Breaking the Mold
How Annell López Challenges Immigration Narratives
in Her Powerful New Collection
In America, we hold many tropes and stereotypes about immigrants. Some of these archetypes are unfortunately based on an immigrant’s language, race, religion, or country of origin, and it pins them down into the invisible caste system. Other tropes, despite being cliché-ridden and problematic, have become an acceptable language of discourse. Our politicians, teachers, social workers, journalists, and business owners have all professed their support for the hardworking immigrants who have earned their place in American society because they have bootstrapped their way into college and the middle class. Annell López’s debut short story collection, “I’ll Give You A Reason,” dismantles our polarizing conversations around meritocracy and immigrants. “In this country, we equate immigration with meritocracy,’ Annell said in her interview with me over Zoom this summer. “It's either the immigrant who defies the odds or the immigrant who is committing crimes and sort of putting everyone at risk.” As an immigrant with over thirty years of attempting to earn my place in American society, this collection encapsulates my experience and gives me the language to push against polarization.
Leslie-Ann Murray: In your short story collection, “I’ll Give You A Reason,” all of the characters are threading the sociopolitical ecosystem that is responsible for shaping their destinies, but they are disconnected from these systems. Readers experience these characters attempting to set themselves free from these gravitational focuses. While we feel their pangs and digs of their misfortunes, we never leave the story feeling raw.
Annell López: The collection is about people who happened to be immigrants, treading the waters of racism, anti-blackness, colorism, body image, sexuality, religion, grief, and love. When I’ve put the reader through the plot, a lot of action where the characters are going through an intense emotional journey, I want the ending to be a lingering image to give them a second to catch their breath and pause on what just happened and process what just took place. The endings in this collection allow the characters to have a moment for themselves.
LM: In the story “Great American Scream Machine,” the narrator, Eva, is atypical of a first-generation immigrant kid. She does not plan to attend college and build the dream of academic and economic prosperity. Eva wants to exist, which distances her from the American Dream until she finds out her citizenship status. Can you talk about writing against the immigrant trope and meritocracy?
AL: In this country, we equate immigration with meritocracy. It's either the immigrant who defies the odds or the immigrant who is committing crimes and sort of putting everyone at risk. But I don't find a lot of representation of the immigrant who doesn't feel like they need to earn their place by being a star student or a star athlete. Eva just wants to be a regular kid and she does not subscribe to the idea of meritocracy or any other opposite extremes, but once she realizes her immigration status, her life is now informed by policies and the politics of the world. I thought that immigrants, in general, deserve to feel apathy.
LM: After reading the “Great American Scream Machine,” I started thinking about my own immigration journey, and although my parents did not imply that I had to be the best, I knew this was my reality due to their sacrifices.
AL: Kids who immigrate to this country are not always allowed to form their independent vision of what immigration looks like for them. The vision is passed down, and so in the case of Eva, she differs from her parents because she's not subscribing to meritocracy. When you immigrate to this country, you do not have the opportunities to form your own conclusions about the American Dream because you are conditioned to believe very specific things about what your life should look like. I wanted to take the reader through the journey of an average kid, doing average things like hanging outside of a Dunkin Donuts and sort of feeling the weight of their world coming down on them because they realize they lack this thing that a lot of people take for granted.
LM: In our culture, Newark, NJ is synonymous with nefarious activity; however, in your collection, you push that gaze off the cliff and taught us how to reimagine this city as a hub for culture, families, and the new American Dream.
AL: You know, I was at a bar in New Orleans, and when I told the bartender, who happened to be from New Jersey, that I was from Newark, he said to me, ‘Oh, I'm so glad you made it out alive.’ People say that type of thing all of the time. I love my city. I think it's not the easiest place to grow up, but Newark does for people like me what a lot of other cities don't do. I've worked in education for a long time and I have yet to see anywhere that mirrors the experience that I had when it comes to educating immigrants. While I was in high school, despite my language barriers at the time, I didn't feel like it would be impossible for me to go and get a college degree. My teachers never communicated to me that I wouldn't be able to be a writer if I wanted to be a writer. This is very magical and not very common.
LM: Speaking about education, this is a recurring theme throughout your collection. Through these characters, we understand the political, historical, and cultural impact of both formal and informal education on the individual and how this shapes their futures.
AL: It goes back to the idea of meritocracy. We assign value based on someone’s level of education, and it means nothing. It’s limiting to who these people are and their humanity. I wanted to write these characters who sort of found themselves existing outside of the narrative because, at the end of the day when you inhabit a specific body, people will act based on what they see. You'll be perceived regardless of your education level, and it should not weigh your worth as a human being. We may have the ability to provide a young person with [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] documents that could dramatically change the quality of their life. Still, we're looking at what they've earned and what they've accomplished. We should deserve to be people. It's a bit of a bonkers kind of concept.
LM: When I read your story, “Jaszarokszallas, Hungry, or Newark, New Jersey or Anywhere, USA,” which is about the objectification and othering of black women's bodies from the white male gaze. I couldn't help but think about Junto Diaz's story, “How to Date a Brown Girl,” since both of these stories contain the same temperament, pulsating rhythm, and anecdotal commentary about race, body image, and othering.
AL: The world of social media inspired this story more than Diaz’s short story. I wanted to write something that addressed the fetishization of black women and illustrate the frequency with which it happens, but I didn't want the prose to linger on the subject matter, so I opted for a flash piece. Every woman of color I know has one of those stories that they can share, whether they run into some dude at a bar or online, and their race played a role in that interaction. One time, I read this exact story at a reading, and a white gentleman came up to me and asked, ‘Are we really that awful?’ I thought this was the funniest question. It was just hilarious to me.
LM: In your collection, most of the characters are stuck in that luminal space and trying to make their way out. But in the story “So I Let Her Be,” the unnamed character started expressing herself through the artistic medium of photography, and she was able to briefly pull herself out of that space. The story reminded me of a quote in the novel Sula by Toni Morrison, “Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.” Can you talk about this story and the role art has played in your life?
AL: Turning thirty was significant for me. I was like, Oh my God, I have spent all these years teaching, which I love education, but devoting so much of my time to a mission that didn't completely fulfill me. It felt like I was going through a very quiet death for a lot of my twenties, and just having this immigrant mentality ingrained inside of me that art is for a certain kind of person, it’s risky, and it’s only for people with privilege. Being an immigrant, you're not always encouraged to be an artist. But I hit a tipping point. I wanted to write about the deep sadness of when we can't turn to our purpose. I turn to art for relief, happiness, and purpose. It's one of the things that I value as much as someone might value religion.
LM: Reading your work reminds me of Edwidge Danticat’s essay collection, “Create Dangerously the Immigrant Artist at Work.” In that essay collection, she said, "I am even more certain that to create dangerously is also to create fearlessly, boldly embracing the public and private terrors that would silence us, then bravely moving forward even when it feels as though we are chasing or being chased by ghosts.” How are they creating dangerously?
AL: I'm creating dangerously by creating in the first place. I think that's already sort of defying a lot of expectations. Also, I'm creating dangerously by writing about the people that I write about and writing about the city that I write about. Yeah, I think I'm creating dangerously by honoring my vision and what I think it's important.
Annell López is the winner of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and the author of the short story collection I’LL GIVE YOU A REASON from the Feminist Press. A Peter Taylor Fellow at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops, her work has also received support from Tin House and has appeared in Guernica, American Short Fiction, Michigan Quarterly Review, Brooklyn Rail, The Common, Refinery29, and elsewhere. López received her MFA from the University of New Orleans. She is working on a novel.