Many thanks to Edgar Garcia and Jose-Luis Moctezuma for their thoughtful review of my books culebra and Bridge of the World, though I find their views on my Panamanian heritage and early life to be disconcerting. I did not grow up in the Midwest. To be fair, my early life is complex, as is the rest of my life. I do however make explicit in my books, especially in my poetics piece “Snake Vision” in Bridge of the World, that I am from Panama, that though I was born in Corvallis, Oregon, where my father went to college at Oregon State University, both of my parents were born and raised in Panama, both are and were deeply Panamanian, and that a few months after I was born I returned to Panama, where I grew up until I was seven years old. At that point we moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where I first began learning English. When we were in Wilmington there were very few Latinos there; now there are many. I went to college at Boston College, where I studied Mathematics and Computer Science. After that I attended Indiana University in Bloomington where I did some graduate study in Mathematics (and also a bit of Computer Science). I spent some years in Bloomington and also lived in San Francisco for about a year and a half before moving to Milwaukee where I have lived since 1991. My interview with Garrett Caples shares more detail.
It is strange to me that Edgar and Jose-Luis say that there is no indication that I am from Panama in my work or in my person. Yes, I have lost an enormous amount in having moved from there to here the way that I have. But I am from Panama and Spanish was my first language. I consider these to be foundational facts of my life; my life does not make sense without them. There are many details and larger arrangements from Panama throughout my work. I have very long roots on both sides of my family there. And I still have much family to visit there. Though my roots are long there on both sides, my great-grandmother on my mother’s side was from Martinique. My father’s side of the family included my grandfather who was from Philadelphia, Mississippi, and who was apparently part Choctaw. I get my last name from him. This grandfather was in the US military. He was stationed in the Canal Zone for a few years, had my father in Panama City, and then he disappeared to my family as he returned to Mississippi when my father was a toddler. Even so, my father grew up Panamanian. My father’s mother’s last name was Melendez.
I would agree that certain things Panamanian are missing from my life. I often consider that to be a painful reality. I have addressed such things in my interview listed above and in my books and drawings the best I can. But I am from elsewhere. I will always be from elsewhere. And I would gratefully agree, that yes, I am from the Imagination. I hear the drum and the songs and they lead me there → in and through the impossible.
November 2017