Written by
Jeremy Paden
Illustrated
by Annelisa Hermosilla
Translated
by Oswaldo Estrada & Jeremy Paden
Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-945049-16-3
44 pages
https://smpbooks.com/product/under-the-ocelot-sun
ANNE HERMOSILLA (Illustrator) was raised in Panama City, Panama, and moved to the United States to study art at Transylvania University. She currently lives in Virginia and is a promising artist at the beginning of her career. This is her first picture book. You can find more of her art at www.annelisadoestheart.com.
OSWALDO ESTRADA (Translator) was raised in Lima, Peru,
until his family moved to the United States when he was a teenager. He is
a fiction writer, essayist, and professor of Latin American literature at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he has authored and edited
several books of Latin American literary and cultural criticism. He is
also the author of a children’s book, El secreto de los trenes (Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana, 2018), and a collection of short stories, Luces
de emergencia (Valparaíso, 2019).
. . .
Under
the Ocelot Sun is
a lyrical, powerful story told in verse by a mother to her young daughter as
they wait at the U.S. border to hopefully gain entry after their prolonged, difficult journey
from Honduras. It’s a picture book both in English and Spanish, the words and
emotions enhanced so beautifully by the watercolor
illustrations of Anne Hermosilla. I don’t know Spanish, but I enjoyed seeing
the Spanish words in rose colored ink, and I imagined how musical they sounded,
translated below each set of English verses in blue ink. In an essay Paden
wrote for Spalding University School of Creative and Professional Writing,
where he is a faculty member, he describes how he made two different
translations of the English verses, then collaborated with Oswaldo Estrada to arrive
at the final translation. Though the book might be intended primarily for a
younger audience, I found it not only timely, but compelling and breathtakingly
haunting. I knew as soon as I saw the dedication page that read “For all those
who dream of a better life in a new land” alongside an illustrations of two
corn stalks crowned with blue and pink handprints blossoming like flowers, that
I would be deeply affected by this book.
The
first verse begins with the words, “We are people of the corn, mija,”
beneath an intriguing illustration, viewed from above, of a woman cradling an
ear of corn in one palm, having pulled back the husk with the other, to reveal
the kernels. This illustration, and some of the book’s others, include fragments
of newspaper articles collaged in, a mixed media effect. In this picture, there
is a scrap of newspaper with the word “heal” in bigger, bold print carefully
placed alongside the woman’s arm like a gentle reminder. According to
Dictionary.com, “Mija” is a “colloquial contraction of the Spanish words
mi (my) and hija (daughter)…widely used as a familiar form of
direct address.”
I also
appreciated the way a few Spanish words are sprinkled throughout the English
verses, in italics—so that I began to learn some Spanish words. The phrase, the
endearment, Mija, (my daughter) repeats throughout the book, creating
such a sense of connection, intimacy, and tenderness. It also serves as a touchstone,
a reminder of who is telling the story to whom, of where they are, and why she
is telling this story.
The
mother is sharing with her daughter the same stories her mother, the girl’s abuela
(grandmother) told the mother when she was young, “so I would know who I
was, / and not fall in with the glue huffers / who lose themselves in fumes…”
The mother describes the beauty of their homeland, Honduras, where their
ancestors lived in the forest amid bright-colored tropical birds:
where quetzal and
cotinga sing,
near rivers and streams
that leap free.
The mother wants her daughter to know about her heritage, because
the daughter was raised in the city:
…among the concrete and zinc
of Teguz, we’d never seen a quetzal,
or heard monkeys
howl and hoot,
or felt the swoop
of a bat’s wings
Her ancestors used to live in mountain villages where they grew
corn (maiz) with beans (frijoles) and tomatoes (tomates),
before climate change resulted in “failed crops, late frosts, …floods.” She
talks of the endless wars, gangs, and the drug cartel, but she wants the
daughter to know that there’s beauty also:
When you were a chichi,
artists took over
an abandoned state
prison
crumbling under
the weight
of all the
violence those walls
had witnessed.
Jugglers, drummers,
and butterflies on
stilts partied
in the prison
quad.
You left a
handprint in purple
and a handprint in
yellow.
They turned the
prints of the children
into a field of
flowers.
What an evocative image–the prison crumbling because of the weight
of all the violence they witnessed juxtaposed with the gorgeous illustration of
the children’s handprints depicted as blooming flowers, echoing the image I
referred to on the book’s dedication page.
The mother is trying to explain to her daughter why they are
fleeing their homeland, undertaking such a dangerous journey. She reveals the
following:
… So many girls, mija,
lost, swallowed by
the hungry
belly of the
earth. And hunger,
a different
hunger, has led us
here, a hunger for
peace, for justice.
She goes on to tell her daughter that the quetzal and the scarlet
macaw are protected by laws, and declares that she, the daughter, mija,
is “more precious than they.” These lines very effectively suggest the sad
reality that there are no laws protecting either the girl or the mother, or at
least they are not enforced. That’s why the mother’s chosen to accompany the
people of various ethnicities to travel north. “Together,” she says, “we’ve
crossed rivers, / mountains, cities, and borders.”
At the book’s end, which circles back to the beginning, they are
waiting at the border between Mexico and the U.S., what she describes as “this
arid land of rattlers and coyotes.” The accompanying watercolor on the page
opposite these lines shows a group of small seated children, one who holds a
teddy bear, with a small backpack decorated with the face of a cat. She is
staring out as us with a searching expression that reminds me of countless haunting
photos of children held in cages on our border with Mexico.
The mother tells her daughter:
Precious things
are worth
a thousand-mile
walk, mija.
They are worth
hunger and risk.
These lines suggest they have encountered dangers and not having
enough food. I can just hear the mother trying desperately to convey to her
daughter, and perhaps herself, the necessity of their journey, to make her
daughter understand that she would not have subjected her to these things
unless it was absolutely necessary. She goes on to say the following lines which
end the book:
And treasures, mija,
are worth
dying for, if that
means those treasures
are given the
chance to live.
Mija, we are a people who find
a way, a people who survive.
Mija, we are people of the corn.
On the page opposite the above lines is a wonderful illustration of
the caravan of people heading for the US border overlaid by an illustration of
the mother and daughter having arrived at the border, the mother holding her
daughter, arms wrapped tight around her. The two are surrounded by a frame made
of corn on the stalks, perfectly ending this picture book with the words and
the image with which the book began.
The book’s title, Under the Ocelot Sun,
references a Nahua creation myth of The Five Suns, the first of which is the
time when the gods release ocelots (jaguars) to destroy the earth so it
can be born anew.
I
also appreciated that, as is noted in the book’s front material, “a portion of
the profits received from the sale of this book will go to support the work of
El Futuro, elfuturo-nc.org,” which its website states is “a nonprofit
outpatient clinic that provides comprehensive
mental health services for Latino families in a bilingual environment of
healing and hope.”
Telling this timely, compelling, memorable story
through lyrical language and lovely illustrations emphasizes the harshness of
the truths at the core of Under
the Ocelot Sun,
while allowing the beauty and resilience of its characters to filter through.
. . .
To learn more about Under the Ocelot Sun, and
see some of the book’s exquisite artwork, visit the following:
Under
the Ocelot Sun: The Making of an Illustrated Book
FOREWORD
Interview with Jeremy Paden & Illustrator Annelisa Hermosilla
Article
from Transylvania University
Jeremy
Paden on ACCENTS RADIO SHOW
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