Right now, I’d rather think about Wolf walking beside me in the wash, with his raft drifting between us. His brown curls are bunched up at the rim of his cap. He is smiling, kicking at stones, as we travel together beneath the city lights. I hope his new appreciation for his dad will be enough to keep him around, but I can’t be sure.
Right now, I just want to sleep in my clean, dry bed for a long time. The streetlight through the window catches the gold seal on the deed to Aztlán, making it sparkle. My nana’s right about something. I do feel safe with my mom, and my nana, and even Johnny, in this house, on this street, in Aztlán. I belong to this place. This is my home.
When I wake up tomorrow morning, I’ll call Wolf to come over. It’ll be one of the last few days on our dirt street, before the machines return with their concrete to cover up the land once more.
acknowledgments
I would like to thank the several parent-and-children teams who read drafts and offered valuable feedback: Julie Cosgrove, Kieran Cosgrove, May Chazan, Zoey Hodson, Alex Hodson, Kelly McGuire, Aliya Salama, Noah Salama, Jen Goldberg, and Jacinto Goldberg Flores. I would also like to thank Katerina Cook, Hilary Cook, Elena Pendleton, Isabel Millán, Hershel Russell, and Susan Dion for their loving encouragement and careful reading of drafts. Thank you to my friends and colleagues for listening to my tomboy/butch/ trans stories and for our conversations about writing, craft, and art: Cynthia Budgell, Miriam Davidson, Kelly Young, Christopher Rooney, Natalie Gillis, Lindsay Bereza, Ben Loucks, Abigail Wilson, Rachelle Bergen, Derek Newman-Stille, Tara Goldstein, Kate Reid, Juanita Spears, Sylvie Bérard, Cathy Bruce, Karen Shenfeld, and Sally Chivers; the many students in my teacher stories class; Lengua Latina crew Cecilia Vizcaíno, Brenda Zavala-Antunez, Adriana Alarcón, janet romero-leiva, Valeska Gomez-Castillo, Brenda Polar; and buddies Rusty Barceló, Rita Urquijo-Ruiz, Linda Heidenreich, Yvette Saavedra, Anita Tijerina Revilla, Justine Hernandez, Aureliano DeSoto, Adriana Ayala, Julieta Fajardo, Annette Cavender, Barbara Brush, Caitlin Mori, Joëlle Reid, Liz Vlietstra, Paola Bohorquez, Dunja Baus, Julie Wong Barker, Deborah Berrill, Carol Mahoney, Denise Handlarski, Lisa Ortiz and Maggie Anderson.
In addition, thanks to Farzana Doctor, whose pandemic writing sprints helped get me across to the finish line. Thanks to Lisa Walter, who talked me through the complicated family relationships of this book. Thanks to Barb Taylor Coyle, my friend, film director, and fabulous motivator of artistic creation, who saved me with plot ideas in the midst of my writer’s block.
Thanks to my family for their love: Elaine Jiménez McCann, Richard Pendleton, Brian Pendleton, David Pendleton, Rhoda Pendleton, Arlene Pendleton, Matt Pendleton, Shane Pendleton, Melissa Pendleton, Judith Caulfield, Carter Cook, Heather Cook, Chris Cargill, Lil Trillo, Dinah Cook, Jesse Cook, Nancy Cardwell, Luc Cook, Charlotte Cook, Garry Pejski, Tammy Sturge, and Celia Arden.
My kid said nobody would read a book without good images these days, so I am very thankful to Gabriela Godoy for her beautiful and expressive drawings and to Jazmin Welch for lovely design on the page. Thanks to Trent University and the School of Education and the Department of Gender and Social Justice for supporting me and my writing in all its forms. Thanks to the writers of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, adopted by the First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference, a March 1969 convention hosted by Rodolfo Gonzales’s Crusade for Justice. Thanks to Shirarose Wilensky for believing in this project and whose editing helped me write a much better book.
Finally, thanks to my girlfriend, Hilary Cellini Cook, who has encouraged me for more than twenty years to keep dreaming up my stories and typing away through the night, the time when she knows I am happiest.
Photo credit: Hilary Cellini Cook
KARLEEN PENDLETON JIMÉNEZ is the author of Lambda Literary Award finalists Are You a Boy or a Girl? and How to Get a Girl Pregnant, Tomboys and Other Gender Heroes; and numerous short stories and essays. She wrote the award-winning animated film Tomboy and has been recognized by the American Library Association and the Vice Versa Awards for Excellence in the Gay and Lesbian Press. She teaches education, gender, and social justice at Trent University. Raised in Los Angeles, she lives in Toronto with her partner and daughter.
Photo credit: Jane Decle
GABRIELA GODOY is an accomplished storyboard artist and illustrator living in Toronto. For the past twenty-five years, Gabi has worked with some of the best studios in Canada and Australia, including Corus Entertainment, Elliott Animation, Guru Studio, and Sticky Pictures. She considers herself extremely lucky to be able to combine her love of doodling with a natural ability to convey feelings using effortless lines to create memorable stories through animated illustration.
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