Tías and Primas - Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
Season 10 Episode 7 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez talks with J.T. Ellison about her book TÍAS AND PRIMAS.
Born into a large, close-knit family in Nicaragua, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez explores the complex dynamics of strong, resilient women in Tías and Primas. In her follow-up to For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, she delves into intergenerational trauma, colonization, and sexism, offering a heartfelt tribute to family, community, and Latinas everywhere.
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A Word on Words is a local public television program presented by WNPT
Tías and Primas - Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
Season 10 Episode 7 | 2m 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Born into a large, close-knit family in Nicaragua, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez explores the complex dynamics of strong, resilient women in Tías and Primas. In her follow-up to For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, she delves into intergenerational trauma, colonization, and sexism, offering a heartfelt tribute to family, community, and Latinas everywhere.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(chime rings) (bright music) - Hi, my name is Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez, and I'm the author of "Tias and Primas".
I'm really interested in this concept of democratizing knowledge, so like theory that you learn in academia, how do we translate that for Latinas and how do they see themselves reflected in it?
And so, I've just embarked on a few strategies for it in my books and it was just like embodying all these intense theoretical terms in real people.
- Talk to me a little bit about your personal experience growing up in Nicaragua and how that has made that into this book.
- I grew up really close to my mom's family.
There's like a saying, sons leave.
Daughters stay forever.
And so she modeled that by, we were always at my maternal grandmother's house.
I grew up raised by her sisters and they're very prominent in this book.
There are people, I could like tell you how they smell, how they laugh, the folds in their neck, but then we moved to the US and it was really stark.
It was sharp, the switch of being around so many people who are so invested in you to feeling really isolated.
And so I also, I write the book from that place of grief.
- [J.T.]
How does this explore some of the themes from your previous work?
- It has a lot of the same, like I talk about colorism, European standards of beauty, I talk about phobia in my first book, which I talk about, there's a whole chapter on that perfectionism.
Just like the ways that women are socialized, you know, like the silent and emotional labor that we put into keeping these families together.
And so, yeah, it's a lot of the same topics.
It is for me, a different strategy for writing that stuff out.
- Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
- I appreciate you coming.
- Thank you for having me.
- And thank you for watching A Word on Words.
I'm JT Ellison.
Keep reading.
(chime dings) - [Prisca] There's "Tias and Primas" who we talk about like as family, but there's also chosen family.
So I have a lot of Tias and Primas who are part of my chosen family 'cause I've had to do that as an immigrant and as a queer person.
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A Word on Words is a local public television program presented by WNPT