By Amaris Castillo
Angie Cruz’s last novel, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, won many hearts and accolades.
Cruz is back this summer with Angélica and la Güira, her picture book debut about a girl who learns the power of music and deep familial love through a beloved Dominican instrument. Out July 30 from Kokila Books, the book is illustrated by Luz Batista, a story artist and illustrator.
In the book, Angélica has just spent her entire summer with relatives in the Dominican Republic. But now the new school year is starting, and it’s time to return to Washington Heights.
Before Angélica leaves, her grandfather presents her with a gift.
He tells her, “Over a hundred years ago, on a land where rocks are plenty, in the greenest valley between the mountains, this güira played its song.”
Angélica watches as her grandfather pulls out a shiny hollow steel can and a metal comb. He scrapes the comb against the can’s surface. La güira is a percussion instrument from the Dominican Republic, most often used in merengue típico (also known as perico ripiao) and bachata. This family güira has been passed down from generations. Abuelito tells Angélica that when she plays the güira, it’s as if she’s playing with him. As if they’re still together.
Back in Washington Heights, Angélica enthusiastically plays la güira wherever she can. But its sound doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. That is, until one hot, sunny day, when she pulls out the beloved güira from her backpack and begins playing.
Angélica and la Güira is a jubilant story that beautifully braids many themes together: the role ancestors play in our lives, the power that music has in bringing people together, and the courage it takes to step into your true, unapologetic self. Batista's illustrations — a blend of traditional drawings, textures and digital painting — adds vibrancy to the story, from the colorful words and swirls that come out of la güira when its played, to the diverse community that makes up Washington Heights. Angélica y la güira, translated into Spanish by Kianny N. Antigua – is also out on July 30.
Ahead of the book’s release, Cruz spoke with the Dominican Writers Association about the inspiration behind Angélica and la Güira. The award-winning author – herself a Washington Heights native – recalled how her readers would bring their children to her book events. It made her think: Why couldn’t she write a picture book for them?
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Congratulations on Angélica and la Güira. It’s a beautiful story about music, community and the ties to our elders. You are known for your adult fiction novels rooted in the Dominican diaspora. But this is your debut picture book. What compelled you to dive into children’s literature to tell this story?
I’ve always had an interest. I have a 16-year-old, but when he was little, I read a lot of picture books to him. I realized that the books that he was very attracted to were always those that had repetition and music. And, of course, I always wanted him to read books that were more about culture and empowerment. This was in 2007 through 2013. I didn’t really see our communities represented in books. So I always had this desire to write a book, or think about a book that would do the same things I’m doing with Dominicana and Let It Rain Coffee and Soledad and How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water – but for kids.
Another thing that I noticed while I was doing book tour, is that a lot of readers of my adult books would come with their children to the readings. They would give me a copy of Dominicana and say, ‘Could you sign this for my daughter?’ And I would look at their daughter and they’re like five. And I’d go, ‘Oh my God, you have to wait ten years to read this book.’
It made me think… Now that books like Dominicana are read by so many people, why couldn’t I write a picture book for the younger readers that are going to my events? I feel like Angélica and la Güira could literally come out of the page from one of my adult books, for sure.
How was writing a children’s book different from writing a novel? I have heard it’s more difficult.
In some ways it’s harder, because I might have a lot of ideas for picture books – actually, I’m trying to write one now. I have another book in the works and I have a lot of ideas, but a picture book also requires a kind of magic. If you think about the books that people have been reading across generations – like Goodnight Moon or Where the Wild Things Are – these books have a magic to them that is almost difficult to pinpoint except that, once you finish the book, there’s something you understand deeply about the human condition. It’s not just a hungry caterpillar going through leaves. There’s something about it that becomes evocative enough. I guess (it’s) the word for poetry; it taps into the divine.
I think that’s what makes it hard. You could have many, many ideas, but children are so smart. I think they see through something that, when you write a picture book, you want to actually figure out how [to] catch that moment that’s inexplicable with just plot or just story. And then you only have 700 to 1,000 words to tell that story. So for me, that was hard.
I love novels because I could get messy in them, and I feel like I have a lot of room to speak of the different characters. And in this one, I have a number of characters. But again, I had to stay very, very focused, and I had to find just the right detail so people understand who they are. So yeah, it is challenging, but it’s also really fun to have that constraint.
Your main character, Angélica, just spent her summer in the Dominican Republic. Before she leaves, her abuelo gives her a güira. And this isn’t just any güira. This one is special, handed down from generation to generation. Obviously, this instrument is incredibly popular in Dominican music. What made you decide on la güira to center this story around?
In perico ripiao, there’s three instruments: there’s the accordion, there’s the tambora and there’s a güira. The güira is the one that actually keeps the beat. It speeds up the music, or slows it down. And I thought, If you were going to give an instrument to a young girl, what instrument would you want them to have? And I thought that’s a good one. There’s a lot of power in that small instrument that maybe we could take for granted in music. But if you pull the güira out of a lot of music, it would be not our music. And I think that what makes perico ripiao and merengue our music is that you always have these three instruments working together.
The truth is, I’m really interested in history. As you know, Dominicana is a historical novel, and I started looking into the history of perico ripiao and the origins of that… You look at history, and there are many different ways of telling this history. But there’s the idea that the accordion and the tambora and la güira were all given to the culture by different groups… They come from three different groups: the Indigenous, the African and the European. And these three groups together made this one music, in a way. So in a lot of ways, even though perico ripiao was something that wasn’t allowed, it was sort of in the margins of the culture for a number of reasons. It was also a moment where a music came. It’s like a way the sink of collaboration of these cultures created something that became truly Dominican.
I appreciated that aspect of the story. There’s a beautiful theme in your book about our elders. What message were you hoping to send by focusing on this connection to generations past?
I feel like one of the things I’ve learned as a writer, and I would say as I’ve become more mature as a writer, is that I’m becoming a better listener. I feel like listening to older generations, even if we’re not always in communication with [or] we don’t always understand their point of view, also brings us a kind of wisdom about how things work in the world….
I actually don’t have an object like a güira. This is not an autobiographical story. But I do have the stories of my family that I hold on to, that have been told to me. Sometimes we could say, ‘Ellos estan hablando diparate.’ They’re also never consistent. Se ponen a hablar and they’re not really consistent with the stories they’re telling us. You don’t really know what the truth is. We’re like, ‘Wait, did he pick you up and throw you on a horse and you ran off to the sunset, or was it something else?’
And then you’ll get a slightly different version when you talk to someone else.
Even the same person will keep telling you different versions of the story throughout time. Regardless of that, I feel like as the holder of stories, all of us have the capacity to hold on to those stories, to hold on to those objects in whatever way that we want to hold on to them. And it’s important because I do think we live in a culture that is invested in the erasure of our culture and our traditions. So because of that, I think those of us that care have to do everything we can to make sure what we’ve learned has not been forgotten. Because we don't need to reinvent the wheel, right? Every time we’re born, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We could actually learn a lot from those who came before us. And we owe a lot to those who came before.
I think if we look at all your work, I can see that – that you want to preserve our culture, our stories. That’s why I appreciate your work so much. Because if we don’t do that, then no one else will. I chuckled a little when you have Angélica return to the United States. You write, “When she returned home to the land of Washington Heights.” I thought, The neighborhood really does feel like its own land. Of course, it is changing rapidly due to so many factors. But can you tell us about what it meant for you to set another one of your stories in Washington Heights?
We’re underrepresented in books. There’s that beautiful book by Lisette Norman, Plátanos Go With Everything, that has Washington Heights represented. There’s a number of other books that have come out recently, and I think it’s really important. There’s so many stories that we still need to tell about this rich, vibrant, amazing community again, because it’s becoming very gentrified. So in some ways, I feel like we’re holding on to something that maybe is shifting and changing.
But for me, when I think about Angélica and la Güira being in the city, it’s still very much the New York I love and know. It’s one where there is music on the streets, even if it drives me crazy sometimes how loud it is… It is something that I go away and then I come back, and I instantly feel at home when I recognize a song, when I recognize a smell.
Music carries us and transports us. So even if Angélica is away from her family in the Dominican Republic, she’s also with her family when she plays the sound of her family. Luz Batista made some really interesting illustrations showing how music and instruments actually hold our community inside of them. Which I thought was very, very powerful.
Your picture book has such a great sense of place, thanks in part to Luz Batista’s illustrations. What was it like for you to see the sketches?
It’s very fun. I love collaboration. I think the story is fine. I think the illustrations make it great. And I have to say this book definitely was a collaboration. Because it was not only my words. I got a lot of feedback. I leaned on Lissette Norman, who was more experienced to look at it and give me advice. Kianny Antigua, who was the translator; her translation helped me make the story better in English, and that was a conversation that we were having.
And the same thing about the illustration. When the illustrations were coming up in sketches, I was allowed to make a lot of notes. Luz basically brought in the energy. This little girl is so cute. And then when she’s sad, she’s so sad. And when she’s happy, she’s so happy. I love the expression, the action, and the stories. And that was very exciting for me.
I love how authentically Luz represented the kind of diversity experienced in my family and the community I grew up in. It was a team effort between us and the wonderful art director, Jasmin Rubero at Kokila.
We watch as Angelica struggles to fit her güira in different settings – at home and at school. It reminds me of how sometimes, certain aspects of our culture do not seem to fit in certain spaces. Can you share more about what your intent was there?
I’m taking a güira lesson, because I’ve been trying to teach myself how to play the güira, and it sounds awful. It’s a horrible sound… It is like nails on chalk. It’s not a beautiful sound by itself. It literally needs the collaboration of other sounds. It needs the drum, it needs the accordion, it needs other things to be happening at the same time.
On a very visceral level, I could see people just be like, ‘Go somewhere else with it.’ I also raised a son who played the violin for a lot of his youth. And again, when you’re learning an instrument, it doesn’t sound very good. You’re playing it because you want to learn, and you don’t hear how bad it sounds because you're trying to learn it. So in a way, I think yes, it’s the güira. It’s very Dominican. It has that layer of meaning, which is sometimes who we are is not always accepted by everyone around us. That could be one way to read it. But it also is that anytime you’re doing something outside of the norm that belongs to you, sometimes not everyone is with you when you’re being your full self…
… The moment you start just being with yourself, and really honoring who you are, is the moment that I think you bring the community that’s going to love you, toward you. Because again, and I’ve said this before: we’re not going to make everybody happy. We’re just not. We live in a world that’s homophobic, that’s sexist, that’s racist. But if we learn how to love ourselves and take care of ourselves, we can maybe attract the people that will be like, ‘Yeah, play your güira. I’m gonna play my drums. Let’s see what we could do together.’
I think that is one of the undercurrents of the book; sometimes the communities you want to be with and part of, or the validation that you’re trying to get from the outside, you’re never going to get that validation. You’re never going to get it. But there are people out there validating you, so look toward them. Being yourself really allows you to find the right community for you.
One of my greatest takeaways from your book is that you carry your ancestors with you everywhere you are. Is that something you feel in your own life?
I mean, even if I didn’t want to carry them, science is proving that they’re in our bodies. Ellos estan con nosotros, right? Even if that’s not your belief, we now know on a molecular level that we’re bringing a lot of that stuff to us. I do think that, again, the power of story and that we’re still able to share stories in whatever capacity – is it through kitchen talk? Is it through writing? Is it through reading? – is a way that we’re keeping our ancestors alive with us and present with us.
What do you hope young readers take away from Angélica and la Güira?
I never know what’s going to happen when a book goes out in the world. I hope it brings joy. I hope it encourages young people and their parents to have more dialogues with each other about objects that matter to them. I hope [for] more dancing and singing, listening to music, listening to songs we love.
Also, in a lot of ways, I hope that it empowers young people to think about what is the instrument that they have in them. Whatever that is. It could be art, or music, or science, or robotics that they love, and them just honoring whatever that is and finding their communities around that. That’s what I hope.
The book is not out yet, right? But I gave a copy to my mother, and she told me randomly, ‘Oh yeah, I’m learning how to play la güira.’ I said, ‘What?’ She goes, ‘Yeah. I bought one on Amazon, and I started learning.’ It never occurred to me that the book would inspire someone like my mother to try to learn la güira. And then it made me think, Oh, wait, I should be learning how to play la güira. So that’s how I started. But to think that someone might actually pick up the güira and try to [learn], I’m curious. I’m excited.
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Watch our full interview with Angie Cruz on DWA's YouTube page:
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Visit Word Up Community Book Shop to purchase a copy of Angélica and la Güira and Angélica y la güira.
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About the Author:
Angie Cruz is a novelist and editor. She is the author of How Not to Drown in A Glass of Water and Dominicana, which was the inaugural GMA Book Club Pick and the 2019-20 Wordup Uptown Reads selection. It was shortlisted for The Women’s Prize, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Aspen Words Literary Prize, it was a RUSA Notable Book, and winner of the ALA/YALSA Alex Award. Cruz divides her time between New York and Turin.
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Amaris Castillo is a journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, the Lowell Sun, the Bradenton Herald, Remezcla, Latina Magazine, Parents Latina Magazine, and elsewhere. Her creative writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms be Like..., and most recently in Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, "El Don," was a finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. Amaris lives in Florida with her family. You can follow her work at amariscastillo.com.
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