an interview with author nora rodriguez comagna

An interview with Nora Rodriguez Comagna 
​by Sue Staats

​Lucky for us, Nora Camagna didn’t listen to her high school guidance counselor – and other revelations from a remarkable life – so far. 
 
Nora Rodriguez Camagna’s novel, Cinnamon Bread Under The Cherry Tree (not yet published, but we've no doubt, soon to be), is based on family lore, a fictionalization of a devastating incident that really happened to a member of her own family. But Nora’s own story is equally remarkable. And you’d never know it from her modest bio, which simply states “Nora Rodriguez Camagna grew up in the California Migrant Labor camps, and in Texas and Mexico, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley.” I read this twice. Three times. How do you get from the migrant labor camps to a degree from one of the most prestigious universities in the United States? That was something I had to know….

Sue: Nora, in reading your bio, it seems as if you simply jumped from growing up in the migrant camps in the Central Valley to (the University of California at Berkeley. It can’t have been that simple. Would you  tell me about that journey?
 
Nora: I guess it is a big leap. So, my parents, as teenagers, started coming back and forth to United States, because they also had a place in northern Mexico. My dad never intended to stay in the United States, so we'd go back and forth, as migrant workers, until I was, I think, in the sixth grade. As kids, we spent part of the year in school in the United States. This happens to a lot of migrant kids still—you get pulled out and you go back home. 

Then, at some point, my mom decided that she really wanted to stay in United States: women were treated better in the US. She had a voice here. She didn't have that in Mexico, in my dad's hometown, where it  was a very patriarchal society. He loved it, though. That’s where generations of his family had been. But I guess my mom won, because by the fifth or sixth grade, we stayed in the United States. 

I grew up in a small farming town, Hughson, in the Central Valley, near Modesto. And we had a great life there. My parents were documented. They were some of the fortunate ones, they did get sponsored, and they always had green cards. There’s a huge difference,  having a green card and being able to come across the border without any fear. 

It's one of the reasons I wrote this novel—because I wanted to tell a different story about Mexican migration.
 
Sue: So how did you get from sixth grade in tiny, rural Hughson, California, to one of the biggest, most prestigious universities in the country?
 
Nora: Well, I loved reading, and I was always a great student. And I had phenomenal teachers, I still remember the names or faces and all the things they would say to me that encouraged me. In high school and in middle school, I was student body president, captain of the basketball team, editor of the school newspaper. I did everything. That's just who I was. And my mom said that I was always like that. If we went to Disneyland, and someone was dancing on stage, I tried to get up there with them.
 
I had a great high school experience. I played sports. I was in leadership. And I really credit that to the incredible teachers I had, always encouraging me to, you know, just keep pushing. I believed that I could do anything I wanted. And also, I had family friends who told me when to take the SAT, how to apply to UC.

Sue: The school guidance counselor didn’t tell you that?

Nora: I had a counselor actually tell me not to apply to the UCs. I don't know why: she knew I had a really high GPA, and she knew about the AP classes, and all the leadership stuff I had done. It was my friend’s mom who drove me and my friend to get the UC application, and the financial aid application. That’s how I ended up getting in. It was all my teachers, and friends’ parents.
 
Sue: The guidance counselor discouraged you from applying?
 
Nora: Yes, she actually discouraged me. I think she thought it would be too different of a world for me, growing up in a small farm town. That’s the only reason I can think of.
 
Sue: So let me ask you, did you did you thrive at Berkeley, or were you overwhelmed?
 
Nora: I didn't feel overwhelmed. I did do well. Not as well as I wanted to. I never felt like I didn't belong, ever. And I loved the classes. I wished I was smarter, like we all do, because there were a lot of brilliant people there. But I did thrive, and part of the reason was that John, my husband of 33 years, was there. He came from the same town, and we’d come back on the weekends. We actually lived a few blocks away from each other, so there was strength in that.
 
Sue: Someone who was there to support you, someone who knew you and your background.
 
Nora: Yes, he would understand. You know, my parents didn’t want me to go to college. They were really against it. To them, the way you succeeded in America was to work, work, work, work, you know, and, make money. Where they came from, they only had up to fourth grade education. But they were really, bright people, and hardworking, If you’re privileged, and lucky, you can go to school but it doesn’t mean, if you don’t get that opportunity, you’re not intelligent.

And the other reason they were against college is that they also didn't want me to be exposed to many boys. It's pretty funny,  the worries that conservative parents have of their kids. So it was nice to have John there. 
 
Sue: I know you’ve mined a lot of your family’s experience in your novel. It’s the story of a middle class, immigrant, Mexican family, whose son gets into trouble and ends up in a Mexican prison. I’m wondering how much of the novel is a re-telling of real events, and how much is fiction.
 
Nora: This novel stems from a true story. This happened to my 17-year-old brother, and it was just devastating to our family. My dad had moved. He was management at the local cannery. We bought a suburban home. We had a really nice middle-class life. And all of us were really accepted into our community, into America. And I know that's a different story than some people tell, but that’s what it was for us.

So writing the novel was hard, because I wanted to write about his experience, but it wasn’t just about him, it was also about how it impacted our whole family, my parents in particular. Because  they were so proud that they were successful, showing how you can start off in the fields and become part of this great American fabric. And then our brother did the stereotypical thing—the drug smuggling, Mexican kid and drugs. And he wasn't even part of a gang. 

At first, I was going to write it from the sister’s point of view. But everybody was very curious about his experience in that prison. I did interview him a couple of years ago about it, and I did go visit him when he was there. There are misconceptions about a lot of things in Mexico. This prison wasn't this brutal, horrible place. It was just really sad and impoverished. Much of the novel is, dramatically, really different from what actually happened, but in the prison itself, as I describe it, a lot of things are really accurate. 
 
Sue: I wanted to talk to you about one of the other passions in your life—your work as a "Wordslinger" (a creative writing workshop leader) in 916 Ink’s creative writing program. Tell me about how that fits into your life, and what it means to you.
 
Nora: I love 916 Ink. It reminds me of what teachers did for me when I was really young, encouraging me and helping me to find my strength, encouraging my reading and the power of storytelling. I just wanted to give that back, and my classes for 916 Ink do that for me. It's so fulfilling to see the kids get interested, especially since a lot of the kids I work with aren't big readers. Part of it is because they're not exposed to books a lot. I wasn't either, until my teachers exposed me to books. What happens is that when the kids start writing their own stories, they start to realize what goes into it and how fun it is to control your own world. And I think writing, and learning how to write a story, opens them up to reading.

I just think it does so much for the kids to share stories, and to see how much they are like everyone else. They don't know each other sometimes in that class, because they come from different classrooms. But all of a sudden, they relate—because they think the same thing is funny. Or they think the same thing is scary. Or they look at the other writer and think wow, how did they come up with that? I think it just connects people. I see a huge benefit.
 
Sue: Have you found that being bilingual adds to your ability to reach these kids?
 
Nora: Oh, totally, one of the schools is, I think, 90% Latino, and even in some of the other schools which have big enrollments of other cultures it makes a difference. They see oh, here's someone who's like me, who has two cultures and two different languages. I can notice right away how they feel, I don't know if comfortable is the right word, but more comfortable, especially when I give them a little bit of my background. They're like, oh, okay, well if she and her parents worked in the fields, and I worked in the fields too, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Kids can say, oh, yeah, my dad's a janitor, or something like that. It's really interesting. It gives them the freedom to write about anything.
 
Sue: That’s probably unique in their experience with teachers, wouldn't you say?
 
Nora: I do think so,  especially with writing teachers. I don’t think they see a lot of Latina or Latino writers. I think that gives them some idea that they have stories, too. For a lot of kids, English isn’t their first language and they’re still struggling to write. And I always tell them, just because you can't write it down physically doesn't mean you're not a great storyteller. The writing will come later. But the best storyteller I knew couldn't read or write, and that was my grandmother. We’re lucky, you know. In past generations, not everyone could read and write, but they could tell great stories. 
 
Sue: Nora, what are you proudest of in your life?
 
Nora: Probably one of the proudest moments of my life was graduating from college, because I was the first one to do it in my family. And it meant a lot. More, even, once I figured out what graduating from Berkeley meant. You know, a doctor moved in next to my parents. And when they told him I was going there, he's like, really? Wow! That’s when they finally realized, oh, maybe going to college at Berkeley is a pretty impressive thing. They hadn’t even known that before. So, I’m proud that I graduated, that I finished. It wasn’t easy.
 
Sue: Your debut at Stories on Stage Sacramento is coming up. I’m wondering: how are you anticipating it? Are you excited, anxious, fearful? How do you think it will be for you to hear your work performed?
 
Nora: Oh, I'm excited. I just love sitting there in the quiet and listening. It’s sort of like you’re reading an author’s mind. You’re getting this connection with them. And I think it's awesome. Also,  I'm super excited that Angel Rodriguez is reading my chapter, because when he read that chapter from Tommy Orange’s novel a few years ago, I went up to him after and I said, “Oh, if I ever get on Stories on Stage, I want you to read for me." I did! I just thought he did such a good job. I don’t know anything else about him because I’m not on social media.
 
Sue: Now, that surprises me. You, Nora, are one of the most social people I know!
 
Nora: I know. It’s like, if I go to work out somewhere, I spend 45-minutes talking to people. If I got on social media I'd be so sucked into it that I would never come out. I'm also someone who can never say "no" to people. I’d have to look at everyone’s stuff and I would feel really guilty if I didn't read it. I think with social media, I might be  stuck to my computer and never go out. That’s probably the biggest reason I'm not on social media. I know myself!
 
Sue: That’s probably good advice for us all! One last question: As the child of immigrants you must feel that this country doesn’t handle immigration well. What changes do you think would benefit immigrants, and benefit the country?
 
Nora: You know, that's really interesting. At the beginning of our conversation, I spoke about people who are undocumented, how fearful they are. Not so much about getting deported, it’s that they’re breaking the law. And it makes them shrink a little bit. They can’t expand. With my parents, they always felt proud, they never felt scared, they were always, pushing ahead. And all for a simple piece of paper.

You know, I remember when I was in the fields, and we'd see the migra coming, and for those of us who had the papers, no problem, but the people who didn't started running, and they were the same people. And to get those papers depended what part of Mexico you were coming from, how close you were to an embassy, if your family had enough money. 

I wish we would find a way to have people come in, legally without fear, even if it's temporary. You know, it’s interesting, a lot of Mexican people don’t want to stay permanently. they want to go back. I know my family wanted to. But it's different from when I was growing up. I see all the images,  it breaks my heart. Because we do need more workers, more people. 
​
At the end of my novel, I quote Octavio Paz because he talks about what Mexicans bring to the United States. I think my father sometimes got discouraged because he felt the image of Mexicans in the United States stays the same, because you keep seeing the same laborers come over. We don't have stories showing the middle class moving up a lot. And Paz said, it's the Mexicans that bring new energy and life to the United States. And I thought, that's it. I mean, we were all immigrants. I just wish that we could find a way to make it a smoother transition that people come in, even if it's temporary, legally and without fear. That's such a huge difference, to live your life without fear. It makes everything different. 
  
Sue: How do you identify yourself?
 
Nora: As a Mexican American or Latina, and an American, for sure, I definitely feel American. I guess I say Mexican American almost like an honor to my parents. I don't know why I feel this.  Because, my husband's second generation, his grandmother came over from Italy when she was eight and he just calls himself American. And he's very proud of his Italian heritage. 

If someone were to ask my three sons that question, they’d say, American. They don't claim to be Italian American or Mexican American. They're just American. It's interesting that we have this debate, but if someone was going to ask me, I definitely view myself… I think in English, you know. I'm definitely American, and I'm a human.
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916 Ink website
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(this interview was edited was length and clarity)

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