Mestizo Heritage and Magic Realism: A Review of Summer of the Mariposas

For the final two weeks in November, The Pirate Tree will feature reviews and interviews that focus on Native American cultures. In the United States and Canada, we rarely speak of Native American cultures as including those of the rest of the Americas—Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Yet most Latinos are descended in part from the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and mestizaje is central to literary and cultural discussions throughout Latin America.

Following the success of her verse novel Under the Mesquite, Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s excellent second novel, Summer of the Mariposas (Lee & Low, 2012), explores the mestizo heritage of her characters through a story filled with mystery and magic realism. Fifteen-year-old Odilia Garza, the eldest of five girls living in a Texas town across the river from Mexico, has always thought of herself as descended from the Spanish conquistadores. After all, her father, who abandoned the family several years earlier, is light-skinned, though her mother is darker. After Odilia and her sisters discover the dead body of a grown man floating in their favorite swimming hole, she is visited by the ghost of La Llorona, the mythical woman who drowned her children and is doomed to wander the earth forever. In McCall’s novel, La Llorona is mourning not only her own children but also the Aztec people who have lost their connection to their noble past. As La Llorona tells Odilia, “It is an eternal atonement, to watch over the children of the sun, the children of my people, the Azteca bloodline…Yes. You are descendent of a great people” (51).

La Llorona gives Odilia a magic pendent–the ear pendant of the Aztec Serpent God Cihuacoatl–and together with her bickering sisters, Odilia drives across the border to return the dead man to his family and to find her estranged paternal grandmother. McCall interweaves traditional legends, magic realism, and the hero’s journey to create a powerful tale of understanding and triumph featuring a resourceful and memorable heroine. Also memorable are the other sisters, each of whom has her own personality and strengths, as one of Odilia’s tasks is to get them to work together rather than against each other. Summer of the Mariposas is a gripping tale that is also a welcome commentary on the importance of discovering and appreciating one’s mixed heritage.