Interview with Juan Felipe Herrera

Abstract

In this interview, Juan Felipe Herrera highlights the influence of the Chicano/ Latinx movement in the early 1970s and how it sparked a sense of cultural freedom, particularly in various forms of expression such as writing, visual art, murals, performance, and public speaking. The individuals involved in this movement were not only bilingual but also quadrilingual, incorporating additional languages such as Caló, Aztec, Maya, and Pachuko talk. The origins of code-switching are attributed to sociological factors, as it involves navigating between different speech communities, and a growing awareness of language rights and historical roots across the hemisphere. The author also discusses Mary Douglas' viewpoint on the relationship between the center (represented by the nation) and its margins (referring to the border). According to Douglas, the center seeks to protect itself from potential threats and "contamination" posed by trespassers, a narrative regarding social progress and decline assumed by early 19th-century anthropologists and religious beliefs of the European priest classes of the Spanish encounter in their mission of religious conversion of Mesoamerican indigenous peoples in 1519 forward, therefore considering them dangerous and impure. Against such imposition of a center, new feminist anthropologists, in the wake of Anzaldúa and other authors are mapping new ideas about "borders," with notions such as dynamic "radical space." The concept of totality lies at the core of every artistic expression and existence. It cannot be grasped as a physical object or possession. Instead, it resembles a boundless and permeable Quantum Sphere. This profound connection can be observed between a Tzotzil-Tzeltal Mayan weaver woman adorning a Huipil garment and the ancient narratives of how the universe was created. Finally, Juan Felipe Herrera states that nowadays we live in a Lorquian time, characterized by "persecution, screams, and dream." Fortunately, there are sources of hope: "a light and moon and a ready horse and a nightrider in between destruction and old structures of society."