Author Maria de Lourdes Victoria’s Mexican roots fuel her writing

Award-winning author and part time Petaluma resident Maria de Lourdes Victoria grew up in Veracruz, Mexico. Moving to the United States as a young woman left her homesick, but she ultimately found things to love about her new country. Her writing helps to bring understanding about the beauty and harsh realities of both cultures.

Victoria’s writing explores social, cultural and economic inequalities based on race, gender, and the distribution of wealth.

“I write about love that trespasses social boundaries, the indigenous Zapotec woman and the Hacendado; the German coffee plantation lord and the Tzotzil woman,” she said.

Victoria lives in both Petaluma and Seattle, dividing her time between three grandchildren in Petaluma and three in Seattle.

“I do love the quiet, small town feeling in Petaluma,” she said. “I walk to the parks everyday and I love Frutas and El Roy Taco trucks. It makes me feel like I am in Mexico.”

Her most fun “pandemia“ project has been a book she published about a dog named Chewy who has coprophagia. She wrote the book with help from her Petaluma grandchildren. She has done Zoom readings at schools and the kids laugh out loud, she said.

Writing helps keep her centered during the challenges of the pandemic.

“Right now I am feeling blessed that everyone in my family is healthy,” she said. She worries about her son and his wife who are both Petaluma doctors. “They love their patients just like my father used to,” she said.

Victoria said it’s very hard for Mexican-American communities to maintain social distance.

“In our Mexican culture we tend to hug and kiss more than other cultures, we are physical and we show our emotions,” she said. “Families include the extended family members, and we do like to party, sing and dance. That cultural reality combined with the nature of our work as essential workers, are the reasons, I believe, we have a higher number of COVID cases.”

One traditional family celebration is Dia de los Muertos, a favorite holiday where extended families gather together in cemeteries to celebrate the spirits of their dearly departed. The celebration involves preparing favorite foods, singing, sugar-skulls and other artwork, faces painted like skulls to honor the dead and more. One of her books, “La Casa de los Secretos,” is a tribute to the origins of the unique celebration.

Locally and in Mexico, the holiday was a ghost of its normal revelry.

“This year most people had to be content with creating their altar at home, which is still a beautiful tradition,” Victoria said. “I am sure the souls of our departed still came and enjoyed the meal we prepared and left for them on the altar.”

Victoria is politically active and she volunteered during the recent election, making phone calls to voters in Texas, Florida, Arizona and Nevada in Spanish, educating people about their voting rights and trying to persuade undecided voters to vote for Biden. She was surprised by what she learned.

The Trump campaign had done a good job of creating a narrative based on fear among many of the voters she called, she said. Cuban voters had been convinced that Biden was a socialistl.

“He also did a good job convincing Puerto Ricans that they would get money to rebuild PR and that it would become a state,” she said. “He convinced conservative Latino Catholics that Biden and Kamala were in favor of even late abortions.”

Victoria said it was an uphill battle to educate them with facts. She said the effort was worth it as Latino voters overwhelmingly supported Biden in the election.

“Whenever I talked to voters there was one issue we could always agree about, and that was the caging of the children,” Victoria said. “I debated with voters about the economy, the climate, COVID, even abortion but we could always agree that caging is wrong.”

“My current novel was inspired by the zero tolerance law, separating families at the border,” Victoria said. “The main theme is the victimization of children when they are taken from their parents by a war, a death, or by an inhumane government.”

For aspiring local writers who are not native-English speakers, Victoria lends encouragement.

“Write with your heart in whatever language your heart speaks,” she said.