In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Victoria Blanco

I love the storytelling in your nonfiction piece “Corn-Yellow Light.” You did a lot of research for this piece. How did you sift through everything to create a narrative? What was the process like to piece together your research into something that flowed?

I sifted through ten years worth of notes, photos, and journal entries to choose the many threads that I wove together for this book. It was very overwhelming at times! I have twelve drafts of this book because I spent years trying out different narrative threads to figure out what would work. And the threads kept coming, because I have continued returning to El Oasis once a year. 

I credit my wonderful editor, Mary Wang, for helping me decide on the threads that formed the narrative in Out of the Sierra. Without her, I might have spent more years collecting more threads! 

Martina is a woman who lives very much in the moment. Did her character reflect or influence the way you wrote the story?

The short answer is yes. Martina is, by nature, a very quiet person. I spent years—truly years—getting to know her and understanding how she thought about the many happenings in the Sierra, in El Oasis, and later in Chihuahua City. Because she speaks sparingly, and because it took such a long time to reach the level of trust and familiarity that allowed me to write about her, the book naturally contains many pauses. It unfolds slowly.

There’s no sweeping narrative or quickly resolved conflict. Had I chosen another person—like the governor of El Oasis—the book might have followed a more traditional arc. I could have focused on his tensions with government health officials or on a larger, more visible act of resistance, such as a public health initiative imposed without Rarámuri input.

But because the story centers on Martina, the resistance in the book is quieter and subtler. Resistance is rooted in small gestures, daily endurance, and in the spaces where silence itself becomes a form of defiance.

You talk about the “fissures of time” when dressmaking and storytelling happen for the Rarámuri women. And in your interview, you talk about the way the history and stories of the Rarámuri people are passed down through the designs in the dresses. Can you talk a little more about that?

Yes, well, I love the storytelling within the dresses and I love even more the fact that the dresses are made in community. I write in the book about the importance of sewing circles as a way to build community, and also as an act of resistance to capitalist time. 

This doesn’t appear in the book because it’s a newer development, but I’m very interested currently in the adoption of the sewing machine in the community and how it’s allowing seamstresses to finish their dresses more quickly, even as it’s breaking down the sewing circle. 

There’s this feel of the omniscient narrator in the work, seen on the very first page with the interjection “correctly” and then throughout. How did you craft the narrative voice, and did you see it as a character in this piece? When you were researching, did you feel like you were an impartial observer, or that you were experiencing their lives with them, or somewhere in between?

My goal as a researcher was to experience their lives alongside them as much as possible. I didn’t live in El Oasis, but I stayed nearby and spent about twelve hours a day on site. That immersive rhythm brought me closer to their daily realities than I could have achieved by only visiting for short intervals.

I do see the omniscient narrator as a kind of character. While I’m not directly present in the book—except in the Author’s Note—readers can feel my presence throughout. I aimed to craft a voice that moves fluidly between witnessing and interpreting, never fully detached but never at the center either.

That balance was essential to me. I wanted readers to sense that the narrative voice is deeply embedded in the community, while also aware of its own position and limitations. I believe field researchers have an obligation to question our right to narrate and interpret, but I was careful not to let that self-interrogation overshadow the lived experiences of Rarámuri people. For that reason, I let that reflective part of my voice surface mainly at the end, in the Author’s Note. In this way, the narrator becomes a kind of bridge—someone who listens closely, records what she sees and hears, yet is continually shaped by the act of listening itself.

One of the things I love about this piece is how it dives into the material so quickly and immerses the reader, but without feeling overwhelming. What drew you to this excerpt when submitting?

Precisely that — I wanted to submit a chapter that brought readers directly into an active scene. I also love this chapter because it took place early on in my field research. I was so honored that Lupita let me join her. This chapter reminds me how delicate trust is. 

What themes do you find your writing return to?

Resistance, identity-making through fashion; family relationships, especially children with their parents. 

What are some of your favorite books or authors? What texts do you return to?

I return often to Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Her writing helped me view certain interactions in El Oasis through the lens of reciprocity, so it’s safe to say that my book wouldn’t exist in its current form without her influence. I also return often to Luis Alberto Urrea’s work. He was one of the early authors that inspired me to write nonfiction.  

I also love reading Jesmyn Ward’s work; her writing radiates love for her community. I’m currently reading “Whiskey Tender” by Deborah Jackson Taffa, and I just love it! 

What are you working on now?

Family stories based on the US-Mexico borderlands. I don’t yet know what these will become, but I am enjoying the writing very much. 

Victoria Blanco‘s first book, Out of the Sierra: A Story of Raramuiri Resistance, was published by Coffee House Press in 2024. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Guernica, Literary Hub, Catapult, and others. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota MFA, and she lives in Minneapolis with her husband and three sons.