Q&A With Stephanie Elizondo Griest: ‘Mexican Enough’

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  09.22.08 | 1:13 PM ET

imageTravel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest is the author of Around the Bloc and 100 Places Every Woman Should Go. Her new book, Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines, takes her deep into Mexico, as well as inside questions about her own identity. Sandra Cisneros called the book “a travel journal for the new millennium.” I caught up with Griest via email in Corpus Christi, where her family lives. They were spared the wrath of Hurricane Ike, she said, adding, “My friends in Houston and Galveston, however, suffered tremendous losses. I’m hoping to go there soon to volunteer.”

World Hum: Why did you decide to write a book about Mexico?

 

Stephanie Elizondo Griest: Aye, it’s complicated! For starters, I’ve always had hang-ups about being a “bad Mexican.” Even though I grew up 150 miles away from the Mexico border and much of my mother’s family speaks only Spanish, I never learned the language or culture—perhaps because I was so hell-bent on escaping South Texas. In college, I studied Russian and Mandarin and then jetted off on a four-year jaunt across the Communist Bloc (the adventures of which inspired my first book, “Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana”). While traveling in those nations, however, I was struck by how fervently Stalin and Mao tried to destroy centuries of religion, tradition, and ritual by forcing their citizens to conform to socialist culture. Yet hundreds of thousands of people defied them. During the Soviet regime, for example, countless East Europeans risked banishment to the Gulag by illegally distributing newspapers printed in their native tongues. Even today in China, Muslim Uighurs and Buddhist Tibetans gamble with imprisonment by practicing their faith.

All of this made me reflect on how, in the United States, those of us who haven’t needed to fight for our culture have often deserted it. I, for one, had totally abandoned my own Mexican heritage. Gradually, I realized the need to turn inward. So, on Dec. 31, 2004, I quit my day job, put my stuff in storage and flew to Mexico City. My goal was to learn Spanish and explore my ancestral roots, but history had other plans. Mexico was on the brink of a social revolution back then—what with the populist rebellion in Oaxaca, the Zapatista Red Alert in Chiapas, the fraudulent presidential election, the drug war, immigration rallies—and I was running around with a pad and pen. “Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines” is the result: a memoir that combines root-searching with journalistic reportage.

My sense is that, when it comes to travel, Mexico is underrated by many Americans. They see it as a place to go for a beach vacation, and maybe now some tasty mole in Oaxaca, but that’s about it. And yet, there’s so much more to the country. Do you agree? Why do you think that is?

imageActually, where I am from (Corpus Christi), people are afraid of Mexico. Practically every week, the media covers another shoot-out in Nuevo Laredo or unsolved femicide in Ciudad Juarez. Newspaper headlines warn of narco-traffickers in every cantina (and explosive diarrhea from every comedor). Although I am a seasoned traveler, I worried about going there alone.

But for the most part, the “danger zones” are limited to the border towns (which many Mexicans fear, as well) and parts of Mexico City. The rest of the nation is one of the most tranquil places on the planet. The landscapes are stunning, the food is fantastic, the music is hip-swiveling and fun. And the people tell the wildest stories you’ve ever heard. I spent some time with Mayan Indians in Chiapas, and although many of them could not read, they could all recite legends originally written in codices that got destroyed by Spanish conquistadores 500 years ago. Sit with them long enough, and you’ll start to hear cuentos about the Hurricane Woman and the Butterfly Man. 

Of the 30-plus countries I have explored, Mexico is hands-down my favorite. And I have yet to set foot on its beaches! The real pulse of this nation beats in the interior—the jungles, the mountains, the desert. And above all, in its vibrant people.

So what’s next for you?

I’ll actually be touring for “Mexican Enough” for much of the next year—some 25 cities). My boyfriend and I are planning to spend Christmas in Cameroon, and then I’ll head to a writer’s colony outside Chicago to commence the next book.

Thanks, Stephanie.