The Mixquiahuala Letters

The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986) by Ana Castillo is a series of nonchronological, fictional letters from a poet named Teresa to her friend Alicia, an artist. The letters describ1/10/20e their experiences through a decade of friendship, including the study abroad trip on which they meet, and a second trip they take together in Mexico.

Castillo’s debut work, The Mixquiahuala Letters received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1987. It pays homage to Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar, first published in the 1960s. Like Hopscotch, The Mixquiahuala Letters offers three “paths” the reader can take through the book, each of which results in a slightly different storyline and interpretation. The Mixquiahuala Letters is an example of 20th-century Chicana fiction, which challenges archetypical depictions of Mexican American women in fiction.

Like Teresa, the book’s narrator, Castillo was born and raised in Chicago. She has received numerous awards and fellowships for her work and held various teaching positions over the years. She has written eight novels, a short story collection, seven poetry collections, and two nonfiction works. She is also an editor and translator.

This study guide refers to the first Anchor Books edition published in 1992.

Plot Summary

The book takes place during the 1970s and perhaps the early 1980s. Each letter is written to Alicia from Teresa, who is of indigenous Mexican descent, although she grew up in Chicago. She is raised by her mother and has several sisters, although none of them are major characters. Alicia is an Anglo woman, an only child who grew up in New York City with a disapproving father who holds racial prejudices. She becomes involved with a black man named Rodney several years before meeting Teresa, becomes pregnant, and eventually decides to have an abortion. She goes to the clinic alone and is mistakenly sterilized when she fills out medical forms while already sedated.

Teresa and Alicia meet on a study abroad trip when they’re around 20 years old. Teresa is married to a man named Libra, while Alicia is still involved with Rodney but takes other lovers during their trip. Teresa and Alicia explore Mexico together and then visit each other in Chicago, California, and New York. Teresa eventually leaves Libra. When Teresa and Alicia revisit Mexico about a year after their study abroad trip, they repeatedly encounter men who threaten to sexually assault them and experience political unrest. They return to the United States, and Teresa becomes involved with a distant cousin of Alicia’s. He moves in with her, she becomes pregnant, then gets an abortion. He leaves her, and Teresa eventually leaves the United States to settle in Mexico permanently. She visits her ex-husband Libra in LA, where they conceive a child. She keeps the baby but doesn’t tell Libra, not wanting another relationship with him. She later marries someone else and raises her son near his grandparents.

Alicia returns to New York, where her artistic career eventually takes off. She begins living with a man named Abdel, a Vietnam veteran who is depressed and in the process of divorcing his wife. She continues pursuing her art. Abdel and Alicia attend the baptism of Teresa’s son in Mexico, where Abdel seems cheerful and stable. Shortly after they return to New York, however, he shoots himself in their apartment. Alicia channels her anger and grief into an art show and travels to Europe, where she’s involved with and abandoned by several other men. When the book ends, she’s in Puerto Rico with a new lover.