Interview: Emilly Prado
A desire to combat systemic oppression is a non-negotiable value
We were early in the pandemic…
when I first came across Emilly Prado’s work. She was performing as part of a Literary Arts showcase, and as she read I found all the ambient anxiety of those initial quarantine days slipping away.
I was tethered to the screen with her language.
I had to know what was next.
I was rapt.
Her word were unexpected, insightful, and suffice it to say that performance stuck with me for some time, so it was a delight to discover that a full-length collection of her essays – Funeral for Flaca – was forthcoming from Future Tense Books. Having since read the collection (twice over) I can confidently say it’s my favorite work of prose I’ve encountered this year. The essays contained there are intimate and wondrous, collectively recounting a chicana’s coming-of-age with incredible honesty, intelligence, humor, and grace… you can imagine my delight when the author herself agreed to join us for an interview. Without further gilding then, please enjoy
a conversation with
Emilly Prado
NAILED: It’s clear that writing these essays required a great deal of remembering and reflection on your part. Have you discovered anything new about yourself in the process?
Emilly Prado: I rarely set out to write with more than an idea. Threads show themselves to me through the special trance space of deep writing, and I’ve learned that so much of my writing process continues to be about discovery, whether in the personal essay, cultural critique, or reporting forms.
In the fact-checking stages of the book, I called my sister more this time, in addition to my mom. I say “this time” because the collection was formed from the IPRC class project chapbook I made by the same title in the summer of 2019. When running memories and scenes by her, I found big differences in what she remembered versus what I recollected. Sometimes our mom could settle who was right, but other times she didn’t know either. As a result, entire memories I had were rewritten, both on the page and in my brain. The book became part documentation of the writing process itself and the imperfection of memory. I wanted to be transparent about the uncertainty I sometimes faced while writing and that choosing to share the stories was more important than being held back by the unrealistic bar of perfection.
In revisiting the essays, some first drafted in 2018 or earlier, I also found my relationship to certain experiences had changed, often for the better. I witnessed my own healing, and I was grateful to revise in service to my continued healing journey.
N: You say you’ve witnessed your own healing (which is so lovely to hear). Would you be willing to share with us what it looked like?
EP: Healing so far has looked like reframing past experiences, countering negative self-talk, and being in community with people who are inspiring, see me as whole, and who often model ways I want to be in the world. It’s meant working with therapists of various frameworks. Unlearning the idea that prioritizing the self is selfish. Making sure my body is taken care of too with ample rest, body work, outlets like dancing with friends. Practicing boundary-setting over and over. It has felt like noticing a sense of contentment in place where I once felt too much pain or sadness to bear. I’m hopeful for the healing that’s to come, and forms of healing I don’t know yet.
N: Throughout the collection you regularly code-switch, including Spanish words in the predominantly English text. How did you come to decide that this would be the form and balance of these languages?
EP: I wanted to write a book that would’ve felt relatable and exciting to 13-year-old me. I tried to immerse myself into the headspace of the age I was in when turning over a particular memory, and part of seeking to reflect myself authentically meant mirroring my language at the time too. I wasn’t consciously seeking to code-switch or aim for a particular balance of English/Spanish. Spanish is my first language, but English is the language I most frequently use and am more fluent in, and like I mention in the collection, sometimes words lose their poesy by way of translation, so the Spanish words were used to better serve an essay.
N: The untranslatable poesy of words is such a lovely (and often overlooked) ideal; thank you for honoring it in your work! Could you share a word which falls into this category for you?
EP: My favorite Spanish word that embodies this is definitely enchilé. I think it might be slang, but it means too spicy—so while eating tacos, you might say, “Me echilé” when you get to the point where the bites of seed-packed pickled jalapeño have caused streams of tears to fall. If you notice someone sniffling progressively with each bite of salsa, you can ask, “Te echilasté?” and the person can nod without breaking away from their fiery treat. Sometimes folks use it to say they got angry too. My sister translates it as “too spiced out” and regardless of the attempted translations we present, I love that there’s one tiny word that means all that. Poesy doesn’t have to mean a word that describes the seventeen shades of a particular sunset, although let’s be real that is poetic, but can be about the perfection of a word, or language, when so often words can feel like they don’t quite suffice.
N: In several portions of the book, you draw heavily from early childhood experiences. How well did you remember these moments and your thoughts/emotions during them? How much has been re-flavored or re-imagined with time?
EP: All essays started as seeds—snippets of memories that called to me. I often didn’t know where the writing would take me until I started, but I always sought to get down a full draft of the essays first, as best I could from my perspective, before sharing it with anyone. I sometimes get anxious and can ultimately get bogged down by trying to get things perfectly while writing, so in promising to myself to protect my words from others until I was ready to share them, I allowed myself the space to explore and lose myself in thought. There’s a saying about memoir writing—I can’t remember who said it first or where I picked it up—but we, memoirists, must seek to tell truth, not facts.
Memory is inherently biased and shaky. I think all memories are re-flavored and warp over time. You can use other sources to try to corroborate your stories, but only you can speak to how you felt or feel about something. As I found in writing these essays, my feelings about certain memories had typically shifted from when they initially happened, so I had to make the choice of which time-specific perspective I wanted to write.
N: How do you, Emilly Prado, define that line between truth and fact?
EP: It’s a fuzzy line! I think facts are often societally agreed upon. Perhaps you attended a baseball game at 3:30 PM PT on Sunnyside Park’s east side. There were three points scored for the home team and none for the visiting team. Attendees could likely all agree on the time, place, sport, and outcome. But maybe for Rosa, the pitcher on the home team, the blue of the sky reminded her of an ocean she saw as a toddler. She felt like she didn’t play her best possible game. If the sky was a darker tint of blue, she knows she would have been put at ease, and thus would’ve notched up the fast balls by 10 mph. This could be Rosa’s truth. Others likely wouldn’t call this fact. Maybe even Josh, the short stop, would tell Rosa the sky was the perfect shade of mint. They’d have a conversation—some might call this an argument, others a debate, others a chat. This is where the line feels fuzzy for me because I think there may be fewer 100% certain facts than we may think. Perhaps truth is the place between fact and opinion.
N: What would you most want a teen or young adult reading this book today to take from your words?
EP: I hope they feel less alone in their struggles and know there’s a place for them in this world. Growing up is hard and we carry the experiences we live through with us. I hope they know they deserve respect, love, and can find the spaces where they feel safe and inspired, whether that’s alone in a favorite park, amongst uplifting friends who make them laugh, immersed at a show, or while reading a book that resonates. I’m also a big fan of therapy because taking care of yourself is vital, and a radical act of self-love.
N: The collection often deals with a search for identity and a recurring sensation of being caught in liminal space, of not being ‘enough’ to fit in with any particular clique. Where are you at in your exploration of identity today?
EP: I spend less of my time preoccupied with how I fit into liminal spaces! I still am grappling with the complexity of my Ancestry.com results which, spoiler alert for NAILED readers, were quite reflective of Mexico: a mix of Indigenous, European, and African roots. I also think about my relationship to patriotism and would like to get support with ancestral research so I can better explore what parts of Mexican culture, for example, I feel connected with. I want to find and cling to as many beautiful sides of my culture as I can, and now, I understand that I get to pick and choose what I want to continue to uphold and honor in my life. I have also been nudged by my therapist to continue thinking more about what others can do to accommodate my needs and personhood, as opposed to contorting myself to fit into others’ definitions or narrow scope.
N: What a delightful answer! Would you be so kind as to share a few of the things you’ve currently identified and adopted to create your particular culture?
EP: “Culture” can be hard to define, but I think of culture as a set of values, norms, and behaviors. I’ve inherited parts of my culture based on where I live, the family I grew up with, the pop culture of my time, and so many other factors, but I like to think of culture as pliable. So, a few things: I want to keep improving my Spanish. It’s my first language, but I’m much more fluent and confident in English. I’d like to see that leveled out a bit more in my lifetime. My community needs to be caring, encouraging, and sensitive. All people deserve autonomy, support, and respect. I want to build genuine relationships with people and know folks on a deeper level whenever possible. Rejecting scarcity is something I’d like to continue to bring forward in terms of space for creativity, success, and what’s possible. A desire to combat systemic oppression is a non-negotiable value for me personally and I want to be surrounded by people who feel the same way.
N: Towards the latter portion of the collection, you discuss some ideas of restorative justice. Have those ideas developed further since? In a personal context? In a societal one?
EP: In my essay, “Mad,” I discuss transformative justice and briefly mention restorative justice in that they are different. Restorative justice is a framework that addresses conflict in a way that seeks to honor all parties involved but since it’s rooted in restoration, the connotation is a return to whatever was before the conflict. I prefer transformative justice as a framework because not only does it seek to address the conflict and parties involved, but it seeks to examine and ultimately transform the context and systems which enabled the conflict. As an example, if a student gets in trouble by their teacher for eating in class, a restorative justice approach could very well help the student and teacher address their feelings, repair their relationship, and foster healthy communication, but a transformative justice approach centers the victim and might take it a step further by asking why the student was eating in class: Did they have enough time to eat at lunch? Does the school need longer breaks? Does the child have access to ample meals and snacks? Should eating in class be punishable? What would a future look like that best supports the child?
I wrote “Mad” in December 2020, so it’s a pretty fresh take on my understanding. I’m not an expert in transformative or restorative justice, so this might very well be a limited understanding of the frameworks, but there are many amazing folks who have been writing extensively about the topics for years and from which we can learn: Angela and Fania Davis, adrienne maree brown, Mia Mingus, and many more. I’m learning and look forward to continuing to learn.
N: A common theme in your book is change, particularly whether or not people are truly capable of it. What questions or conclusions did you arrive at as you explored this idea?
EP: I believe people can absolutely change. My writing explores some of the changes I experienced and, to some extent, how they impacted me. We are organically changing all of the time, even in subtle or fleeting ways. I think changing our behaviors often takes a conscious decision and constant reminders so that we can hold ourselves accountable to the new ways we want to exist in the world. Change begins on an individual level—it can be urged by others, but ultimately requires commitment on a personal level. Some changes are easier to make, while others take practice, repetition, and prioritization. Some changes require the feedback of others. There's also the reality that some changes are beyond our immediate control and bigger than individual choice—and might require a systemic overhaul. Finally, I also wanted to hold space for change as an ongoing process that sometimes has no clear beginning or end. This collection is tethered to my relationship with these memories and changes now—but how they've changed me will likely morph over time.
N: What’s the best way readers can support you? If they have cash to spare? If they don’t?
EP: Readers can support me by sharing my work, both in-person and online. Buy the book for yourself or a loved one. Recommend the book for purchase at your local library. Hire me, or recommend me, to speak on a panel or at your school. Write a review of the book. Drop me a tip and I'll put it towards my grad school tuition. Stay connected with me via my newsletter—I’m starting a Patreon very soon which will be the best way to financially support me and my newsletter is where I’ll announce plans!
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Emilly Prado is a writer, community organizer, and the prose instructor at the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland, Oregon. When not writing or teaching, Emilly moonlights as DJ Mami Miami with Noche Libre, the Latinx DJ collective she co-founded in 2017. Her debut essay collection, Funeral for Flaca, was selected as #YosiBookClub summer reading pick and has been called, “Utterly vulnerable, bold, and unique,” by Ms. Magazine.
Funeral for Flaca is out now with Future Tense Books.
Learn more at www.emillyprado.com or social media @emillygprado.
