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Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and

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Speaker 1: Kurturre Latino USA. Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. We bring

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Speaker 1: you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,

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Speaker 1: overlooked by the rest of the media, and while the

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Speaker 1: country is struggling to deal with these, we listen to

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Speaker 1: the stories of Black and Latino Studios United, Latino Front,

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Speaker 1: a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.

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Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosa, No bayan.

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Speaker 2: That was the first time somebody had accurately described what

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Speaker 2: my abuser was. He was a creep, and that word

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Speaker 2: helped to break the spell that the abuser had cast

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Speaker 2: over me.

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Speaker 1: From Futuro Media and PRX, It's Latino USA. I'm Maria

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Speaker 1: Inojosa Today. Author Media Gurba unmasks the medium. Gurba is

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Speaker 1: a writer, she's an author, and she's an artist from California.

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Speaker 1: Her most recent work is a collection of essays. The

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Speaker 1: name of the book is Creep, Accusations and Confessions. The

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Speaker 1: book Creep is now a finalist for the National Book

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Speaker 1: Critic Circle Award for Criticism.

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Speaker 2: I'm inviting readers to treat the word creep as both

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Speaker 2: a noun and a verb. I'm also inviting readers to

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Speaker 2: think of individual creeps, but to also consider the way

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Speaker 2: that creeps might come together to form institutions, in the

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Speaker 2: way that a slime mold unify a collection of disparate

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Speaker 2: entities that can then walk as one and become animated

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Speaker 2: as one.

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Speaker 1: Medium looks at individual creeps, including a person she was

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Speaker 1: in an abusive relationship with and other creeps who she

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Speaker 1: may have not had direct encounters with. But Miriam then

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Speaker 1: goes a step further and places these individuals within larger

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Speaker 1: institutions in order to look at how they're often protected.

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Speaker 1: These creeps protected by the system.

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Speaker 2: Some of the institutions that I examine in the essays

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Speaker 2: are the criminal legal system, in particular jails and prisons.

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Speaker 2: I examine the publishing industry, and I also examine how

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Speaker 2: schools and school administrations play a pivotal role in hiding

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Speaker 2: creeps and a betting creeps.

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Speaker 1: Medium doesn't only take an external aim also looks inward

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Speaker 1: to her own family. Now in her own words, Medium Guruba.

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Speaker 2: My name is Medium Gurba and I am a writer.

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Speaker 2: My most recent book is Creep Accusations and Confessions and

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Speaker 2: Prior to Creep, I authored several fiction collections and also

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Speaker 2: a memoir titled Me.

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Speaker 3: I began to.

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Speaker 2: Think about writing about my experience surviving domestic violence after

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Speaker 2: I had gotten free and had some time to begin

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Speaker 2: recovering from the experience, and language was really.

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Speaker 3: An important part of my liberation.

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Speaker 2: The night that I managed to escape from my abuser

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Speaker 2: was also the night that I first saw someone stand

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Speaker 2: up to him, And the night that I escaped, my

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Speaker 2: abuser attempted to chase me into a house where friends

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Speaker 2: were protecting me, and my abuser very aggressively attempted to

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Speaker 2: enter the house, and my protector screamed at him and

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Speaker 2: told him to leave and called him a creep. That

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Speaker 2: was the first time somebody had accurately described what my

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Speaker 2: abuser was. He was a creep, and that word helped

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Speaker 2: to break the spell that the abuser had cast over me.

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Speaker 2: But once others were able to name him appropriate brietly,

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Speaker 2: that offered me a key so that I could unlock

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Speaker 2: the path to liberation and use language to do that.

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Speaker 2: And so the word creep became a talisman of sorts

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Speaker 2: that I used to light my literary path. Mitota is

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Speaker 2: an essay that I wrote in order to reckon with

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Speaker 2: the legacy of my grandfather. My grandfather has a literary

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Speaker 2: legacy that is also a misogynistic legacy. And my grandfather

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Speaker 2: wanted more than anything to be known. He wanted renown,

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Speaker 2: he wanted notoriety, he wanted fame, and his mother believed.

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Speaker 3: That he was worthy of that and that he was.

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Speaker 2: Entitled to that sort of greatness, that he would be

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Speaker 2: one of the great men of Mexico. And unfortunately his

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Speaker 2: mother's prophecy was never realized. But one of my grandfather's

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Speaker 2: class housemates became one of these great men of Mexico.

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Speaker 2: And this classmate with whom my grandfather was close, was

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Speaker 2: the Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo. So my grandfather had this

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Speaker 2: contentious relationship with Rulfo and also with Rulfou's reputation, and

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Speaker 2: I described the two of them as frenemies because my

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Speaker 2: grandfather found a way to monetize having known Rufo. I'm

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Speaker 2: going to read an excerpt from the essay about him

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Speaker 2: titled and it is set in guad de Lajara during

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Speaker 2: the twenty tens. Before destroying my idols, I lay flowers

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Speaker 2: at their feet siempre lesdoy flores, rosa, silvestres, sempasucil are preferred,

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Speaker 2: but other blooms will do. My tattooed fingers write violets, camelias,

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Speaker 2: red dahlias, floris, titae, calabasa, beta, los, hikori, kierrikalalilies and

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Speaker 2: baby's breath into being Irato muse of poetry waters this

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Speaker 2: garden in tandem, we harvest, gathering an olfrinda that will

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Speaker 2: place at the well worn waracees of my grandfather, Ricardo

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Speaker 2: Serrano Rios. The last time I saw Abulito alive, his

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Speaker 2: machismo smoldered. It was December and three generations had descended

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Speaker 2: upon the house where our patriarch would die, a moldering

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Speaker 2: concrete box in the Mesquitan Gone three neighborhood of Wallalajara.

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Speaker 2: As a girl, my mother stood barefoot in her small

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Speaker 2: front yard, watching black horses pul funeral carriages. Tel Mesquitan,

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Speaker 2: one of the city's oldest graveyards. Murals depicting the afterlife

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Speaker 2: dressed the cemetery walls, and today my grandparents exchange whispers

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Speaker 2: in one of its palm shaded tombs. My Theo Albaro

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Speaker 2: rests with them, because my uncle cared for his mother

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Speaker 2: and father until they took their last breaths. The word

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Speaker 2: spinster best describes what he became. It's usually daughters, not sons,

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Speaker 2: whose sidestep marriage, instead caring for parents who shrivel and shrink,

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Speaker 2: returning to dust to honor the love Albato gave. I

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Speaker 2: write into being a cup. Next, I fill it with

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Speaker 2: the juino la babida de los Joses. Before I order

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Speaker 2: you to hand this drink to my uncle's thirsty spirit.

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Speaker 2: Allow me to add a scoop of crushed ice, a

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Speaker 2: twist of lime, and three shots of the finest tequila.

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Speaker 2: Now pass the cup to my spinster Thio. So I

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Speaker 2: didn't have misgivings about this essay. I wanted to write

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Speaker 2: it as an exemplar to show others that we can

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Speaker 2: talk in authentic and genuine ways about the men who

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Speaker 2: we are in family with. And I wanted to represent

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Speaker 2: my grandfather in such a way where I credit him

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Speaker 2: for having instilled in me a passion for words, a

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Speaker 2: passion for poetry, a passion for the arts, a passion

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Speaker 2: for the musicality of language. But at the same time

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Speaker 2: he hurt so many women and girls, and so I

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Speaker 2: wanted to show my grandfather in all of his horrific

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Speaker 2: and glorious complexity. I think that we do a disservice

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Speaker 2: to the dead when we speak in a way that

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Speaker 2: attempts to canonize them and when we attempt to launder

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Speaker 2: their legacy. And I think that that disservice is done

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Speaker 2: because I do think that there is sort of a

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Speaker 2: path to sort of spiritual reckoning that can happen posthumously,

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Speaker 2: because that's what purgatory is, right. Purgatory is a place

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Speaker 2: where a soul can wait until that soul is ready

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Speaker 2: to exit. And I would like to think that my

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Speaker 2: grandfather is one of those souls who is waiting for

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Speaker 2: others to invite him to reckon with the way that

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Speaker 2: he lived. And so I took it upon myself to

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Speaker 2: do that, and I engaged in a lot of ancestor magic.

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Speaker 3: When I was working on the essay.

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Speaker 2: I collected essays that he had written and developed a

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Speaker 2: technique was almost like a divinatory technique that I used

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Speaker 2: in order to communicate with him. So I had an

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Speaker 2: essay that my grandfather had written about his relationship with Juandruffo.

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Speaker 2: I made copies of the essay and sliced it into strips.

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Speaker 2: I also photocopied pages out of Juan and then sliced

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Speaker 2: those into strips. I gathered all of the strips and

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Speaker 2: mixed them. Then I would light a candle and I

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Speaker 2: would ask a question of my grandfather, and then I

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Speaker 2: would drop the strips and then pick them up in

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Speaker 2: a specific order and then read the response. And so

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Speaker 2: those responses were channeling my grandfather. Locas is the only

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Speaker 2: essay in Creep that was commissioned by a fan family member.

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Speaker 2: My cousin desire contacted.

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Speaker 3: Me and told me that she was very.

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Speaker 2: Disappointed by the way that she exists in the criminal

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Speaker 2: legal archive. She was criminalized as a felon due to

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Speaker 2: choices that she made to survive, and what Desiree asked

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Speaker 2: me to do was to tell her story more specifically.

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Speaker 2: What she wanted for readers to understand are the processes

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Speaker 2: by which a girl becomes a female gangster, and she

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Speaker 2: wants it to be known that no girl is born

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Speaker 2: a female gangster.

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Speaker 3: Girls become that.

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Speaker 2: And as children, we formed our own gang.

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Speaker 3: We called it Bocas Perrolocas.

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Speaker 2: And because I was never jumped out of our gang.

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Speaker 2: When my cousin contacted me and gave me this assignment.

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Speaker 3: I of course had to say yes. So here is

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Speaker 3: a short rating.

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Speaker 2: Look us, my cousin, Desiree and I never played house.

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Speaker 2: Pretending to be a mom who hits her kids with

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Speaker 2: anything in reach or a dad who forgets to pay

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Speaker 2: his child support.

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Speaker 3: Didn't interest us.

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Speaker 2: Instead, we played at being female gangsters joel as young

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Speaker 2: women with big hairdoos and tattooed hands that could apply

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Speaker 2: eyeliner as deftly as they could aim a shotgun at

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Speaker 2: an enemy's head. Our gang had two members, us, and

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Speaker 2: we planned on recruiting no one else, not our siblings,

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Speaker 2: not our parents, and definitely not our grandma. We called

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Speaker 2: ourselves Bocus pro Locus, and we practiced throwing gang signs,

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Speaker 2: curling our small fingers into PPL. Desiree and I were

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Speaker 2: fourteen and thirteen when we created our two girl crime family.

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Speaker 3: We needed this little organization badly.

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Speaker 2: There were things Desiree couldn't tell her parents, and there

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Speaker 2: were things I couldn't tell mine.

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Speaker 3: Turning away from grown ups.

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Speaker 2: We created a tiny cossan nostra for protection, affection and fun.

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Speaker 2: Pledging our allegiance to PPL. We helped each other to

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Speaker 2: carry our burdens as best as we could. Committed to

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Speaker 2: what we've built, Desiree and I remain as loyal to

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Speaker 2: our childhood enterprise as the Pope is to Gold. The

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Speaker 2: day Desiree appointed me to tell her story, I started

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Speaker 2: sketching it in my head. I knew it would begin

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Speaker 2: with our hands. Hands are what we used to beautify ourselves.

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Speaker 2: Hands are what we used to turn the volume up

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Speaker 2: on the radio. Hands are what we used to commit

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Speaker 2: facts to paper. Hands are what we use to caress lovers,

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Speaker 2: fold letters, poke holes, and kill. My hands will show

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Speaker 2: you why two California girls dreamt up a make believe mafia,

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Speaker 2: and why one of us gravitated to.

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Speaker 3: A real one.

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Speaker 2: My hands have permission to describe the romance and seduction

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Speaker 2: of hustling. My hands will demonstrate that my cousin is

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Speaker 2: living proof of the high cost some girls are expected

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Speaker 2: to pay for surviving the United States of America, the

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Speaker 2: country with the world's highest incarceration rate. What Doessy and

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Speaker 2: I demonstrate is that while she was attempting to escape

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Speaker 2: child sexual abuse that was being perpetrated within our family,

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Speaker 2: she was pushed into the arms of a gang right

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Speaker 2: a gang that was essentially waiting for her because they

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Speaker 2: were waiting for lost children like this to join, and

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Speaker 2: so when she did join, she was soon arrested. She

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Speaker 2: was arrested at age fourteen for joy writing in a

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Speaker 2: station wagon, a stolen station wagon, and then taken to

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Speaker 2: Westlake Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles, where she was sexually assaulted.

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Speaker 2: And so she left one institutional abuser the family in

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Speaker 2: order to be captured by another institutional abuser, which is

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Speaker 2: Juvenile Hall, which then later became another institutional abuser, Jail,

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Speaker 2: which then became another institutional abuser, which was prison. And

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Speaker 2: she also suffered domestic violence in romantic relationships.

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Speaker 3: What we're both attempting.

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Speaker 2: To show is the sort of handing off of a

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Speaker 2: person who is deemed a problem, a social problem, who

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Speaker 2: is handed off from one abuser to another user, to

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Speaker 2: another abuser in the hopes that the problem disappears, And

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Speaker 2: the problem never disappears, because the problem is a human life.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to read an excerpt from an essay titled

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Speaker 2: Gukui and Cukooy deals with gender based violence and connects

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Speaker 2: several perpetrators homeowners, installed window security bars, handymen crouched boarding.

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Speaker 3: Up cat and doggie doors.

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Speaker 2: Mexican grandmothers snuck into the bedrooms of grandchildren who worshiped

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Speaker 2: Ozzy Osbourne and sprinkled holy water in the four corners.

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Speaker 3: At swap meets.

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Speaker 2: Kids were told that if they strayed from their mother's site,

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Speaker 2: they'd get smacked with a shoe, calloused hands locked dead bolts.

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Speaker 3: And we prayed that if you know who wandered onto.

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Speaker 2: Our street, he'd scurry past our mailbox and oil stained driveway.

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Speaker 2: If the nightstalker had to take lives, I hoped he'd pay.

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Speaker 3: A visit to my enemies. I was old enough to

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Speaker 3: have a few. I was eight.

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Speaker 2: Some Mexicans murmured that the nightstalker and El Kukui, a

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Speaker 2: boogeyman who kidnaps and dines on naughty children, were one

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Speaker 2: and the same. Because Mexicans compulsively assign nicknames, many of

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Speaker 2: our families have a kukui mind us. Ours is a

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Speaker 2: whiddo to be avoided to call someone Ukukui is a

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Speaker 2: public service, a warning. Akukui is a person who should,

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Speaker 2: under no circumstances babysit. Some theorized that The legend of

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Speaker 2: Elkukui was spawned by an Iberian superstition, Elkokoa goes the

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Speaker 2: monsters macabre La labyyalla gen. The essay Kukui is inspired

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Speaker 2: by my experience of surviving sexual assault that was perpetrated

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Speaker 2: by a stranger, and in exploring the history of such assaults,

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Speaker 2: I link what happened to me to prior perpetrators.

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Speaker 3: So I link my.

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Speaker 2: History of assault to the history of Richard Ramirez is

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Speaker 2: murder spree which took place in California.

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Speaker 3: He became known as the knight Stalker.

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Speaker 2: The story of Richard Ramirez is very interesting to me

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Speaker 2: because Ramirez became known as an incredibly.

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Speaker 3: Prolific serial killer, but he was.

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Speaker 2: Indoctrinated into violent misogyny by a cousin.

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Speaker 3: A cousin named Mike, who had been a Green Beret,

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Speaker 3: and Mike bragged that he had killed.

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Speaker 2: More people in Vietnam than his cousin, Richard Ramirez would

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Speaker 2: ever go on to kill, and so I referred to

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Speaker 2: Mike as more.

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Speaker 3: Night Stalker than the night Stalker.

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Speaker 2: I do think that Mike heavily influenced Richard because he

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Speaker 2: perpetrated a domestic violence murder in front of Richard when

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Speaker 2: Richard was very, very young. And through that essay, what

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Speaker 2: I'm attempting to demonstrate is that gender based violence a

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Speaker 2: companies mass violence, and that gender based violence intersects with Empire.

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Speaker 2: Because Mike was trained to kill as part of an

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Speaker 2: imperial project, he was dispatched to Vietnam, like many young

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Speaker 2: chigonals were. The experience was atrocious, and many of those

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Speaker 2: soldiers came back in incredible distress and didn't receive the

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Speaker 2: treatment that they should have. And so I wanted to

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Speaker 2: explore the way that Empire, gender based violence, and racism

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Speaker 2: all intersect in the US Southwest through these various chigonal figures.

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Speaker 2: So in the Essa Kukui, I connect the sexual assault

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Speaker 2: that I experienced in nineteen ninety six to Richard Ramirez's legacy.

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Speaker 2: And I do this by mentioning that the man who

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Speaker 2: assaulted me in nineteen ninety six, Tommy Jesse Martinez, was

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Speaker 2: sentenced to He was sentenced to die in San Quentin.

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Speaker 2: His sentence was later commuted to life in prison. But

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Speaker 2: when he was living in San Quentin and confined to

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Speaker 2: death row, he was living in the same section of

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Speaker 2: the jail or of the prison as Richard Ramirez, and

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Speaker 2: so I tried to stitch these two experiences together in

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Speaker 2: a way that I think might be surprising for the reader.

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Speaker 2: I don't think the reader's expecting to learn that there

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Speaker 2: are several intentions behind Creep. The first intention was a

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Speaker 2: truth telling project.

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Speaker 3: I very, very.

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Speaker 2: Very much wanted to write a chronicle of my experience

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Speaker 2: surviving intimate partner violence.

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Speaker 3: I wanted to.

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Speaker 2: Trace the trajectory of that relationship, beginning.

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Speaker 3: With the love bombing, the bonding.

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Speaker 2: What ultimately was like an experience of captivity, and then

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Speaker 2: an experience of liberation. So much of our reality is

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Speaker 2: constructed through the act of naming, and so much is

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Speaker 2: hidden through the act of misappropriating names. Like I mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 2: hearing my defender call my abuser a creep was very

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Speaker 2: much what broke the chain. It was incredibly instructive, and

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Speaker 2: it demonstrated for me that if I was going to

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Speaker 2: free myself, I needed to use language to do it.

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Speaker 2: And I can generalize from there and then argue that

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Speaker 2: if all of us are going to free ourselves, language

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Speaker 2: is going to be key in doing that, and naming

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Speaker 2: is going to play a particularly important role.

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Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Rinaldo Leanos Junior. It was

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Speaker 1: edited by Sarah White's Coda Check. It was mixed by

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Speaker 1: Stephanie Lebau. The Latino USA team also includes Andrea Lopez Cruzado,

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Speaker 1: Victori Estrada, Glorimar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Nour Saudi

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Speaker 1: and Nancy Trujuiro. Penilei Ramirez is our co executive producer.

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Speaker 1: Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our marketing manager is

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Speaker 1: Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed by Zeena Rubinos.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host and executive producer Maria Jojosa. Join us

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Speaker 1: again on our next episode. Remember always you can find

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Speaker 1: us on social media and don't be a creep not

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Speaker 1: day Yes, Joe.

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Speaker 2: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising

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Speaker 2: Simons Foundation, Unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation

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Speaker 2: dot org. Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden and Agnes Gunt