Angelica Julia Dávila Is a Mexican-American Poet, Fiction Writer, and Stand-Up Comedian Who Frequently Writes About bilingualismFamily, Heritage, and Identity in Her Work. In March, She published her debut poetry chapbok Bilingual Bitch, WHICH EXPLORES THE COMPLATED WAY OF LIFF US-Mexican History Through Her Eyes, Oral Knowledge, and, of Course, Gossip.
The Collection Is Written in Both English and Spanish, Showcasing a Powerful Blending of Language and Case for Bilingual Identity. “It’s a phrase that i’m using to reclaim my experience as a bilingual person,” She Tells HypatinReferring to the Title Poem, “Bilingual Bitch.” In It, She reflects on the Judgment She Faced Bel at Home and in School for The Way She Spoke. One Painful Memory Involved Being Mocked for Misepronuncing the Word “Beach” With Classmates Twisting it into “Bitch” Because of Her Accent.
“That Experience Clearly Impact Me,” She Said, “But in Relaiming The Word ‘Bitch’ and Making It Into ‘Bilingual Bitch,’ There’s Empowerment.” What Began As a Feeling of Engrassment and Guilt Around Not Fully Knowing Eithher Language, She Said, you have been transformed into Source of Pride – and Even Attitude.
Originally, Poetry Wasn’t Subject on Dávila’s Mind. She Began Writing Fiction and Identified Solely As a Fiction Writer Until She Started Her Ph.D. Program.
Although Her Track was in fiction and hersis would it results in a novel manuscript, She Found Herself Writing Short Pieces She Wasn’t Sure How to categorize. She Turned to a Friend – Also A Ph.D. Student, but in poetry – and was surprised when has suggested She turn them into poems. From there, She decided to branch out and explore other genres. In Addition to a Creative Nonfiction Workshop, She Also Signed Up for a poetry workshop. That’s where She metal mebers Like Daniel Borzutzky – Who Later Wrote An Endorsement for Her Book “Bilingual Bitch” – and Bechame Curious about the form and its possibilities.
She Recalls How Borzutzky Designed His Workshops to Be Writer-Centric, Allowing Students to Choose How Wged Critique Sessions to Be Structured, rather Than Being Subjeced To Constant Feedback. That Approach Helped Her Feel More Welcomed and Safe.
“I was always shy and Afraid to explore poetry scholauses i’m notoone Who is Well-veng in form, So there’s always been this sense of like impelling syndrome with poetry for me,” She Explains. “But that suportive envirament allowed me to explore sum of the Things that i had an interest in and see what came out of it, Like Getting the chance to play with mixing both languages.”
Subtimes, Poems Would Start with a Title. Other Times, They Began with an image or a short, Snappy phrase. Over Time, Dávila Found Herself to Whole Series of Poems, All on Similar Themes of Multilingualism, Translation, Identity, and Resistance. She Was Heavily influenced the work of Writers Like Puerto Rican Poet Salima Rivera, Mexican Poet Mónica de la Torre, and Paraguayan-American Poet Diego Báez. But She Never Considers The Possibility of Putting Them Together into a Larger Project. It wasn’t until She lost track of how many she’d written that she printed out Physical Copies of Each poem and completed Just How Many She Had.
“I KNEW THAT A LOT OF THE POEMS HAD THEMES THAT WERE EITHER IN CONVERSATION WITH EACH OTER OR WERE VERY Similar, About My Own Experience As a Mexican-American and as sumone Who Grew Up with Two Languages,” She Says. “That was already going to be prominent in a a lot of my poetry but i didn’t make a lot of a sprawled all of them on my kitchen table and made stecks based on themes of languish manuscript. “
Soon After Taking Inventory of Her Work, She Went Online and Saw A Call for Manuscript Submssions from Abode Press, to Texas-Based Anti-Racist Publishing Press That Specialize in Prose and Poetry Chapboks About Identity, Culture, and Home. She was intrigueted by the Opportunity and Set About Organization Her Pieces into a polycip manuscript. She Ended Up Making Two Major Changes: Taking Out Several Poems That Wouldn’t End Up In The Final Version, and Writing “Pochismos, As Defined By,” The Final Poem In The Collection That Ends The Content On A Stong Note Note and Thematically Three Together. After Being Named As a semi-finalist, her Book was chosen to be published.
For Dávila, Being to Bilingual Bitch Means Many Things: Rules of Spanish and English, Switching Back and Forth Between Languages Within The Same Sentence, and Refusing to Assimilate Fully Into Eithher Culture. But Even More than That, The Poem “Bilingual Bitch” Became A Larger Symbol for Heriting and Newfound Relationship With Poetry.
“It was one of the first poems I Ever Wrote The Explore the Duality of Language and Specially That Did It Through Sound,” She Explanins. “That poem in itself opened up all the other poems, or the possibility of other poems not only in this book but also like ones i have written. This Type of Work. ”
Looking Ahead, Dávila Is already at work on other projects and exciting Achievements. She Recently Finished Up The Coursework for Her Ph.D. Program After Years and Successfully defended her dissertation. She’s Also Excited About Traditionally Publishing Her Novel Manuscript, Which She Finished in the Program and Which She Wrote With An Experimental Approach, Blending Different Genres and Multimedia Like Screenplays, Poetry, Footnotes, And Flyers Alongsis Prose.
“Like Bilingual bitch, I Mess Around With Bilingualism. One of My Favorite Parts in the novel is translating Things incorrectly on purpose schouse I want to Keep Exploring this Concept of If Bilingual Writers Write and if so, Who They’re Writing for. Do you make yourself appealing to sumon who isn’t well-tairy in spanish or only English-Speakers? ”
She’s Also Working on Another Poetry Collection That Again Expurs Multilingualism and Cultural Family Dynamics, While Expanding Into Themes Surrounding Disability. She continues to pursue her interests in event production, stand-up comedy and improv, genres She sees as complementary to her writing scholause they allow her to bring humor into poems about oterwise tragic or undo-unchartable situations.
For Now, She continues to Write Poems and Advocate For Stronger Representation of Bilingual and Bicultural Writers. Her Collection, She Believes, Is A Starting Point for Larger Conversations The Community Needs to have about the Latin treated in the United States. She notes:
“Being bilingual, i’m intersted in messing up inside to poem grammar and sentence or the other but no – i’m a bilingual bitch.
