Welcome to Somos Hispanos, I am your host, Christiana Malacara This episode is dedicated to a Great Lakes Bay region grown author who has explored the country and beyond to learn about her culture.

Olivia Munoz shares her journey and inspiration behind her book.

Well thank you Olivia for being here on Somos Hispanos with us today.

There's so much that I'm just excited to learn about about you and about your book and then the journey to it as really important.

So we we're here today with Olivia Munoz.

She's a Saginaw native, Great Lakes Bay region born.

But you recently, you recently came back where... Where were you?

Who's Olivia Munoz?

What... Who are we talking to today?

Thank you so much Christiana.

I'm so happy to be here with you.

Especially because you're right.

This is my hometown region.

I was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan and went through the public school system there.

Graduated from Arthur Hill High School and went to Central Michigan University after that.

So all of those formative years of my life were spent here in this region.

And while I was here, I had such a deep connection to like my family, my community, my culture, my church, and other Latinos in the area.

So it was a pretty happy childhood.

And in all that, you asked me, like who I am in all that, there was so much storytelling that happened at like our kitchen tables or while we were out.

Just this week, earlier when I was at a softball game, my godmother was talking about like, oh, back in the day, Hoyt Park used to fill up.

You know, there were all these families out playing and stuff.

And just the way that she talks is so delicious.

So I have a real grounding and foundation in community and storytelling.

That I think really motivated me to capture some of those voices, some of those stories and what I hope is like a poetic way.

And so that's kind of what led me to be a writer in lots of different ways, but, most recently in poetry.

But before coming back, I was doing this program called Semester at Sea, which was, study abroad program for college students.

I've worked in university administration for a long time.

I'm a student affairs professional, and so I was able to travel with students to a lot of different countries, including Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, lots of places.

And then came back to Saginaw to be with family for a while while I decide what's next in life for me.

So in the act of storytelling, we all know that it's so important to share, right?

Because the sharing is essentially the foundation of a next generation, a community.

But while you're offbeat question for you, while you are out traveling, you know, traveling and exploring the world beyond the Great Lakes Bay Region walls, and you're in Portugal.

You're in Kenya.

Did you ever find any similarities compared to the Latino culture when it came to storytelling?

Oh my gosh, so much.

It's one of the things that I really try to make students, think about and that I do too, is like, what?

I mean just a natural like oh, what are the ways that we're similar to folks?

What are the ways that we're different?

Traveling to places like India, certainly Morocco, lots of different places, especially in the global south.

There is so much that rhymes with Latino culture to me.

And my family's Mexican.

We're from Mexico.

There is so much similarity around, being very collective, being very community minded, right, that I'm more beyond just me, myself, or just me, my immediate blood family, that I'm part of this larger circle and ecosystem.

That where we all depend on each other.

And in terms of storytelling, there's so much in, in the way of myths and legends, like that's how culture gets passed down.

That's how kids become engaged in it.

That's how we pass on values and we're about as a people.

And so I saw that all the time.

People would do that, if we got invited into a home and had dinner, people would share about their family and, and then this is what we believe, right?

And this is the story of this goddess or whatever it might be.

And even if it was not the exact same thing that we did for different cultures, it was so much in the same way where there were storytellers in the family or, stories being presented through our religion or just simple family tales.

And I thought that was beautiful.

I loved, I loved to experience that.

So how did you land on poetry as being your, you know, your vessel of storytelling?

Why did we land on that?

To me, poetry is one of the most like open and experimental forms of writing.

You can kind of do what you want.

You can really stretch.

If you want it to be formal, you could.

There are forms and ways to rhyme that are, set.

And that's a certain kind of challenge.

But you could also be very experimental.

You could stretch the limitations of like your own creativity.

And that that was exciting to me.

Just as a fun thing to do, or my own gratification for a way to bring about, you know, kind of allure.

Did you know that you wanted to make a book?

Did you know that you wanted it to be a book of poems?

Was this something that you have always you know, you're talking about childhood, right?

And saying, oh, I just love the act of storytelling and the listening portion of it, but that's on the receiving end.

So on the giving end, was that always something that you wanted to do?

Not specifically like, oh, one day I'm going to write a book that's going to be a poetry collection.

But I always loved writing.

I always loved writing, drawing.

I loved watching performances.

So the arts was really the realm in which I saw, like beauty, history, documenting things like that really, to me, like the epitome of human existence, to put it grandly.

But I did like writing all the time.

Even as a kid, I would write little stories or maybe write a poem or something that I thought was song lyrics.

And I just kind of had little writing, you know, had my journals.

But it wasn't until honestly very, very recently that I was like, oh, what?

What can I do to be serious about this?

How can I study it deeper?

So I've taken like workshops and things like that.

And then when I saw the opportunity to do to enter a contest, because that's how this book came about, I was like, well, honestly, I hadn't been on a challenge to get rejected over and over because I was like, I just have to build up the bravery and the callus of rejection.

Like, the poetry can live in my notebook, or it can be in the world.

Which one am I going to choose?

And so I was like, I choose the world.

And that's how the the project kind of came about.

So the writing in it, some of it's a lot older, some of it's very recent, but it just kind of came together.

And now I'm really honored to do that some more.

So I have the book here with me, and it has a quite unique title.

Could you share the title and the story behind it?

Yeah, so, the title of a chapbook and a chapbook is like a short, collection of poems.

Usually it's like a mini thin book.

The title is these women.

They carry purses full of knives.

That's not a literal thing that, like, happened in my family.

There was no one that carried a purse full of knives.

But when I think of knives as both, a tool and a weapon, I do think of that as some of the skills or the, strengths that were passed on, especially in the women in my family.

I really love as a little girl.

I like observing them.

And they made me laugh and they made me food, and they could do no wrong.

But when I think of a knife like that, something that's so necessary, and I saw the women kind of build up their skills, strengths, secrets, things that they were able to pass on.

And it was a it was a bit of a metaphorical thing.

On the more literal end when we used to visit family in Mexico, a lot of the men in my family carried pocket knives, like, like many people do, right?

Like as a little tool, and to cross the border because that could be seen as a weapon.

They would often give them to me as a little girl to put in my purse.

So it was just a funny image to me to be a little girl carrying knives, you know, just so that they wouldn't be stopped.

They were a tool, not a weapon, but they were like, they won't suspect a little girl.

And I like poetry to be that unsuspecting vehicle that brings about, like, all these surprises that you didn't know maybe somebody had.

So it's kind of working with a few images there for that.

And I also thought, like, like, let's do it.

You know, let me do my big one.

Like, yeah, this will get attention if nothing else.

And, one of the judges for the contest was like, yeah, the title alone was like an eye catcher.

So I was hoping that that brought eyes on to my poetry, and I'm glad it did.

Oh, most definitely.

And I'm glad that you explained it to our listeners, and our viewers because, you know, knife it's a it's a wonderful analogy.

Like you said, it's a tool.

It's a weapon.

And sometimes tools in life end up needing to be defensive, you know, in the sense.

So there's a a passage in here and, it's, the poem is called After Dinner and it's right here, the centerfold.

So it always opens up here for me when I'm looking at this book.

But there's this, there's two, two sentence here that kind of struck me and it says, I am plastic.

They are clay.

Can you elaborate what your thought process was on that?

Yeah, I, I wrote that I love that piece.

And I wrote it a long time ago.

And I was talking about the women storytellers, right.

They are, I am plastic, they are clay.

Because I feel like I, I can do a good enough job telling these stories.

They're masterful at them.

They're natural.

There is natural is clay, is clay is from the earth, right.

And it's not that I felt like I wasn't good enough.

Plastic is different, but I was this newer version that was born here in the United States.

My writing is in English, not in Spanish, in the way that I'm hearing them tell it.

So I was like, I am a different form than they are.

To me they felt more they felt so much more natural and grounded in the tradition of who we were.

And so that's what I meant by that.

So I didn't feel bad.

I didn't feel less than them.

It just felt like they were from such a more natural kind of storytelling tradition.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

So I I've read the book, I've shared the book, but I'm already suspenseful of what's next.

So can we share what maybe some thought processes that you're having as a, as a creative person?

Yeah, and thank you for asking it in that way because it's so scary to say, like, oh, here's my next project.

And then what if I don't do it?

So I'll tell you what I'm obsessed with right now.

Yes.

And this is 100% because I'm back in Saginaw and around family and friends that I'm seeing after a long time.

But back in the day, like from the 1930s and 40s to about the 1970s, 80s, there used to be, like Mexican-American softball teams.

And that's what my grandmother was talking about when we were talking about, softball in Hoyt Park that used to fill up.

So there were lots of teams.

It was Aguilar's tequila.

It was like lots of groups.

And I'm obsessed with a community that was built around these teams that would do this for recreation of all Mexican players.

Right?

And they'd be selling tacos in the park, and there's music.

Kids and people would come and hang out.

So I'm really obsessed with that period.

And I'm obsessed with, the recreation of it all and how that was a community builder where this obsession will go.

Who knows?

In my mind, I hope it's like a story or something, but that's really what I'm digging into.

I want to interview folks and get stories and learn.

Learn from them and see what happens.

So let's just say that we have a young viewer who is kind of tuning in and just saying, wow, she's she's really making it happen.

I have these same thought processes.

What would you tell them?

I would tell them to not be afraid to indulge in what is really catching their eye, right.

Like if you're into whatever you're into, kind of geek out about it.

It's so fun to just really deep dive into what your interests are.

Follow that obsession, follow that passion.

Read a lot if you can, like whether it's audiobooks or things like that, but read a lot if you can, and then do what I did, which is to challenge yourself to put something out into the world.

It's super duper scary.

Everybody has an opinion.

Everyone can, you know, that offers opportunity for folks to tear you down.

But try your best and try to put some work out to see what what can happen from that right?

If you have that idea, that means it's that is calling to you.

So give it some time and energy.

So, these women, they carry purses full of knives.

Where can where can we learn more?

Where can we order a book and kind of follow your journey?

Yeah.

I mean, you can order the book from me.

The publisher is the Southern Collective experience.

That's the name of the publisher.

But they basically printed off a big haul for me.

I have a website, oliviamunoz.com.

And so there's a form there to order it.

And I'm also on Instagram.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you for continuing the culture through writing.

And thank you for coming on.

Somos Hispanos with us today.

Thank you so much, Christina.