to be kidding me. You know what I mean? Like, we all knew it was happening. But she sat down at the red table talk again. May God bless you, Olivia. Nothing personal. But she really was like, Well, I didn’t know that other people didn’t have their parents how to get into college, like I truly didn’t know. And I like turned off the TV. I was like, bullshit. And you know what, to her credit, she probably didn’t know she’s lived a very sheltered life. Yeah. And I shouldn’t be speaking on her specifically, because it’s a whole, you know, a whole issue. But I remember hearing that and thinking like, Man, I hadn’t started working on this book yet. But that’s really what got me riled up to write about that, or I was like, Man, I have my friends and I were crying over writing our statements being like, and my dad left me and my parents came from a different country, and we didn’t eat anything but rice and beans. And I edit many personal statements now for former students or brothers of students, where I’m like, I’m so sorry, honey, speak in the active voice, and you need to tell them exactly what happened. Because that’s unfortunately, the only way they’re gonna care. And I went, you know, I went to university, and I sat down with a professor. And he told me, We don’t read half of those, we don’t even read a quarter of those. If you’re like, we put you through like a numbers game. This is the UC system. And then whatever who’s on the cusp will might pick one up, and then we decide. And I was like, you know, and people don’t know, universities are for profit models. They really are just like, who’s paying us a lot, which is why we end up with lots of international students, because I’m like, they’re paying these crazy fees, right? So I wanted to discuss how like, for a lot of wealthy, rich white children, they can just donate a library, make some calls, shake some hands. And suddenly you’re at USC. Right, right. And for someone like Letty, are really someone like Ali, who I loved all these character of like, I just want to go to school, I’ve been through something awful. Let me put all of it into this essay. And then let me get in. And my one obstacle is still money, you know? Yeah. It pissed me off. Because it’s so true. And I had many friends who are like, I wrote the statement of my life, I pimped out everything I’ve ever been through. And I still can’t go to school because I don’t have any money. And there’s a bunch of kids who are like, I haven’t been through anything. In fact, I didn’t know that other people have to go through things to get in. My dad is going to donate $3 million to the sports team, and I’m gonna go to school. I don’t know the answer to like, how we make that better. I think the university system just needs to come. Our educational system just needs a complete upheaval. But I really think they make these kids of color sweat. Like, it’s like a pony show of like, your dad died. Great. Like, tell us more. Your mom abandoned you perfect. Here’s a scholarship, maybe, you know. And then you get into these classes with folks. I remember when I went to Berkeley. Not not no dis to my cohort. I love my cohort. But there were other people where I was like, you’re dumb. Like, what are we all doing? Right now? Like, you’re dumb. And, you know, you go to Berkeley, right? You go to Harvard and go wherever and so many kids of students of color I know have been like, I had the same experience. And then you realize we did not play the same game to get in here. Someone like let the who’s acing all of her APs and doing all of her homework. can’t compete with the Olivia Jade’s of the world, because all they had to do was pay some money, right? So I just wanted young kids and one of the biggest parts for me was Alexis, this character, he has this whole monologue at the end. He’s a Salvadorian kid, who’s like, your friend only gets in because she’s pregnant. And I was like, then we internalize this shit. And we’re like, I’m holier than thou, because I hear and you have it. It’s a messed up system. I have no answers to how to make it better other than to like, get back to the root the big roots of our educational system because it’s a big issue.

Do you feel like students that you’ve helped with our personal statement that there is like that it’s like harmful for them to have to write about these things like to have you noticed that it like changes how they feel about themselves or their experiences in a way that’s maybe like negative?

Yes, um, I read this really important piece when I was in college, but coming out as undocumented. And I feel it’s like that sometimes were like, what’s the largest obstacle you’ve ever been through? And I sit down with kids, and I’m like, What’s the largest obstacle you’ve ever been through? And they go, oh, like, I didn’t make the soccer team. And that was hard. And I know their parents. And I’m like, Okay, tell me more. Right. And then we eventually get to family stuff. And I’m like, Oh, so you came here on accompany, you know, you migrated here, unaccompanied. And the largest obstacle you’ve been through is you didn’t get on the soccer team. And that’s not me polling. Right. That’s us having a conversation. And then they have a moment where they’re like, I guess that was really hard. And I’m like, Yeah, I couldn’t imagine doing that. But you know, having that moment feel so inorganic, I’m like, that’s a moment you should have with your family. I would argue with a therapist, if we can get there. Like to say, like, I’ve been through something, and now suddenly, perhaps are already aware, you have to write a 300, or word less statement on like, how potentially you immigrated to the country alone, how you live in a food desert, how you were raised by a single parent, how your dad has a gambling, addiction, whatever it is, right? And I’m like, yeah, there has to be a better way. Because, you know, I don’t think I feel that way, if that’s what everybody was doing. But that’s not what everybody is doing. And we all have different starting places. So I think when we’re doing this trauma pony show for just specific kids to be like, Should you or should it you get into Berkeley, it feels really voyeuristic. Like to say the least it feels nasty. And I struggle with that all the time. Because there are times where I help kids with their statements. And I’m like, you know, if, if you fully believe that your largest struggle was not getting the soccer team, give me 300 words, and we’ll fix it. But there are other times where I’m like, I just, I just we shouldn’t be asking you this question. We just shouldn’t be asking you this question.

I just feel so unsafe, you know, it’s just like for like for the kid like, like you’re saying, like, it’s like, you have this moment where you realize something about your life that maybe like you weren’t ready to realize or like ready to grapple with. And then if, let’s say you do get into a college that is predominantly white, and it’s it is a cow or a Stanford or whatever. And then the whole time you’re there, you’re like, Oh, I’m only here because this horse like because I had this horrible experience or like, because of what happened to my family, or what happened to me or whatever, like, and that’s, that’s where you get people being like, Oh, well, you’re only you’re, you’re a affirmative action, whatever, like you only got in because because of your sob story, where it’s like, Sure, it’s easy to internalize that, because you were told you had to write about that to get in. Right. Like, it’s like, that’s the part of it that I think makes it easy for young people to believe that that is their worth, because we’re telling them, if you want to get in, you have to write about this thing. And then when they do get in, it’s only like, I don’t think people think like, Oh, my SATs scores, right? Like, they’re like, oh, it’s because this thing happened to me or that thing. And I’d never really thought about that process. In that way. Mostly because it was so long ago. For me, I don’t really remember what it felt like. But in reading it in the book, I was immediately like, this is super duper fucked.

It is. And I like in the first few chapters, I think, like he says it like I don’t want to get into Berkeley because I’m pregnant. I want to get in because I’m smart. And her teacher is like, oh, reality check. This is a reality check moment for you. And there’s a lot of you know, misinformation around affirmative action, that shit does not exist, like and people really think, like, oh, there’s a bunch of Latinos at Berkeley because of affirmative action. I’m like, Are there a lot of Latinos at Berkeley? Can we look at the numbers right now? Right, right. Yeah. Well, affirmative.

I mean, affirmative action is like the colloquial way people say it to you. Yeah, you’re not sure affirmative action.

Yeah. No, I mean, not to mention money. Yeah, yeah. People are stupid.

But what’s not stupid? Hard shift is the fucking title of this book. Brilliant. Can you talk about it? Was it always the title? Was it something that was hard to find? Did you find it did your editor find it? Like what happened? The title? This is serious.

Oh, thank you for saying that. The title that’s so funny. I was just talking about this with someone.

It’s not just me also, when I posted about this book, The like two times I post about it, someone at least one person. Oftentimes other authors have deemed me to be like, That is a great like, it’s like this is like one of the best titled books Just like it. Just it’s such a thing anyway. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

No, no, no, you’re fine. I’m awful. I’m awful. I’m awful with titles. I couldn’t title if I wanted to. And the books that untitled forever. And when I was on sub, my agent was like, so great. So excited. We need a different title. And what was the working title? The first title was called intersections makes no sense in the scheme of the book. Yeah, not the second title was pulled from the first line, which was actually a nod to Catcher in the Rye, which was if you really knew about it, scrapped it, and my editor, and then Harper was like, we don’t want that title. So I start with a friend, and we spit balled ideas for weeks, weeks, weeks, weeks of like, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? And we had listened to honestly, nevermind, the Drake album. And he was like, Damn, that would have been a great title. And I was so upset because I was like, No, it really would have been, and he was like, Well, what do we like about it? Let’s like, let’s sit down and think. And I said, I like that. There’s a comma. And he was like, okay, okay, got it. So we went through this list, and we were like, literally allowed being like this one, this one. And then he said, shut up, comma, this is serious. And I went, Oh, that’s good. Because it sounds like something Belen would say. And then the biggest question is, okay, now who says it? And for a long time, we thought Letty would say it, but I was like, literally would not even say shut up if you paid her like someone else to say it. So it’s it’s Belen sister who’s like, you’re just fucking up, you don’t know what you’re doing. You need to get it together. This is a really serious time of your life. And I’ve gotten many compliments. What’s so funny is I don’t like that. I don’t like the title. But you know what? I don’t think I would have been satiated with any title because I’m too close to the book. So when my marketing team was like, Oh, we love it. That’s perfect. I said, You know what sells? You know what looks good on the cover. You know what to do? You know, I’m not above you. That’s fine. We’ll call it that. And it was.

I love it. I love it. Also the cover, love the cover. We have the Oakland cranes, the Dinos, as my kids call them, and what I call them as kids. The BART train, of course, we have Belen and let the on the cover. Did you have anything to do with the cover? Or was it then artists that like kind of took the book and just yeah, that process,

I feel so privileged that my team was like, What do you want to do? And I put together what has to be the ugliest Google slide deck of like, ideas. And I said, Oh, no, like, Here you go. And they were like, cool. Got it. And it took months Harper was on strike. So I was like, damn, this is gonna take a minute. And my editor or my designer, Joel came up with this list of folks. And I was on the phone with my friend, Alberto shadow Alberto. And I was like, Alright, what do we do? And he was like, I like this guy. I like this guy. But we both were like, aren’t cuckoo Johnson is our top choice. And I don’t know why in my head. I was like, He’s not gonna do this shit. Like, he’s not gonna do it. He’s so cool. He’s a New Yorker cartoonist. You know, he’s a New Yorker illustrator. And when we finally got him, I was like, oh shit, like this is like actually going to happen. And he came up with these four covers and I date of 580 was shut down. It was flooded with rain I get I got to work an hour late. And I put them I was so pissed at my students wasn’t even their fault. And I just like, You know what, we’re not doing math today. Here are my book covers. Which one do we want? And they were like, Oh, my God, and they all voted and they all voted on that one because they were likely to it’s familiar. And it’s someone said, and it’s sad. And I went okay, that’s perfect. And we went with it. We went through a round of revisions. Are Kaku is so talented. He just won the whiting award. I feel like we grabbed him. I’m like, damn, I wonder if we’ll ever get him again. At such an opportune time. He’s such a cool guy. He had this novella out called no one else. So talented, so brilliant. He had this viral New Yorker cover this year of like a bodega cap and my team was really gracious with me I said no offense and I really didn’t I mean it I just didn’t want the why a of someone’s face and then some text that just was not for me I actually said I don’t want to face on it. But again, it’s like I don’t know what sells and they were able to just-

Sort of have a face but like not really the center of the thing.

I like that we don’t see let the space at all I was like that makes perfect. There’s a lot of movement and directionality. My designer did the text himself and we got some feedback around that. I think the palette is great. I was like I want like the we believe warriors era colors on the cover. We want some orange. Know what I mean? I was like that’s what I want and it looks beautiful.

I love it. I love it. Okay, this is the part I’ve been saving The acknowledgments oh my gosh, I fucking love reading acknowledgments. And you gave us like eight pages of acknowledgments, I did an extremely gratifying experience for an acknowledgement lover like me. First of all, I need you to talk about why it was important for you to include like to do such a vast expansive acknowledgement section.

I love acknowledgement sections. Every time there’s not an acknowledgement section in a book, I get a little pissed off, because you have the opportunity that you didn’t take, or I’ll take a paragraph, I’ll take a paragraph. It’s also because I think I’m nosy. And I’m like, Who? Who was in your life? Who was mad? You know, like, I want to know more about that. So it was that but like, truly, I just was like, I have so many people to think and when I pitched it to my editor, I was like, Jen, I don’t think you understand. It is gonna be long. I would think the air I’m breathing right now if I had the opportunity, and I maybe did, who knows? And she said, we’ll meet, we’ll make it work, you know, do what you need to do. I just, it’s my favorite part. Sometimes I read them before I read the book, but I’m always afraid I’m going to spoil something.

So I don’t do it before because I read it after. So no matter how I felt about the book, I always get my favorite part at the end because sometimes I have to read things that I don’t like so I’m like well, let me just get to the acknowledgments because that is like the that’s the desert for me.

Yes. Yes, it was that it was like 10 pages of me just thinking like shapes. I also read a number of acknowledgement sections to prepare for writing mine like I studied them. I was in there reading um, I thought about an author’s no I was like no everything I say I’m gonna throw into this acknowledgment section. I think every writer who I was like I read your work once and it made me feel good. I tried to I’ve tried to send them all the copy a copy of the book if they answered my email. But yeah, I every author every shape every like spider I think I think my cat Anna like I think my teachers, I love acknowledgement sections.

You also think my favorite warrior, Baron Davis. Oh, not so I’m very curious about why you think specifically, do you think Baron Davis and the Warriors and then also Damian Lillard Oakland Boy, oh, yeah, you specifically thanked Baron Davis.

Oh man, thank you for these. These are good questions when I was in the fours. This isn’t though you’re in the thick of Oakland right now. When I was in the fourth grade. Baron Davis, his grandmother had a contest. It’s the we believe warriors era. They were like write us an essay about someone who is impactful in your life. And I was a writer since I was a kid and my fourth grade teacher or maybe my fifth grade teacher was like, You should do this. And I carried a clipboard around during recess and was like, oh bla bla bla bla bla bla. And I submitted it. And they were like, Hey, you made our finalists. We’re going to take you to the Marriott Hotel, to the top floor, you get a TV interview, and then we’re going to take you to a game. And I went to the game and I was on the teleprompter. My uncle called me. He was like, my niece. She’s on TV. I don’t know why she’s at the Warriors game right now. And they gave me this like Baron Davis jersey, they put my name on the back of a Baron Davis bobblehead on my book on my bookcase. And we went down to the to the floor. And I remember being like, I was literally like nine or 10. They gave me an extra small Jersey went down to my ankles, around the most like gargantuan people I’d seen in my life. So Baron Davis, wish I could give them a copy of the book. What a guy. Or I just was like, Man, I remember being in the fourth grade being like a basketball player. I didn’t even I don’t think I didn’t win. But I was like a basketball player. Read my essay. That’s crazy. And then for Damian Lillard, I mean, he was at zero not as a zero, but like, he’s like, that’s an O for Oakland. And that’s how they announced him. Right. And he’s no longer on the Blazers. I think he was treated maybe to the bucks. I might be wrong. But yeah, I just was like anyone who’s standing up for Oakland like that for real but Baron Davis as since I was a kid, I was like, that’s my favorite athlete. Still, not much about basketball. I’ve learned quite a bit but like, I’m always like, yeah, that’s the one.

I love that. I love Baron Davis, big warriors fan. I but my guy besides Ben Davis was Matt Barnes. I had the biggest crush I’m at Barnes and for my 21st birthday, my brother’s friends. I’m like girl, he was friends with who’s like not even friends with anymore. She had a connect to him and he wrote me a birthday card and it was like, dear Tracy, thanks so much for being such a big fan like, appreciate it. Like Matt Barnes and I was like, holy shit.

I talked about that forever. This is like pre all the Temecula Matt Barnes shit. This was like when Matt Barnes was just like a kind of like a no Nobody but good on the Warriors. Like back in the like under speedruns days.

Okay, another thing in your acknowledgments is that you have a playlist for the book. Oh, yeah. Which Yes, I do, if there’s a link to it on your website, but I will also link to that in everything else we talked about in the show notes. And I look, I looked at it, I listened to some of it. It is the most fucking Oakland kid who grew up in Oakland, like the far side, not that they’re from Oakland, but just like, it’s like so Oakland like D’Angelo. It’s like, I’m like our kids to listen to the same shit I used to.

I know they’re not and I actually did meet that and put in a lot of music in the book just to be like, I’m again, I’m a nosy reader if you put a recipe in a book at least once maybe try making it yeah, um, so I wanted kids to be like, who’s Tony Tony Tony. Like, why is it felt like that? Who’s a Nina Baker? Because I really did grew up listening to one Oh 2.9 And it gave me the year I have today like I have in all of my favorite music comes out of the 70s My favorite song growing up as a kid was I want to know by Joe like, that’s such a strange thing to say.

A weird song to be what was the last half in middle school like at all the dances.

I love like Luther Vandross take you out and I got when I got to be older. I was like, that’s such a weird thing for me to have been like, I can’t wait till this like a Anita Baker song comes on. Like, it’s so strange.

Traci Thomas 51:30
So tonight is so funny. It was I was like, that’s such a funny because when I was a kid, it was like 94 Nine and 106 like cameo, like those are like, like hip hop stations or whatever. And 1029 was definitely like what my dad would play.

Carolina Ixta 51:44
My mom was listening to I was like, growing up listening to Patrice Rushen, and like, a Tower of Power to this day. And I really did make that and included all of that so that kids can be like, Who the fuck is she talking about? I was like, let me put you on. It’s cool. Like I know what I’m doing.

I love that. And you’re Leo. When’s your birthday? August 13th. Yeah, okay, I’m July 22. But I’m so late at night that I’m zero degree Leo. But I didn’t know that I found out I found that out as an adult. I thought my whole life I was a cancer and then I found that really traumatizing. Anyway. So yeah, I spent a lot of time and your knowledge and so you also list so many authors that you love that are my favorites and guests of the show. And I was like this list is like basically the Stax reading list as an acknowledgement. So that was really exciting for me. I was like, I love all these people. Do. I have to ask you about how do you write how many hours a day? How often do you listen to music as you’re writing? Do you have snacks and beverages? Where are your rituals?

Like as we’re doing this interview at my office, I can’t write at my desk, shout out my friends, Leila and Moe, they got me this ergonomic keyboard, I’m still trying to learn how to use it. But here I’m editing. I’m writing exclusively like on my laptop on a couch, or on the floor or in my living room or in someone else’s living room. This is the stationary place for me to revise and edit snacks and beverages. Yeah, I have my one emotional support Coke Zero a day. My new thing is oh my god, I almost don’t want to say it but I will because I’m like, is it gonna sell out the Nilo coconut water? I’ve put so many people on to this damn coconut water. You can get it at Berkeley bowl. If you ever back up here. How do you spell Nilo? And I L O and I swear to God, I don’t I don’t know how many people are going to listen to this. Please be be mindful because I’m really it’s a scarcity out here. I went to birthday the other day and I was like, I want ice paid $70 For coconut water. But I want all of them. And they went all and they gave me a box and I want I want literally all of them and I cleared up the shelf. I’m pop corners. Okay, hot corners. Me and pop corners have a specific flavor or just all of them. You know, kettle corn, that’s my ride or die. But I had the cinnamon sugar one. And I was like, bro, this is decadent. Right now this is crazy. Other than that, like true to my Mexican identity. We’re eating a lot of talkies. But for real, I can’t handle it anymore. I have IBS. Like I really, it’ll take me out. It’ll kill me at this point. But on a day where I’m like, You know what? Who cares rather than a die? I’ll do that. But that’s how I write do hours a day. When I’m working with friends, we’ll do timed sessions, which is good because we are also we won’t shut the fuck up. You know, like we’re gonna talk forever. So I’ll do a time session. I try to just work like this scene or this chapter per day. That’s usually the goal, which has been interesting for revising my second book, but yeah.

What about a word you can never spell correctly on the first try?

Environment.

Ooh, okay, that’s a good one.

As a teacher, it’s always embarrassing to admit that or like any mis-, because I’m supposed to know like phonics and shit. But yeah, environment, can’t do it.

Um, what comes next for you? We’re talking today, this is sort of a fucked up question to ask you, because today is your actual pub day. So it’s sort of fucked up to ask you like, what’s next? But do you know what comes next for you?

Yes, I signed a two book deal with Harper. So I have another book coming out. We’re HOPE. I don’t know when we’re hopeful for 2025 Sometime in 25. Trying to skirt around that election. situation happening. A book two very different, very different, alarmingly different I would say, still a very realistic fiction genre does not take place in Oakland, which I never I never thought I would get out of here. But it’s been hard for that reason of like, Can I do this? Is this correct? Like, am I making a mistake? This isn’t my home. This isn’t my place. That’s what comes next. Before all that we have a launch event this weekend that’s sold out which is so stupidly crazy. Yeah, it’s so fun. So today, I’m just going to pop into bookstores and sign books. Which is exciting. Yeah. Real. Yeah. But that’s what comes next book two and then Book Three eventually. I’m trying to stick in ya for a little bit before I think I might have to make a pivot some some of the shit I want to write. I think it’s just too sad. From what I’ve been told.

Got it. Yeah, kids need sad shit, too. I think so. But but whatever you want. We’ll just come with you wherever you go. For people who love Shut up, this is serious. What would you recommend to them? That’s maybe in conversation with your work.

I keep them all on my desk. So I’m like looking at my my stack. Ghost by Jason Reynolds. Jason Reynolds. Is it for me? Where I’m like, I don’t think anyone is going to do it ever like you. I don’t know if anybody from the MacArthur Genius Grant would listen but you guys are late. I was just listening to his podcast with you on eight burned all the bright where he was like, I want to not in the Pulitzer Foundation, and I was like, they should make one just for you. Like no one else. Just for you. You should get that. Ghost is one of the craziest books I’ve ever read makes me cry every single every single time I read that first chapter. I’m like, I can’t believe one I cried because I’m like, That’s so sad. So crazy. And too I’m like, I can’t believe someone can write like that. That’s insane. The poet acts by Elizabeth Astana though. She’s a country author. She’s one of the reasons I took my deal with them where I was like, Yo, your people want this book. You’re it like that’s crazy. I am not your perfect Mexican daughter by any Guile Sanchez such a good book. My mental Raquel spoke when when this fell in love with the universe in terms of sex and sex education, so good. And not like thematically but on the cover. The cover of this book was pulled almost directly from killing and dying by Adrian Domina graphic novel collection of short stories. He is one of the best writers I think I’ve ever read. And I said, I said to my design team, I want this cover. I know we can’t this is someone else’s cover but I want that something like this. And they really pulled it off. Where I was like cinematic and angled and sad. Let’s make that happen somehow. So I’ll throw that one in. Homie by Danez. Danette Smith, their new poetry collection is coming out this year. And anytime I’m like, How do you do anything with language? I’m pulling Danez stock. So talented, so talented. I could talk forever about Danez. I think Danez is also it right now. So I’d say those I’m probably forgetting a few. But those those are the ones for right now that I’d say.

I love that. Okay, last question. If you could have one person dead or alive read this book. Who do you want it to be?

Oh my god. Um, I don’t know. Maybe my parents like I would say like, my parents are both alive. And my mother has read this book. I’d say my parents because I’m like, I’m trying to. It’s an homage for sure. And other than that, I just want like the trend on the kids on Tik Tok are calling them hot Cheeto girls like, I need them to read the book of like these Latina girls who wear sweatpants over their jeans and walk the mile and like eat hot Cheetos with these long acrylic nails. I’m like I wrote this book for you. And these big hoop earrings like I wrote this book so that you could feel seen and loved. I’d say that. In terms of an author. I’m too I’m too shy. I’d be so afraid. If someone I loved read that book like Like, I’d be so afraid but I would say that it’s not to that community my parents and and to those those girls specifically, please read my book.

I love that so much. All right folks, you can get shut up this is serious wherever you get your books it is out in the world. Now Karolina thank you so much. This was wonderful. Thank you for having me and everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Traci Thomas 1:00:29
Alright y’all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening and thank you to Carolina Ixta for joining the show. Remember, the Stacks book club pick for January is Erasure by Percival Everett and we will discuss that book back here on Wednesday, January 31st with our guest Zach Stafford if you love the show, and you want insight access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks and join the stacks pack. Make sure you subscribe to the stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you’re listening through Apple podcast, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from the stacks you can follow us on social media at the stacks pod on Instagram threads and tik tok and at the stats pod underscore on Twitter. And of course you can always check out our website the stackspodcast.com This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin MacWrite. The Stacks is created and produced by me Traci Thomas.

Cherie Marquez https://www.cmediacollective.com/
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Ep. 303 The Culmination of My Psycho-Spiritual Self with Kaveh Akbar
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Ep. 301 What Makes a Recipe Good with Sohla El-Waylly