Rap and Graffiti: the gateway drugs that led Alan Chazaro to poetry
433’s Marisabel Rodriguez spent the last few months going back and forth with Alan Chazaro, author of THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM and Piñata Theory. The Bay Area poet didn’t hold back.
Alan Chazaro. Photo courtesy of Briana Jauregui Chazaro.
When Alan Chazaro’s first chapbook, THIS IS NOT A FRANK OCEAN COVER ALBUM, was released by Black Lawrence Press in 2019, it marked the emergence of a multi-dimensional voice whose technicolor style, influenced as much by hyphy and graffiti as it is by his familial and cultural roots, would prove impossible to ignore. The Mexican-American poet, writing instructor and sports/pop-culture reporter from the Bay Area structured his chapbook as, and considered it to be, his EP.
Last November, Chazaro dropped what he called his “debut album,” Piñata Theory, a journey into his world of ‘90s prepubescent brown boys, latin culture, family and the Bay Area’s rap scene.
Chazaro’s provocative and unapologetic style is rich with pop-culture references, and while his work may be a bit profane, his words speak to a young, or not-so-young, generation struggling to navigate a world that can seem black and white. While the reality, as Chazaro illustrates, is defined by shades of gray.
In Piñata Theory, Chazaro lays claim to his own world, and invites the reader to do the same. This energetic collection highlights the internal struggles over identity, culture, and the politics of gender within a society that often meets attempts at progress by raising deep-rooted obstacles. As I read through the various moments that shaped Chazaro’s life, I found myself reflecting on, and searching for, meaning within recurring memories of my own.
After several months of bouncing ideas back and forth, asking for feedback, and just checking in on Twitter, I’d like to think that Chazaro would refer to me as one of his “writer homies.” When his book came out, I immediately asked if I could interview him– with the stipulation that when I bought a copy, he’d have to sign it. Chazaro is the type to prefer sharing a few drinks with his readers over stiff, businesslike interactions. I sincerely hope that after reading this interview, you’d also want to meet him at a bar for an absolutely radical conversation.
Get comfortable. Settle in. He’s got a lot to say.
photo courtesy of Briana Jauregui Chazaro
Marisabel Rodriguez: Let’s start with the obvious. One of my burning questions is: what exactly is the Piñata Theory? I need the origin story.
Alan Chazaro: I came up with the title of Piñata Theory while sitting in a parking lot in South Hayward one night, and listening to an underground rapper from Chicago named Vic Spencer. I was in MFA at the time, so the book was heavily on my mind, and at that point I knew I wanted it to allude to my Mexican American heritage but also to introduce, or suggest, a theme of the violences of masculinity that I also wanted to be at the forefront. I was approaching the book sort of like a rap album or mixtape, and the poems were no different in my mind than an emcee lyricizing their experience on a track for listeners to vibe with. So when a song called “Stop Sign Theory” came onto my speakers, it sort of clicked. I liked the poetic quality of that song title, and I wanted to remix it in a way that felt authentic to me and who I am. Vic was rapping about the street life, but I was poem-ing about heritage, home, Bay Area culture, and the breakages of self. I cycled words and concepts and mashed them up with the idea of a theory, which to me was like a declaration of something we believe in–part scientific, part mythic, part real, part imagined–and that’s how it felt to be writing poems.
The Piñata theory itself can be many things. I was thinking of layers, of fractures, of stuffing something that is literally designed to be destroyed, of roping a cardboard body, of public spectacle, of grabbing the remainders of the smashed aftermath. I was definitely thinking about my neighborhood at the time, which is a blue-collar part of the East Bay Area, and how lots of the energy around me felt battered and beaten, like something that has been hit too many times but was still hella colorful and dangling itself. In a way, it’s also about commodification and exoticization, how Piñatas are like stereotypes that outsiders are drawn to because it’s fun and convenient for them when they want.
Some people (often white folks who move to places like the Bay Area, from wherever-the-hell in Indiana, so they can feel a sense of diversity and excitement) can just show up to a party and take some swings and drink some tequila then go back to their normal lives; but some of us are the ones who are being swung on every day by society, by predatory police systems, by racism, by sexism, by gentrification, by cultural misappropriation, by patriarchy, etc. It’s kind of my nod to all of those realities, and how we witness and participate in all of those systems of oppression. I wanted to question my place in all of that– since I’m not saying I’m just a victim here– but where have I also been perpetuating harmful ideologies to suppress the experiences of others? I’m not sure if I achieved that completely, but I guess the Piñata theory–naturally–is messy and mixed and many things depending on what your preference and favorite flavor is.
MR: A theme I picked up right away was your uncertainty about your identity. You mention the hyphen, and you mention (I believe in the form of a metaphor) that in a fight between Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya in 1996, that “all the Mexicans thought [De La Hoya] was a gringo, and all the gringos thought he was Mexican.” What’s one thing you wish you could tell 1996 Alan, and the Latine youth of today, about cross-cultural identity?
AC: To embrace multi-dimensionality. 1996-kid-version me might’ve interpreted that too literally though and tried to build a DeLorean on some future shit, so maybe I’d have to simplify it and say “you are not one thing.” It took me a while to learn that I could be proud to be Mexican while also proud to be American while also proud to be Californian while also proud of being from the Bay while also being a hip hop head while also being this, that, and the third. We’re all a crazy mixture of so much–colonialism, violence, politics, socialization, pop culture, migration, y mas–and most of that is beyond our control.
I think it’s beautiful, now that I’m older, that I had the privilege of being raised in two worlds; by two cultures, speaking two tongues, with two souls. But as a kid that’s hella confusing! We’re taught to believe–especially in 90’s suburbia–that “this is this” and “that is that”. But I was both this and that, and many of the families and friends I had were also that. Thankfully, being raised in the Bay taught me early on that no one is exactly the same, and even being a “brown” person could mean you were Filipino, Indian, Samoan, Guatemalan, Persian, Cambodian, or some other form that wasn’t just Mexican–which most people assume on sight. So yeah, I’d tell that kid to rock the hell out of being everything and to keep kicking it with the diverse homies I had, because it’ll teach you a lot about others and about yourself. And, also, to invest stocks in Google, become a partial owner of the Golden State Warriors, and then bunker down for 2020.
MR: Did you write this collection of poems because you’ve cracked your identity code, or were you hoping that catharsis would bring you closer to answers?
AC: Definitely haven’t cracked anything completely, but have opened up doors to myself that were previously closed–in thinking about culture, my relationship to Mexico, and the spectrum of my identity in relation to the world around me and my experiences. As I’ve grown and matured, I’ve developed different approaches to entering a poem and meditative space, and one of my biggest frameworks is remembering that poems, for me, aren’t meant to declare answers about anything as much as they’re useful for asking questions about everything.
I still have a lot of questions to ask, but that’s the joy of writing poetry to me. It’s a never-ending search for things I don’t even know about, but I trust in that intuition and attraction to language that I keep returning to the page every day to see what story emerges. I guess that’s why some people have a low tolerance for poetry. Because it’s like, “oh, this is just some thing that I wander around in, and it’s fluid and you can’t define it and maybe I’ll realize something but maybe not” (laughs). Most things have a clear purpose and outcome, even in writing, so if you read a novel it’s because you want to learn about a character, and you’re expecting some conclusion, and you feel good when you reach that point of clarity, even if it isn’t completely absolute.
But a poem is more like a gray space where clarity might never be achieved, or it can be achieved but in different ways for different poets, and it’s more about the vibrations that are emitted than it is about any certainty that is being dictated. I forget who, but someone dope on Twitter once said that “poetry is just a literal vibe and that’s it.” I definitely felt that. If you want to write a manifesto, write a manifesto. Make your points and let readers know exactly what you want and believe. But otherwise, a poem might not answer anything for you or for readers; it might just make you sense something inexplicable and then ask more questions.
MR: Are you saying that poems could potentially be a learning block that opens up questions and doors, and perhaps could inspire someone to write a manifesto?
AC: Yeah, in some ways, it is definitely a key to unlocking things about myself that maybe weren’t at the forefront of my mind when I entered a poem. If I leave open spaces for those tangents, they often reward me with something unexpected, and I personally enjoy that feeling. When I first started writing poems I feel like I often had a point I was trying to force into it all, like “all immigrants are good,” but that’s just not the reality. I’ve moved away from that, and instead I might start a poem with “what does an imperfect immigrant look like?”. That’s far more interesting and complex to me–and real–and I have to figure my way through that truth by really grappling with my sense of the world, rather than just reinforcing what I already think or believe. Maybe that turns itself into a manifesto eventually, but it doesn’t start with a message, because I don’t know exactly what my purpose is when I’m entering a new creative process.
MR: Another theme I’ve seen within many of these poems is manhood. You tell the reader stories about your father, about growing up with your guy friends. You mention specifically that there are parameters that aren’t to be crossed (i.e. saying the word “pretty”). Where are you now on that journey of learning about manhood from an intersectional perspective? Have there been any lessons from your work in schools and/or higher education?
AC: This is something I’m constantly engaging with and learning about myself. Even though I had both parents in my life, it was predominantly my dad who raised me in a single-parent home with my older brother, and he never remarried or brought a new woman into his life. So basically, until I left for college, we lived without any consistent influence from a woman in our daily lives. And since my dad was working, hella friends would just kick it at our spot, which amplified that feeling of brotherhood and loyalty to things like basketball, video games, cars, blunts, and shit-talking. I think that really impacted and influenced me as an adolescent because my sense of masculinity became heightened in a way, even though my dad was honestly super tender and loving and took good care of us. He still had his manly ways, like obsessing over sports, not really opening up about his life or emotions, struggling to build meaningful relationships with us, and just kind of going through the daily motions and enjoying a beer on the couch, but overall he was an extremely compassionate and even artistic soul who I think taught me at a young age about some elements of healthy manhood.
That said, I try to check myself about male privilege, and I for real try to be mindful of how much space I take up or how I come off to others, especially in a diverse group setting. I’ve known a lot of dudes who love to hear themselves talk and genuinely think they’re the shit, and I’ve known plenty of men who will overtalk others and fucking ramble for days about nothing because they see themselves as some sort of unchallengeable authority on a particular subject. I think that’s male ego at its worst. We all have an ego of course, but you can be proud and confident without disregarding the comforts and perspectives of others. I try to be as emphatic and genuinely interested in what other voices that are different from my own have to say, and I think that’s a result of how I was raised in not seeing many men who were like that.
I still have a lot of work to do, and I’m not saying I’ve perfected it by any means, but being mindful about the toxicity of it all is a starting place to keep growing from and something that I think will make our world more healthy. But, yeah, no one really pulls you aside as a man and tells you these things. It’s something many of us have to figure out on our own and decide who we want to be, and I think poetry/art helps me to develop my consciousness around this.
MR: One line in particular, “––have you ever prayed/in your abuela’s tongue?––” from “Litany, Ending with Night” hit me in a very intimate place, but I can’t exactly articulate why. There are many implications and many layers of tradition and culture that play into that line. How would you describe the feeling of praying in your abuela’s tongue? What are the circumstances that trigger that desire/urgency?
AC: Going back to being empathetic, I think I was always a sensitive kid, especially in the context that I was describing– being conditioned to not have feelings and not care about others by peers and society. I was the kid who would actually apologize to the person that my friend would bully in school, or I’ve physically broken up fights when I can see that it’s unfair and going beyond the limit. So when I was younger–like a kid kid–I remember I would pray for people who had bad lives in the world to get blessed and get treated better. Sounds funny to say that now, but it’s true. I had a pretty good life, so I wasn’t praying for me. I was literally thinking of other people, maybe because I had been to Mexico at a young age and seen a different kind of poverty where many families come from.
But probably by 5th grade I learned that praying didn’t result in anything, so my mindset quickly started to change and I basically became an atheist by high school; never even did my catechism (sinful for a Catholic Mexican!). When I was a student at Berkeley, all hippy-minded and free-thinking like a lot of college students have the privilege of feeling and being, I definitely had moved far away from any sense of institutional religiosity. But I’d still visit my abuelas in Mexico in the summers, and hear them talk about God and praying and all the sort of traditional mindsets that basically says: “you don’t control anything, your fate is in the hands of a higher power.” What teenager is gonna buy into that and just give up their free will and pursuit of excitement and joy? Life smacks you a few times and then you’re like, ‘alright, not just gonna sit here on my knees and ask for things to happen, gonna have to put in work and hustle,’ and that’s where growing up in the Bay made me who I am. That’s the blend of influences that we experience as first-generation kids, a mixture of both old and new, and maybe those are the layers that you mentioned. I wanted those resonances of self, family, culture, history, and all of it to just be swirled up in these poems.
MR: Your poems alternate between stories of your relatives, stories of yourself in the U.S., and stories of yourself in Mexico. You very powerfully and gracefully describe them as if you were a ghost. Or, perhaps, as though you are living a double life. It’s never been safe for me to return back to my home country, and there are millions of immigrants in the U.S. who are also held back by, what I’ve come to describe as phantom incarceration; so I’m curious to hear more about how it feels to have one foot on either side of the Frontera.
AC: Word. That’s real. As a U.S. citizen, there are so many things I am able to do, and it’s fucked up because the majority of my closest friends growing up weren’t citizens, so I am extremely grateful that I can move across borders in the way I can–I deeply honor it. Maybe that’s why I do it so much to be honest, because I don’t take it for granted. It’s one of those things where because my literal best friend since 6th grade was undocumented, and I saw how he and his family had to maneuver this society and this country, I was like, fuck, I will never take things like having a driver’s license, a work permit, financial aid, or buying a plane ticket as a given. Those are all privileges, even for the poorest of U.S. citizens.
When you’re young, you don’t think about stuff like that. You just think we’re all the same, more or less. But once we hit high school it became clearer and clearer that out of all my friends, I had the most access to social institutions and cultural power in ways that they didn’t, because of what you’re describing in terms of political imprisonment or documentation or refugee status. I’m proud of being Mexican American, but I’m able to be proud in a certain way that not everyone is because I don’t have to directly deal with as many violences of the border that hella folks I know do.
At the same time, in order for me to fully understand myself and my roots, and what it means to be bicultural, I want to have a relationship with Mexico, since I was never given that option as a kid to live there. Now that I’m grown, I have made the choice to go back and visit as often as I can. The crazy part is that I don’t have much family in the U.S. My dad was one of twelve and he bounced here in the 70s, and only one of my tias ever followed him–the rest of my relatives are still in Mexico, including on my mom’s side. Huge family too.
My dad was more of a hippie and a wanderer who dropped out of school and slept on beaches and smoked weed, and so naturally he met an international person (U.S. citizen, white woman) who was from the Bay Area, and they married for papers; and then he just started living his life in Cali, back when it was still kind of possible to just make those liberal moves and chase dreams– if you could. Imagine that happening so easily now? It was almost just by chance that he ended up out here. I’ve talked to him about it, and it’s not like he planned it and had some big scheme to make it out here. He just followed the weed smoke (laughs).
I talk to lots of my cousins and friends back in Mexico about migration and they’re like “yeah, it’ll take me like 10 years to get permission to get to the U.S. so fuck it, I’m just staying here.” But obviously there is a certain level of comfort in their lives to do that. Even the ones who live off the grid, they’re so comfortable with a simple rancho life because that’s all they know. But that’s not the case for everyone, like you’re saying, so for the thousands who have an urgency to cross, what else can you do besides find an alternative way? No one is gonna wait in line for a decade to get a piece of paper stamped. People cross. And I’ve seen firsthand how once you leave, for most it means never going back--not by choice at least. When you’ve seen deportations happening in front of you, you understand the importance of mobility and relationships, and you will never look at your U.S. passport the same way.
MR: I want to talk to you about your birth certificate. It’s always been very interesting to me just how unimportant official or unofficial documents are to natural-born non-immigrant citizens. I know I personally have to stop myself from looking shocked whenever I find out that one of my friends doesn’t have a passport, because I’ve come to realize that for them, it’s never been the difference between safety and endangerment, between selfhood and vagabond. In “Lucha Libre, in Two and ½ Parts” you say, “I hold it like nothing I’ve ever known.”. What else can you vividly recall about that moment?
AC: So, my mom is not like any Mexican woman I’ve ever known. High-key she reminds me of a protagonist from a Sandra Cisneros story in Woman Hollering Creek. She’s outspoken, she’s fearless, she’s independent, she’s weird–in all the best, and sometimes perplexing, ways. I love her for that. When we were born, she forged fake papers in Mexico for me and my brother so that it looks like we were born over there and not in the U.S. Growing up, she lived in different cities and bounced around a lot, but when we would spend a few nights with her it was always memorable, especially compared to the chillness and quietness of my dad. She would be all excited and energetic and talking to us about “not being white” and reminding us to call our abuelos and abuelas and gifting us with our mother tongue, I guess you could say. She’s also a huge skeptic and pessimist (hella Mexicana, jaja), and would tell us about seeing the devil and connecting with espiritus and all of that stuff, so she would always tell us as kids that if anything ever goes wrong in the States we need to move back to Mexico because we’re actually Mexicans and she has our papers ready over there.
Fast forward 25-ish years later, and I’m actually living in Mexico, quit my job, and inside her home in Oaxaca which my abuelo built. No electricity, no running water, she’s just out there really doing it (she had moved back a few years prior and I hadn’t seen her for about three years at the time) and all of the sudden, this loca goes into some cabinet in her dark room (candles only because the sun had gone down) and pulls out a stash of papers. She just hands me the freaking certificate and is like “here, this is for you.” That’s when I was like damn, she wasn’t joking.
There’s a lot of irony in this story for me, because growing up, all of my homies were doing the opposite in order to get U.S. paperwork--stuff to work, drive, etc. by going to literal basements in San Jose or San Francisco and paying for that. So I’d seen that process on this side of the border and knew it was happening from a younger age, but I had never heard anyone doing it in the reverse, where they were already born in the U.S. and had U.S. documentation but were trying to get “illegal” paperwork done so they could cross the border in the opposite direction. I shared this story in my book, and one of my Mexican American homies told me that this also happened to them, so I’m not the only one. But I’m telling you, my mom is super out of pocket and I wanted this poem to kind of honor her and her motherly instincts in that way. There are so many more implications to this experience, about safety and selfhood, and I one hundred percent feel you on that, and I do my best to acknowledge it and not treat it like some little exotic getaway where I can just escape to a beach when I want. When I’m out in Mexico, I’m there by my abuela’s side when she takes her final breaths, honoring where my parents came from and cherishing life and family in ways I can’t here in the Bay.
MR: There’s quite a bit of repetition of certain objects within these poems. Something as simple as a quesadilla, along with a variety of thoughts and objects held specifically within your mouth. However, I remain curious about your repeated use of “American fingers.” You often used the term when recalling visits to Mexico. What made you decide to describe yourself in that way?
AC: Never noticed the American fingers repetition, to be honest. But if I’m interpreting that now, I’m thinking about the body as a literal extension of who we are, and how it’s something knowable and tangible to even a child, and that’s how we often learn how to perceive, touch and feel. Lots of my memories of Mexico are when I was younger, just scraping my knees and running around with my primos and primas, which meant a lot of hands and fingers digging up dirt and climbing shit and getting yelled out by our tias to be careful. It’s not until later in life when I could go by myself and explore–starting around high school and college, then later as an adult adult–when I could go beyond the body and interact with Mexico on different levels. Maybe the repetition was me trying to subconsciously process that? Quién sabe.
MR: Are there any other objects, ordinary or eclectic, that you find to be very significant to you, whether or not others can understand?
AC: This is probably feeding off last comment, but rollie pollies, fireflies, red ants are all prominent in my head. Bootleg Playstation discs that you can play at Felipe’s house but then don’t work when you get back home. Bunk beds. A bedroom floor. The stray cat who gashed my sister’s ankles. I don’t know how significant they are, but they’re popping into my head as vibrant and related to some other experiences and stories I hold close. Thanks, you just gave me a poetry prompt (thumbs up emoji).
MR: I’ve begun to see quite a bit of push and pull within the latine community as they question or defend the legitimacy of Latinidad. For better or worse, do you feel that this discussion has changed the way you’re perceived as Mexican? Have you otherwise felt the effects of this rift?
AC: I try to be informed and critical of Mexico as much as I can. I was just telling a student yesterday– a young Black artist, who said he wanted to move to Mexico to escape racism in the U.S.– that there is arguably more racism and colorism and classism in Mexico than in the U.S., and that it’s an equally violent and colonial/colonized nation. I’ve reached that point by learning and asking questions and not being patriotic or idealistic, but instead trying to fully understand the country from an objective standpoint, and if I’m being honest, Mexico (as a government) is just as responsible for perpetuating inequality and hate on our continent, especially towards Central and Southern Americans, as well as folks from the Caribbeans. It’s like a pyramid structure, where the U.S. is at the top, and Mexico–although it doesn’t seem so to us–is next in line in that sense. Mexico is as close as you can get to the same level of capitalistic drive and border control as the United States, for a Latin American nation, in my opinion.
I definitely don’t blame other Latinx communities who hate or look down on Mexico for that. There is a huge history of imperialism and exploitation that has happened here, and Mexico has played a huge role in building and maintaining those systems. The rich, light-skinned class of Mexico is one of the most vile groups of people I know, because they look down on others and treat them like shit. It’s like a hyper sense of entitlement and elitism that even the celebrities in the U.S. don’t fully have because our gap between rich and poor here isn’t as stark. It exists, of course, but it looks and feels very different here. I’ve met Mexicans in the upper class who feel like they are superior, and that sense of superiority gets passed on to how the country deals with immigrants from Venezuela, El Salvador, Haiti, etc. They look down on those workers, in the same way a snobby and racist “American” might look down on an undocumented Mexican day laborer. And even worse, the way indigenous communities in Mexico have been simultaneously neglected and commodified by the Mexican government is fucked up, too. It’s really bad and complicated down there, and for all of Mexico’s beauties and colors that we celebrate, there are the horrible truths and violences--just like anywhere else.
MR: Has anyone in your family, from either side, had a chance to read this work? What are their thoughts?
AC: Dude, both my siblings and both my parents read it and were very generous and supportive. I’m not gonna lie, I thought maybe one of them would say something since they are all written about in the book–if nothing else because we’re Mexicans and lovingly give each other shit for everything–but it was all smooth.
My best friend who has been living in his hometown, Mexico City, for nearly a decade now, also read it and gave me his blessing and that was just as important to me as well. Cousins have hit me up from Jalisco, Veracruz, Oakland, San Antonio, all over, and helped me out and showed some love, even my younger male cousins which makes me hella happy because, in many ways, I wrote the book for young men like them. It’s such a risk to open up about family and personal history–and I even talk about my wife’s family since I’ve lived with them and known them for 13 years now and they’ve also shaped me–so you never know how relatives will receive it, but it’s been all love. A few of the dudes I grew up with also ordered the book directly from me and have posted pictures holding it up at a construction site during work or with their children holding it or just kicking back in their apartments with it, and those moments and reception mean more than anything else to me. I was a huge slacker growing up, so this is far from what anyone would’ve expected, including myself. None of us grew up reading or writing poetry, so I know for a lot of them to go out of their way and get a book of poems means they just want to support me, and I won’t forget that.
MR: What’s one thing you hope the younger generation will take away from reading this collection?
AC: To embrace themselves in every sense, to highlight their differences as much as their similarities, to fit in and to fit out. Don’t be ashamed if you feel like you’re not 100% reflected in what’s around you. Take the opportunity to share with others about where you’re coming from, be true about it, and celebrate yourself.
Alan Chazaro is the author of This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album (Black Lawrence Press, 2019) and Piñata Theory (Black Lawrence Press, 2020). He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, a columnist at Palette Poetry, and is raising money for NBA arena workers during COVID-19. To learn more about his fundraising project, visit Mid 90s Kamikaze at https://gumroad.com/l/KHuQH for more details or find him on Twitter @alan_chazaro.
Marisabel Rodriguez Ramos is a recent graduate of Loyola University New Orleans. She has a BA in English, with a concentration on rhetoric. She has interned for the New Orleans Review, Object Lessons, and is now the Associate Poetry Editor for the Chestnut Review. Outside of interviews, Rodriguez’s writing tends to lean more towards academia, specifically sociology and religion. She is currently writing a book on Latine culture and spirituality.