By Cheyenne Bagley ’23, special contributor
Dr. Ivette Guzmán Zavala is a professor of Spanish and the only Puerto Rican professor at LVC.
Last year, she published her first book titled “Maternidades puertorriqueñas: esclavitud, colonialismo y diáspora en el arte y la literatura” which translates to “Puerto Rican Motherhoods: Slavery, Colonialism, and Diaspora in the Arts and Literature.” Her book was published with the Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana, a prestigious Spanish-language press in the US.
When she was asked why she chose to write her book in Spanish, Guzmán Zavala said she was thinking about her audience of Puerto Rican mothers and caretakers.
“I feel like I have a responsibility to write it in Spanish,” she said.
Guzmán Zavala was inspired to write this book because of her own experiences “mothering alone.” She borrowed the term “madre sola” from Marcela Lagarde since the term “single mother” often associates motherhood with marriage. While growing up in Puerto Rico, Guzmán Zavala was mothered mostly by women. Fathers, grandfathers, and uncles were present, but her neighbors, nannies and grandmothers played the most important roles in raising children. In the United States, though, she had to create her own community to help raise her son.
This book also brings together Guzmán Zavala’s other passions: art and literature. She has long had an interest in the arts, teaching art in the island’s public school system before she went to graduate school.
“The arts and literature have always been a passion,” she said.
It is no surprise that our author also loves to read. Specifically, she said, “I love to read narratives written by women.”
Guzmán Zavala’s book is its own form by creating a dialog between Puerto Rican art and literature around the theme of motherhood which is central to how people see themselves and sometimes fail to see themselves clearly. The term “Motherhoods” in the title of her book is plural because of the “multiple ways to mother” according to Guzmán Zavala. Her readers will be inspired to think of motherhood as a verb for all people who mother, rather than a noun only referring to a person who gives birth.
The cover of the book features a black nanny with a white baby. Puerto Rico never had segregation but has not had a deep reckoning with racism or its history of slavery. Moreover, there are very few historical records about black women, nannies and wetnurses, so Guzmán Zavala had to turn to literature, painting, and photography to explore the many absences and silences of women in history. These sources allow her to call attention to the mothering done by Afro-Puerto Rican women that were part of children’s lives and by extension, of the nation.
It was very difficult to do all the research and writing required to write a book with the full course load as a professor, so it took Guzmán Zavala several years of work to complete and publish her book. Though it was difficult, the rewards were worth all the work that she has done.
“Part of my job is to teach but I do a better job teaching with all the research that I have done for this book,” she added.
Guzmán Zavala has used her research in her classes, especially those pertaining to women in minoritized groups. Along with teaching all levels of Spanish, she has included some of the art and literature in her upper-level Spanish courses because these images help spark conversations. Overall, Guzmán Zavala’s growth all comes back to LVC. Her hard work goes to show her dedication to art, literature, motherhood and education.