LIZ NARRATION: Who was your favorite tía growing up?
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The aunt that had a little extra cash and would take you out for a fun afternoon? La besucona, always piling on the TLC? The fashionable one, who bought you the latest kicks and gadgets on trend that your parents never would have? For me it was la tía bruja, la que me leia las cartas and would spend hoooooours with me talking about everything esoteric, dissecting each family members trauma with me waaaay before family constellations and all the woo woo things that are more mainstream now were even a thing.
I’m Liz Rebecca and today, writer Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez joins us to talk about her newest book and what the women in our families and what they can teach us about everything from being rebellious to being spiritual to being a wizard at using Whatsapp. This is In Confianza.
LIZ NARRATION: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez is a theologian and writer. As a child growing up in Nicaragua, she developed her storytelling skills early on — and this skill she attributes to many things, but mainly, from what she absorbed from the women who raised her. It’s these voices that led Prisca to write her latest book, Tías & Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us. In it, Prisca breaks down over a dozen feminine archetypes found in many Latino families. The book acts as a powerful manifesto on uncovering the codes that women are taught at an early age, highlighting the nuances and strengths of our matriarchs, and advocating for breaking patterns that force us to manufacture competition and division within our own families. We talked to Prisca from her home in Nashville, Tennessee about some of the archetypes and what she’s learned about herself in the process.
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Liz: Welcome to In Confianza, Prisca. Our first question for every one of our guests is if you’re willing to share, what’s the last thing you talked about to someone en confianza?
Prisca: Oh my God. I think I talked about debt and finances with one of my good friends. I’m perfectly married. But as a second marriage, you enter a little more guarded, I think. So it’s seeing the many ways I’m still very guarded.
Liz: Oh wow, Prisca. That’s fascinating. I think we need to do an episode just on this for season six, so you might be invited back to tell me your learnings in a couple of months. Pero, por ahora, we want to talk about your book, Tias y Primas, On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us, you point to why you are the person to talk about this topic. You say, “most Latinas from Catholic families get a quinceañera, but I got new ancestors at my quince.” You later said, “when a matriarch leaves the living world, she leaves a crater behind.” It’s almost like your radar was up from an early age to pay attention to this complex role of matriarchs in our families after just reading those lines. When do you first remember noticing the complexities in the women who raised you?
Prisca: I just started noticing like, there’s this little weird voice that comes out that I don’t know where she comes from. I judge a lot and I’m a hater. Why do I have this instinct? And then I hung out with my mom and then I just started remembering like how she criticized…one of my best friends, the mom was the breadwinner. And my mom’s critique of her wasn’t, “wow, look at her — boss.” It was, “don’t you notice her daughter’s, like, never clean?” Or she would talk about, like, daycare kids as a bad thing, like, “both parents work — ew.” So I grew up with that voice all the time and it’s that little voice in me that creeps up. It isn’t things that I actually think, it’s just things that have like been taught for years. I think that her critiques of other women are her critiques on herself first. I love my mom. I love so many things about her, so many things she’s taught me, but she’s also sort of the biggest hater I know. And so it’s made me a hater. So how do I heal that? Because you need to name it before you can heal this stuff. From that investigation came this book. I just became curious about every single woman in my family.
Liz: Early in the book, you say that matriarchs are supposed to keep the secrets of patriarchy. I would love for you to break that down for us. What do you mean by that?
Prisca: I grew up with women saying, “I’m not the head of the household, but I’m the neck.” I also grew up with like little things like shopping bags hidden in the back of the trunk and waiting until my dad fell asleep and then running to get them. It was like $20 worth of stuff. My dad maintained control in the household by being the one who allowed a certain amount of money to come out of the bank account. And so we found ways. Mi mamí would be like, “oh, the lawn guys came. It was 60.” But it was actually 40. Or even when I first got my period, mi mamí taught me how to hide it, how to roll it in the toilet paper and how to throw it in. And then get little pieces of paper and crumple it on top. So they’d never know — in our own household. Like, what was the worst thing that could happen if he saw that I had my period? Nothing. But it was just like keeping secrets and maintaining their safety and illusion of what our lives were. It’s all of these little things that I saw happen normally, casually in the female spaces that I was in.
Liz INT: You also say in the book that “not all grandmothers are matriarchs and not all families have clear matriarchs. Some women will never be matriarchs. I will never become a matriarch.” When did that become clear to you that that responsibility was not something that you wanted to take on?
Prisca: I don’t have kids and I’ll never have kids, so I’ll never be the female head of a household, right? I think it’s Sherry Moraga who wrote, “I’m the last in my family line.” Reading her name that without the shame that I think we’re supposed to feel when we’re motherless women, was good. In terms of, like, I would like to be an idealist and say like, “we can have it all.” But I have not experienced that to be true. As a first gen, as somebody who doesn’t have this generational wealth, I had to make choices and now I get to have this career, but it had to come at a price.
Liz: I just feel so empowered by you acknowledging that you are choosing to withdraw from those responsibilities that some of us don’t even think about. What did you want to dispel about the way Latino families are generalized in this country by writing the book?
Prisca: I’m really interested in women and in our experiences and the way that we benefit and often pay the price for how we are portrayed and how people misunderstand us. So traditionally when we see our characters in mainstream media that isn’t made for Latines, we’re still sort of put into the maid, or we’re put into the sultry body or, the chola or chonga, right? We’re so much cooler than they have the imagination to wrap their minds around. We’re so much more deeper and dense and we’re so much more compassionate and we’re so much messier. It was just like, I want us to have our full humanity that these narrowed down stereotypes strip from us. This is for us to give us language and to honor these very real people in our lives. I wrote these 20 archetypes and they’re really complicated and they’re really dense and they don’t even scratch the surface. One of my favorite chapters is The Tia Who Sees Fantasmas, because I have found myself talking about ghosts in spaces where people that didn’t grow up with that and the looks that I get, it makes me feel a little crazy. So, I definitely, I’m just like, “no these people exist” and they’re often even respected in our families. And I’m a good storyteller because I grew up around adults telling stories, specifically ghost stories that were fun and magical and funny. I have seen grown women pee their pants from laughing so hard about how a ghost story was told. That I think shaped everything I understand about stories today.
Liz: Absolutely. I have one of all of these and I am some of these as we’ve been talking about. Ya nos contaste de “la tía who sees fantasmas.” Tell us now about The Cool Tía.
Prisca: I’m the young tia. My niece looks at me and I know she’s just memorizing everything. She’s memorizing my nail color. She’s memorizing my, my skirt, my shoes. Like she’s just looks like she’s like, wants to inhale me. Because when we’re little, we get like packaged this femininity like in our Barbies and our Bratz dolls. There’s this hyper feminine presentation that we’re told is like, aspirational. And we look at our mamís and they’re busy working, feeding us, keeping us alive. And this cool tia probably doesn’t have kids, has the ability to do a lot of that labor that it takes to be that hyper feminine. And so there’s this aspirational femininity and aspirational elements of adulthood that you don’t see in your mami, but you’re going to see in this quote unquote cool tia because she’s doing a thing that you’re told you’re supposed to do at a certain time in your life.
Liz: And it comes with privilege and responsibility and imposed standards, all in one, which is true, I think for so many of the archetypes in the book, Prisca. I want to talk now about La Prima Perfecta. This one, I see myself in La Prima Perfecta. I feel like this is my role in my family. Prisca, this one hits, this one hits. It hits because it’s an archetype that in many ways is the biggest expectation of what a good woman should look like, of what a good woman should be. You write that “La Prima Perfecta is so reliably good that she blends in with the furniture.” Tell me some of the ways that you feel this archetype is damaging to women and the families that they’re part of themselves?
Prisca: That’s the one I have the most contentious relationship with. So I write a lot about how many compliments La Prima Perfecta’s parents are given. Like, “you did good.” The confidence in knowing that their labor is being reflected on this person. I was raised to be that way. And it’s never good enough. You could always do better, you could always stretch yourself a little more.
Liz: There’s always someone you didn’t do something for. There’s always a nephew you didn’t help get into college enough. I’m speaking now from my own experience, right? There’s always someone, a que no le hiciste un detalle lo suficiente.
Prisca: Yeah. There was a point in my life where I had done everything right I had been told to do. I even got married cause they told me I couldn’t leave the house until I got married. And, like, it was at that moment when I called them to tell them that I was leaving him that everything just, like, collapsed. And I remember just the way that my mom screamed at me on the phone, “what did you do?” The assumption that it must’ve been my fault. Like all of this, like bigness of it that I just hung up. And was like, “this is it, I’m no longer perfect.” The minute I decided to choose myself, I disappointed you. Fuck it. Let’s do it all. Let’s do every single mistake that I was told not to do almost like against my own inner voice. My voice that was like, “no, las cosas malas happen at 2 AM. Why are you out at this time?” I started dating and sleeping around. I was like, the title is no longer mine. And it was really scary but it was necessary for me to be here today.
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Liz Narration: When we come back, Prisca talks with us about some of the more “controversial” tias, and we get a behind the scenes look of one of our favorite tia archetypes in action. This is In Confianza.
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Liz Narration: When we last left off with Prisca, she talked about how she broke away from continuing her life in the “Prima Perfecta” mold, starting with her divorce from her first husband. But there were many, many other tía archetypes she could become — and her read on who these types of women are is complex and fascinating. I’d be surprised if you don’t recognize some of these types of women in your own family.
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Liz: In hearing your story about your own experience with divorce, to put it in the framework of the book, you essentially went from being La Prima Perfecta into becoming La Tía Loca, right?
Prisca: 100%. And I talk about La Loca — can be made either from nurturing from parents who are like, “believe in yourself, follow your heart, be outspoken, question adults.” But I think La Loca can also come out from a place of revenge, which is definitely the place that I came out of it. “Oh, all that work meant nothing the minute I left an unhappy marriage. Let me show you how bad I could be. And will you still love me? Was the love that you gave to me always dependent?”
Liz: As you all have been hearing Prisca talk about the book, there are 20 archetypes. There are many, many more that we haven’t talked about. And I want to point to a few others that you have in the book, Prisca. You talk about The Dignified Tía, The Prima Who Doesn’t Like Other Women with which we’ve touched on a bit. In these examples, you talk about everything from the way women are connected to borrowed power, which is a big theme in the book. And how those archetypes can help us wield power over our families, but also there’s a proximity to whiteness in some of these archetypes as well. Have you talked with women in your life about how they feel about those identities in the family and do you think some of those women have changed after you’d written the book?
Prisca: There’s like a thing in the Bible about that: there’s no prophets in their own hometown.
Liz: Nadie es profeta en su tierra.
Prisca: Yes. I think that that’s a real thing with my family — very quick to dismiss what I say based on the fact that I lost my way, quote unquote, I became not perfect. They say like, “se perdió la Priscila,” “is hippie la Priscila ahora.” I’m like, “hippie? What does that even mean? What is this idea of hippie that you have?” So yeah, I’m too free-spirited. I’m too open. I’m too welcoming. I don’t get told things now intentionally because my version and my truth. And so I don’t know if there is change to be seen, I don’t know if they would show it or tell it to me or credit me for it. Cause that’s also, I think a role of women who do too much is to give yourself the pat in the back, and you sort of have to give yourself your own flowers. But they don’t want to connect with the person that I’ve become, for sure, because I think it’s scary. And I understand that.
Liz: You’re probably exaggerating Prisca. A lo mejor hay orgullo and like, you know, in like 20 years, the Pretty Tía might come to you and, you know, say you were right. Don’t lose hope just yet. I wanted to ask you, which tía are you calling on for advice these days?
Prisca: The Escandalosa. She lives in Nicaragua. Because mi mami is a Perfecta, A Dignified Woman, she made sure to taint her in my eyes. And so I never got access. To be an Escandalosa is to be in a similar position that I’m in, which is like, that you hear all the things, you see the eye rolls, and you continue to exist in the space, regardless. Say, “no, this is my family, too.” You may not like what I’m doing. Doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop doing it or that I’m going to do it less. It just means you’re just going to be uncomfortable the whole time, but that’s a choice.
Liz: What did you want readers to understand about their families and their own roles in them?
Prisca: What I want with all my writings is just like, if I lift the veil a little bit, if I tell you a little bit about me and the people who raised me, and attempt to name things, what I want is for people to be like — it’s like a scar sharing. It’s like when you, when the kid is like, “and this scar is when I fell from my bike. This scar is really different from your scar, but I got this one.” Like, I want people to self-reflect because critical thinking skills are something you practice and something you develop and with the things that I’m sharing to be like, “okay, I don’t find my tías anywhere here, but where are my tías and why do they do that? Have I dismissed them? Have I embraced that? Why did I do that?” I want us to like get in it and get in the weeds about who we are told are respectable women and who we’re told we’re not supposed to emulate. And I just hope people sit and enjoy the book for what it is. It’s supposed to be a conversation topic. It’s not the end-all be-all. I’m not an expert on Latinidad. I’m just an expert in my stories. Dig into your stories and find the thing and think about your family. Take out some pictures and really investigate — who are these people?
Liz: Towards the end of the book, you have this call to action for tías to make the work fall more on the boys and men that they’re raising. You also mention that in a family of men, they speak when things are bad or when someone is dying, but they seldom communicate about the good or the mundane. So I’m curious, what do you want male readers to take away from this book?
Prisca: I think often the chatter of women is being framed, just silly and gossip often No, it’s like so much deeper than that. There’s so much knowledge that’s passed down. It’s preparing you for the harshness of the world. I want to encourage male readers to see the chatter of women and the lives of women and the things that they do as so much more. In hopefully in showing all that, I hope that my male readers are intrigued and maybe want to emulate some of these dynamics and want to have these deeper connections because it’s going to lead to a very connected and fruitful experience for everyone in our lives.
Liz: One of our favorite chapters is about the WhatsApp Tía. This is the tía who always has WhatsApp open. You say, “she’s a community organizer. We seldom take the time to value and protect all of this labor that she does.” She’ll send religious memes, gifts, pictures of food, cooking recipes. You all know who we’re talking about and I’m sure you all have this tía in your family, too. If you’re up for it, I would love to ask if you can share the last Whatsapp Tía message that you have for us.
Prisca: Hold on, let me go look at my phone.
Liz: I’m gonna look at mine too, a ver que encuentro.
Prisca: I know. They’re so funny.
Liz: While you find yours, I went into my WhatsApp, Prisca, and here’s what I found, PulsoFam. This one was forwarded, quién sabe, how many times. And it says, “Muy buenos días, oración por mis amistades. Que Jesús de Nataret siempre te acompaña y te guíe. Te proteja con su sangre poderosa.” Goes on to be a long oración. And it ends with dozens of purple hearts.
Prisca: Oh my God. I’m obsessed.
Liz: In this forwarded chain to wish me a beautiful day. So You know nothing like a good prayer forwarded in Whatsapp.
Prisca: That is exactly what the WhatsApp Tía does. So mine is, her name is Carolina. Okay, so her last image was on my birthday and she said, “Hola Pris, feliz cumpleaños.” She sent me a picture of us together. “Hoy en tus 38 bellos años un abrazo. De parte a Ricardo, también.” So Ricardo, she, she was my Young Tía, so Ricardo was her boyfriend, who I chaperoned on their dates. So I’m like really close to them as a couple. And so she sent me a picture of me and her and Ricardo.
Liz: I love it.
Prisca: That’s my WhatsApp Tia. “I know you remember me, even though you don’t call me.”
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Liz: Exacto, siempre la cuña, right? Always the like, The Guilting Tía. Esa es otra, Prisca, for the next book. The tía who’s guilting you into something all the time.
LIZ NARRATION: You can find Tías & Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us or any of Prisca’s work at your bookseller of choice or on her website priscadorcas.com.
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LIZ NARRATION: This episode was produced and edited by Mark Pagán. Audio engineering, scoring, and mixing by Charlie Garcia and Mark Pagán. Additional audio editing by Julian Blackmore. I’m your host, Liz Rebecca Alarcón.
You can subscribe to In Confianza wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like what you heard please leave us a review on apple podcasts and tell a friend to give us a listen.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for joining me, Pulso Fam. That’s it for this season, but we’ll be back very soon, in Confianza.
