In this episode of Queers & Co., I’m joined by Cynthia Rodriguez, a Mexican-British writer and performer who is constantly experimenting with the possibilities of spoken word. They are international, intersectional and interdisciplinary.

We chat about being an Anglophile, the reality of life in the UK compared to the image of Cool Britannia, racism in the queer punk scene and being a person of colour in the UK. We also talk about the importance of speaking the truth, how to look after yourself in times of burnout, queer storytelling and how Cynthia is bringing more of their roots into their work to counter stereotypes of Mexican culture.

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Find out more about Gem Kennedy and Queers & Co.

Podcast Artwork by Gemma D’Souza

Resources

Check out Cynthia’s website to find out about their upcoming performances and events. Their debut poetry collection, Meanwhile, is out on 7th September 2020, via Burning Eye Books.

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Heather Love, Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History

Some articles on #dignidadliteraria can be found here: LA Weekly, Tropics of Meta and Hip Latina

Cynthia recommends the incredible band, Big Joanie

Photo of Cynthia by David Wilson Clarke of DWC Imagery

Full Transcription

Gem: Hi Cynthia! How are you?

Cynthia: All right! Just at home, looking at the rain, working with my cats.

Gem: Oh nice!

Cynthia: Well, the cat is not working, but I am…

Gem: You’re working with your cat. It sounds like a nice Friday.

Cynthia: Yes, excellent!

Gem: It would be really great if you can just tell everyone a bit more about yourself and what it is that you do.

Cynthia: Well, my name is Cynthia. I’m a poet and a spoken word performer. And I also do a bit of music here and there.

I’m British and Mexican, double nationality. I’ve been living in Britain for almost 10 years. I’m based in Leicester, but I do loads of stuff in the Midlands and London and stuff. I’m currently studying a masters on cultural events management to just make more things happen in the community. I do a lot of work about different topics that are intersecting like queerness, feminism, self-preservation, the migrant experience.

My first book coming out soon in September through Burning Eye Books is called Meanwhile. And it's exactly about living in the in between, like in between rites of passage, just not being easily pinpointed within one identity, one gender, one nation, nationality, one body, one state of mind, and so on.

Gem: Yeah. And what was the inspiration behind writing the book?

Cynthia: I've always written since I was tiny. But I've been doing the poetry/spoken word stuff for almost five years now, publishing fan zines here and there a couple of anthologies. Brigette, from Burning Eye Books, they've been telling me for years. A couple of years ago, they had a contest for people of color. And I submitted my work. I was shortlisted. I wasn't one of the winners. But Bridgette again said, “We really, really want your work. We would like it if you submitted something for a collection.” I did it. They accepted it. And I’ve been working on that collection for about a year.

I was thinking of all the subjects I've been talking about in the past five years of experience, and I just thought, “Oh yeah, this is this is connective link, the thing that joins them together,” the fact that they are all about passing through life and time, and how it's like not the normal, but expected milestones from a capitalist, hetero-patriarchal, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant wife, blah-blah-blah, society fest. It needs to be a citizen or a human, an adult. I’m thinking, “What about those people whoever reached that state, including me, including a lot of millennials?”

I'm in my early thirties. I’m 33 now. I’m nowhere near where my parents were when they were 33. They already had me. They had a house. They have a car. They had a job that pays the bills. They seemed a lot more mature by achieving things that I've found a lot more difficult because of the economy and because of the social panorama… or simply because it's not our ambition. But we are forever in that journey.

Gem: Yeah. And so, it's kind of that experience of what happens—I guess this is my interpretation of the title. It's like while you're waiting for those things to potentially come about, it doesn't mean you’re any less of a human or that you're any less valid.

Cynthia: Yes, definitely. Just because you don’t have a full-time job, it doesn't mean that you are flawed. Margaret Thatcher used to say that if you were over 26 and still using public transportation, you were a failure.

Gem: Wow! I didn’t know that.

Cynthia: Horrible stuff! Well, that's not true. You're doing fine.

Gem: So, I had lots of different questions. But I'm wondering about when you talk about being international, intersectional, and interdisciplinary in your bio, how has that come about? And how do you see that in your work?

Cynthia: Well, it's mostly out of necessity…? Well, I just feel like I cannot speak from one type of experience and one discipline and one point of view because of my journey through life.

I was born in Mexico and raised in Mexico for the first 24 years of my life. I was an anglophile when I was a teenager. And I was like, “Oh England! Oh Britain” because it was like the Cool Britannia time, like you have Spice Girls, Trainspotting… yeah, it was like all that! Britain looks the coolest!

For example, in Mexico, people really love those things, Blur and Oasis. They weren't very successful in the US. But in Mexico they were huge. And even in sports, in football, you ask them about good football, and they say, “Oh yeah, British football… Manchester United, Chelsea, and very recently, Leicester.”

After Leicester won the premiership in 2016, I think it was, after Leicester won that, before that, my relatives were like, “Oh, where is it that you live? Is it Leicester? Where is that? How close is it to London? How close is it to Manchester?” But once that football thing happened, now they're like, “Oh Leicester, good football! Yeah!!!” I was just surprised by that—not exactly by the football when I was younger, but by the media, the music. I thought it was just the coolest.

I don't know if you remember the series As If. They didn't have a lot of sex or drugs, but it was still like, “Look at these cool British people having fun and having boyfriends and girlfriends and going to the club and having their drink spiked” and horrible stuff. But they just looked so cool to a tiny Mexican in the room.

So, it was like, “Oh yeah, I want to be British. I want to go to England.” And I ended up in a long-distance relationship with a British guy.

And I then had gotten a scholarship for a masters degree at Bristol University in History of Art. I came and did that thing. I got married and just stuck around and lived for a bit and so forth. And then, I moved to Leicester. And I've been here ever since.

Gem: Cool! And what was it like, the actual reality of coming to the UK compared to what you thought it might be like from seeing it on programs and stuff?

Cynthia: Well, it's a lot more miserable than what we saw. Even the things on television and the movies that were meant to be grim then,