Dreaming with Mariposas. By Sonia Gutiérrez

“This is Chicana literature at its best. Sonia Gutiérrez captures and reworks the ethos, the languages, and the memory of an entire tradition of letters, oral tales, and experiences that have shaped and continue to shape the collective imaginary. As in her Tomás Rivera epigraph, Gutiérrez grows great big artistic arms to embrace humans, ghosts, and butterflies, and to present them to her audience in a beautiful ofrenda of must-read stories.”—Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez, University of California, Merced 

“Overflowing with tenderness, humor, hurt, and determination, Dreaming with Mariposas is the compelling story of the journey from childhood to young womanhood, to writing, and to self-actualization. Disarmingly vulnerable and poetic, Gutiérrez pulls no punches when it comes to the issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, education, immigration, addiction, and violence. Most strikingly, this is the voice of a young brown girl coming into her own—not powerless, not a victim—a young brown girl with clear vision, a willingness to fight back, and a powerful drive to speak.” —ire’ne lara silva, author of flesh to bone and Cuicacalli/House of Song 

“Sonia Gutiérrez captures dreams and memories with Dreaming with Mariposas, her latest literary collection. The poignancy of Dreaming wraps the reader in memories and wishes, and dreams, deferred and fulfilled. A Family of Butterflies forever traveling through dreams and reality.”—Kim McMillon, Ph.D., Black Arts Movement, scholar and playwright 

 “Sonia Gutiérrez reminds one of our elders offering us blessings in our youth. These vignettes are like the energy that connects the synapses in our body and the emotions infused in them bring warmth to the soul; and as fleeting as a soft cool breeze, they offer a fragrance that is remembered, etched and made tangible. The memories and narratives told are unrelenting and nourishing, they provide a vulnerability in their confessions.”—Gibrán Güido, co-editor of Queer in Aztlán: Chicano Male Recollections of Consciousness 

“Dreaming with Mariposas is a powerful telling of family cuentos. American stories that need to be read and felt down to the core of them. From the very first vignette we are compelled to continue listening to the dreams and struggles of the parents and children featured in these pages who are from our America—our Turtle Island. How being formed from humble but powerful beginnings, like the corn, beans, squash, and nopales, which they eat—and being of simple down to earth sustenance is powerful; because they, like these plants, are seeds that can flourish because of life visions which are seemingly impossible aspirations. The main characters grow their dreams from the earth, hard work, and above all hope. Dreaming with Mariposas is full of stories we all can relate to because it shows that despite all odds a person can and do reach their goals. In these poignant stories no one is left behind because as long as their dream-stories are told and retold all are remembered and we learn through their lives and struggles.”—Odilia Galván Rodríguez, author of The Color of Light and co-editor of the award-winning anthology, Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice

“Sonia Gutiérrez carries the torch of her literary forbearers Tomás Rivera and Sandra Cisneros, powerfully and poetically capturing what it's like to grow up as a brown girl in America. Dreaming with Mariposas takes us from Idaho to Southern California, detailing the struggles and joys of a working-class immigrant family, and shows us with fresh eyes the lessons learned navigating childhood's difficult terrain. Gutiérrez pays homage to the classics of Chicanx literature, but this book is also a necessary update, a coming-of-age story for our time.”—Maceo Montoya, author of The Deportation  of Wopper Barraza 

Sonia Gutiérrez is the recipient of the Tomás Rivera Book Award and the International Latino Book Awards for her novel Dreaming with Mariposas (FlowerSong Press, 2020). Sonia Gutiérrez is the author of Spider Woman / La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013) and the coeditor of The Writer’s Response (Cengage Learning, 2016). She teaches critical thinking and writing, creative writing, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Presently, she is working on her first picture book, The Adventures of a Burrito Flying Saucer, and poetry collection, Sana Sana Colita de Rana. She lives in the Californias.