The Mixquiahuala Letters

The letter is a poem from Teresa to Alicia for Alicia’s 30th birthday. Teresa calls their twenties a “cesspool / twirl” that “will be remembered always / untainted by today’s designer jeans / camouflaged makeup, sculptured fingernails / pampered feet and glittering teeth” (23). The poem alludes to several experiences the women have had together, including the aftermath of Teresa’s divorce and their transition from young girls in their twenties to adults entering their thirties.

The letter reveals more of Teresa and Alicia’s history. They met at a study abroad trip in Mexico when they were about 20. Teresa was married to Libra at the time, and Alicia was engaged in a string of sexual relationships before and during their trip. Teresa imagines her 20-year-old self through Alicia’s eyes, envisioning a young woman who is familiar with Mexican culture and fluent in Spanish (in contrast to their Anglo classmates and instructors, who are largely unfamiliar with Mexico). The two visit a village called Mixquiahuala, where they explore the area and rural Mexican society, in which women perform daily tasks like food preparation and washing laundry in a nearby river. They enroll in a copperwork class, and Alicia’s artistic talent becomes apparent when tourists begin to buy her work, to the displeasure of their pompous teacher. Teresa alludes to the conflicted mix of resentment and affection between her and Alicia at the time. Despite the element of antagonism in their relationship, the two correspond and send tokens of their artistic lives to the other: Teresa sends letters and original poetry, while Alicia becomes a professional metal artisan and sends Teresa handmade jewelry. Teresa recounts how they parted at the end of their trip—she fought with Libra when he came to retrieve her, and they flew home separately, while Alicia stayed in Mexico with her latest lover.

Teresa relates an incident from when she was 18: She goes to a Catholic priest for confession, and he interrogates her on her sexual activities, though she says that she is “a virgin, technically speaking” (30). Believing the priest hopes to be sexually titillated by her confession, Teresa storms out of the church before finishing the ritual. The letter also describes Teresa’s relationship with Catholicism in her early life, which was marked by negative religious experiences. She hints that she may have been conceived out of wedlock (a sin in the Catholic Church) and says that she was baptized as an infant out of fear that she would go to hell “because [I] had not been cleansed of the sin of [my] parents’ copulation” (30).

Teresa and Alicia are on a Puerto Rican beach at an unknown time. Alicia tells Teresa that her grandmother was a gypsy and that her parents ignored that part of her heritage, instead focusing on imparting “American ideals and the American way of life” (31). Teresa reports that the two wondered “what those ideals had been” (32).

Teresa and Alicia befriend the owner of a deserted hotel, who invites them to stay. There Alicia meets her lover, Adán, the hotel’s gardener. Teresa goes back to the United States, while Alicia stays in Mexico and then shortly thereafter shows up in Chicago to stay with Teresa and Libra. It turns out that Adán had a wife, and Alicia left him after discovering his marriage. During her stay in Chicago, Alicia paints while Teresa attends classes. Eventually Alicia returns home to New York.