Contributor’s Note: Andrew here. I was born in LA and have lived in this city for all my life. With this series focusing on resistance, I wanted to take a brief moment to highlight the resistance taking place in the streets of Los Angeles as I type this. Last Friday in LA (the sixth of June), the United States of America invaded California to kidnap some of its Hispanic residents with the publicly stated goal of shipping them off to a prison camp. The government of the United States of America has ordered the deployment of 700 active-duty Marines to the city of Los Angeles (so far, not to mention the National Guard). This is what the United States of America has always done. Meanwhile, the democrats will continue to call for peaceful protests against ICE as they actively abduct and disappear people who work and live in this country.
ICE will not listen to reason or pleas for human decency. ICE listens to orders. To keep our communities safe, we must come together and resist state repression. Just like in Los Angeles, where the militant struggle is ongoing, every community across the country will have to decide whether or not they are willing to resist the US regime. Can we still afford to give ICE, Border Patrol, and the other lapdogs of this fascist state another inch of our communities? Or is now the time to say enough is enough and to show up for our communities by doing everything in our power to protect the people from the ongoing militant invasions committed by the United States of America against its own cities?
Rios de la Luz is a good friend and easily one of my favorite living writers. Her work is so raw, tender, angry, and beautiful. Discovering her writing is like discovering magic. And I’m extremely excited to be able to share her perspectives on resistance with you all.
Andrew: Rios, first, would you please tell me a little about your background and how that has influenced your own writing?
Rios: Sure! I am a queer xicana & chapina writer who grew up loving storytelling and expressing myself through writing. When I initially started writing as a kid, it was a survival mechanism. It was a way for me to understand the world around me. A lot of my stories are based around growing up in El Paso and the family dynamics I grew up in. My writing explores border stories, women rebelling against misogyny, queer women exploring their identities, girls exploring their rage, and how multigenerational relationships work within matriarchal family systems. I also explore body stories, primarily, what do stories look like when they are written around trauma and healing. Since having a child, I have become interested in exploring how motherhood and horror have a sort of reciprocal relationship to each other. Pregnancy is body horror. Birth is body horror. Postpartum healing is body horror. Becoming a parent makes you realize how much is not in your control, and this can turn into a spiral of horror.
A: I mean, what is being a parent if not an exercise in losing control? And I can’t wait to see how this life change impacts your work. Now that I have a better understanding of where you’re coming from, can you tell me what political resistance means to you?
R: To me, political resistance means breaking out of this mindset that we are individualistic. What I mean by this is that we need to start thinking of ourselves as interconnected with each other, with the environment, and with our communities. This means learning about organizations in our towns or cities that are aiding in making sure people don’t go hungry, making sure people have resources like domestic violence shelters, food banks, libraries, and communal art spaces. When our government blatantly doesn’t care about us, we have to take care of each other.
A: Every day, it becomes increasingly clear that all we have is ourselves. Absolutely. And I love how you frame resistance as breaking out of an individualistic mindset. With that said, do you see your own writing as a form of political resistance?
R: It depends on the story. When I wrote Itzá, I intentionally wrote certain chapters as political stances. In Itzá, justice looks different than our reality. White supremacist political leaders are sacrificed for the good of the town. Sexual predators disappear under mysterious circumstances. They become nothing, because they are nothing. The words brown and beautiful were always paired together intentionally, and I did not write the book in a “traditional” plotted and linear way. For my short stories, my characters are always xicanas or chapinas or queer and this is because to me, this is the default point of view.
Storytelling and art can absolutely be forms of political resistance. Art and books should try to push boundaries that make us question the institutions that are upheld as pillars of morality.
A: Speaking of books that push boundaries, the bizarro genre has always been viewed as underground, outsider literature. How do you think its counterculture nature (where just about anything goes) can inspire the genre into being an outlet where books of resistance flourish?
R: Something I have always loved about Bizarro is that there is so much room for absurdity and playfulness in how stories are told. It surpasses whimsy. It’s a space where outrageous fables can be used as a way to critique social norms. Bizarro is a genre that urges the storyteller to push boundaries, to poke at how we see the world, to explore the ugliness in humanity. This is the kind of genre which asks the storyteller to imagine alternative worlds and to explore consequences of extremes.
A: Thank you again, Rios. I always love catching up with you and hearing your perspective on life. If you’re reading this and haven’t read Itzá, I strongly suggest you check it out as soon as possible.
Well, that’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed it! As always, if there’s a particular bizarro author you’d like to see featured here in the future, comment their name below. Until next time, keep up the struggle (and find and donate to local orgs that provide bail funds for those who’ve been arrested for fighting fascism).
Jail Support LA is a good place to check out if you’re looking to help protesters in LA.
If Andrew J. Stone were a dinosaur, he’d be an Apatosaurus. If he were a superhero, he’d be Marx. If he were to have a cat, her name would be Alice, and he’d be living in a residence that allowed pets. He is the author of the novellas The Mortuary Monster (2016), All Hail the House Gods (2018), and The Ultimate Dinosaur Dance-Off (2020). His short stories have appeared in Hobart, New Dead Families, and DOGZPLOT, among other places. His work has been translated into Spanish by the Colombian publisher Ediciones Vestigio. He lives in Los Angeles, surrounded by beauty and dread.
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