The University of Arizona Press

May 23, 2024

Growing Up in the Gutter: Diaspora & Comics is the first book-length exploration of contemporary graphic coming-of-age narratives written in the context of diasporic and immigrant communities in the United States by and for young, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and diasporic readers. The book analyzes the complex identity formation of first- and subsequent-generation diasporic protagonists in globalized rural and urban environments and dissects the implications that marginalized formative processes have for the genre in its graphic version. Today, author Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo answers our questions:

What were some of your favorite books growing up?

I’m a 90’s kid, so I loved Harry Potter. It’s atrocious that one needs to follow up that statement with the necessary: but I hate what J.K. has done with her fame to hurt the people I love and my friends. But before all the bigotry went down, my 11-year-old self loved HP. And fiction belongs to the reader anyway. Ron Weasley was my first crush. As a queer, bullied kid, I dreamed of getting a letter and what amounts to an 11-inch, phoenix-feather-cored weapon to bludgeon the world into a kinder place.

Despite how different our worlds were—I grew up in Mexico City—HP did for me what coming-of-age novels have done for many, for centuries. It saved me. It enabled me to escape, to figure out how to grow up, to find my (fictional) people. I grew up with them, alongside them.

I loved the books that explained me to me.

I loved Looking For Alaska because it explained to me why my friend in high school didn’t want to live anymore. I loved Demian because it showed me the world outside and because it ends with the first gay kiss I ever imagined; the idea of boys kissing was unintelligible. I loved Aura because it was so creepy, and it talked directly to me. I loved A Hundred Years of Solitude because it was sweaty and erotic—which blew away my young mind.

I’m so lucky I got to read a lot of different things.

Why do you think the coming-of-age (COA) construction resonates so strongly?

Because we’re all growing up all the time!

There is nobody, big or small, who is not constantly negotiating who they are and what their place in the world is. I agree with Stuart Hall that identity is always a process, always in flux. We know that instinctively about ourselves, whether we meet the flux with resistance, patience, or joy.

We want to see others in flux. We want to know how other people are building themselves, we want to see our struggles mirrored. More than mere pleasure (although infinitely important), seeing how others grow and negotiate what it means to be an adult is necessary. We need these stories like we need to rebel against our parents, like we need to love whom we love, like we need to fight, explore, and try. Coming-of-age stories are for me, the best antidote to despair.

And collectively, we recognize the value of young people finding those admirable and heroic role models. Why else do we insist our kids read To Kill a Mockingbird if we don’t want them to learn compassion from Scout, or The Diary of a Young Girl to learn bravery from Anne? Or, for that matter, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass or Beloved if we don’t want them to fight tooth and nail against injustice?

These stories enable us to ponder who we want to be—individually and collectively!

How do you hope students, scholars, and instructors use this work?

GUITG is a flexible text. The language is welcoming for students without previous knowledge of either the coming-of-age genre or comix. Even if you have never read any theory about either, this book is designed to be accessible and fun.

Yet, if you are already a fan, you’ll find new connections to issues of identity, diaspora, queerness, and immigration that you’ll hopefully find inspiring.

Go to the index or list of works cited to get an idea of the extensive literature on comix produced in the last few years.

I’ve had stimulating conversations with instructors who want to use graphic media to engage in “difficult” conversations with students (about race, class, the gender gap, etc.) but don’t know where to begin. GUITG aims to answer that question by putting theory to work: providing examples of close readings and illustrations of visual analysis.

Use it as a textbook for an upper level seminar. Use individual chapters to explore how comix address gender, performativity, queerness-as-magic, police brutality, diaspora, and national identity.

I truly hope scholars use it, abuse it, and destroy it. It should make Bildungsroman scholars (particularly those who think it’s an exclusively European genre) very uncomfortable.

What graphic COA narratives are you looking forward to reading next?

I’m currently teaching an undergrad graphic COA narratives class! We’re reading Persepolis, Genderqueer, The Low Low Woods, and American Born Chinese through the lens of growing up and negotiating adulthood. Re-reading these with students is reading them for the first time, finding new connections because of their particular curiosities. 

Personally, I am very curious about comix and graphic media produced and distributed in places that have not traditionally been associated with the medium. In other words, I really want to know what is going on with comix in non-American and non-Japanese markets. I am not sure yet where this will take me.

What is your next writing project?

I am working on an edited volume titled The Post-Bildungsroman: Coming of Age at the Margins to fully dismantle the notion that the genre should be European or a project of a white, middle-class, able-bodied, heteronormative Enlightenment. I want to open the genre to study underrepresented and previously non-canonical voices that either engage with the likes of Charles Dickens and James Joyce or who completely disregard them. I hope this will be a launching point for studies about graphic media, videogames, manga, and other productions that challenge preconceived notions of the Bildungsroman.

Additionally, I am working on personal essays. To provide an example of what I’m thinking, I am very curious about how we can engage with young heterosexual men to prevent them from sympathizing with alt-right and/or neo-fascist ideologies and mindlessly consuming their podcasts, books, and shows.

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Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo (@ric_writes_books) is an assistant professor at Rhode Island College. He is the author of Children of Globalization: Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels in Germany, England, and the United States. He studies migration and diasporas in narratives about youth development in the context of globalized and de facto multicultural societies. His essays have appeared in Literary Geographies, Norteamérica, the North Meridian Review, and Chasqui, and in several edited volumes. He grew up in Mexico City.