Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of domestic violence, sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, and anti-gay bias.

“Butterflies, my lover calls it, the art he places on my back. He locks his lips on each shoulder blade and sucks the skin, leaving deep red, almost purple hickeys that he says resemble wings. One butterfly on the left side and one on the right, and then he works his way down to the middle of the spine: a trail of love bites. He perfects his craft over months, after that first accidental mark on a vodka and crystal meth night.”

This quote describes the dynamic between Rigoberto and his lover, who gives him painful hickeys without his consent that Rigoberto nevertheless accepts, feeling himself to be in need of punishment. Their relationship is also characterized by drug and alcohol abuse, as seen in the reference to a “vodka and crystal meth night.” These butterfly hickeys are one of the first instances of the repeating butterfly motif that is seen throughout Butterfly Boy, which represents Rigoberto’s fractured sense of identity.

“Monarchs, I tell him, remind me of my home and of my family. ‘But I thought you hated home and your family,’ he says. ‘But I love them too,’ I say.”

This quote describes The Challenges of Family Dynamics because of his violent, tumultuous upbringing. Despite this, he feels compelled to return to them in Michoacán, much like the monarch butterflies that remind him of home migrate back there every spring.

“There’s nothing like a bus ride out of town after a lovers’ quarrel to make a person sentimental about getting home to family.”

In this quote, Rigoberto expresses part of the appeal for him of returning to Mexico to see his family. Although life for him there is difficult, it is an escape from the relationship he is in. The term “lover’s quarrel” minimizes the violence of the relationship, representing how Rigoberto hasn’t yet entirely reckoned with the reality of the abuse, although he later will.