Reyna Grande is an award-winning author, motivational speaker, and writing teacher. Her newest novel A Ballad of Love and Glory, is a sweeping historical saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, for their survival and their love, in the midst of the Mexican-American War.
Reyna Grande is an award-winning author, motivational speaker, and writing teacher. As a young girl, she crossed the US–Mexico border to join her family in Los Angeles, a harrowing journey chronicled in The Distance Between Us, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her other books include the novels Across a Hundred Mountains, and Dancing with Butterflies, the memoirs The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition, and A Dream Called Home, and the anthology Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings.
Her newest novel A Ballad of Love and Glory, is a sweeping historical saga following a Mexican army nurse and an Irish soldier who must fight, for their survival and their love, in the midst of the Mexican-American War.
You have written both novels and memoirs. How does the writing process differ when you are writing fiction as opposed to nonfiction?
I compare writing fiction to painting and writing nonfiction to sculpting. When you write fiction, you start with nothing and must build the world and create the characters that inhabit it. You come up with the events they live through and the challenges they face. With memoir on the other hand, everything is all there already because it’s the life you’ve lived. The people and obstacles already exist. The challenge with memoir is that you have too much—a big block of granite that you must chip away at to reveal the image—so you carefully select what to leave in and what to leave out, like with a sculpture. A struggle I had when I switched from fiction to memoir was that in fiction I learned all about plot points and narrative arc, but when I started writing memoir it was difficult to think of my life in terms of plot points, so it took me a while to realize we do have plot points—they are called “defining moments.”
What was your inspiration for this novel?
My first inspiration was hearing about the Saint Patrick’s Battalion. Someone at one of my book events asked me if I’d heard of the Irish who fought for Mexico. When I said I hadn’t, this person suggested I write a book about them. I did a little research, and I soon became fascinated, especially with John Riley, the leader of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion. I couldn’t believe there were soldiers from the US Army who deserted and switched sides to fight for Mexico. I wanted to learn more about them and what led to their decisions. But I became even more intrigued with the war itself. There is very little that has been written about the Mexican-American War, and I wanted to shed some light on this moment in history which in the US has been forgotten but which Mexico won’t ever forget!
This novel takes place during the Mexican American War in 1846. Before you started writing this book, did you know a lot about this period of history? What kind of research did you do while writing this book?
I knew so little about the Mexican-American War because in the US it isn’t taught in our classrooms. It is skipped over, even though in seizing Mexico’s northern territories, the US doubled in size. Perhaps the powers-that-be decided we shouldn’t remember this shameful history of US aggression against a weaker nation, but that erasure is problematic because it erases the fact that Mexican-Americans are not the foreigners here, as some would like us to believe.
The research I undertook was overwhelming at times. I read dozens of history book about the Mexican-American War. I read dozens of diaries and letters written by soldiers who participated in this war. I read the memoirs of several people, including Santa Anna, Juan Seguín, and Ulysses S. Grant. Then I narrowed my research to more specialized topics, such as the flora and fauna of South Texas and Northern Mexico, medicinal plants and curanderismo, cannons, cockfighting, the Irish famine, Hiberno-English, etc. I also visited some of the places I write about—I went to Mexico to some of the battle sites and the plaza where the members of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion were hanged. I visited Santa Anna’s hacienda in Veracruz. I went to South Texas to visit the location of the first battle, the Palo Alto Battlefield, and I took a boat ride on the Rio Grande. I also traveled to Ireland to visit John Riley’s hometown, Clifden in County Galway.
I understand that John Riley is a real historical figure and Ximena Salomé was inspired by a poem. What was it about their stories that you found so captivating?
With John Riley, I was intrigued that he deserted the US Army to defend Mexico against the northern invaders. I wanted to understand what led to him switching sides and risking his life to do so. I was also fascinated that he and the other deserters swam south across the Rio Grande to find better opportunities in Mexico. When you think of the Rio Grande, we think of people swimming north to find opportunities in the US. But not in 1846. Even Black slaves were swimming south because as soon as they crossed the river and set foot in Mexico, they were free.
Ximena was inspired by a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Angels of Buena Vista.” I came across this poem when I was researching the war. I was interested first because when I found this poem I was living in the city of Whittier (a suburb of L.A.), which is named after John Greenleaf Whittier, and second, because it was about a Mexican woman named Ximena out in a battlefield tending the sick. The poem is written from the point of view of the Mexicans—is very pro-Mexican—even though it was written by a white American poet.
This novel is told from the perspective of both Ximena and John. Why did you want to include both perspectives in the novel? Did you find one perspective easier to write?
Originally, the novel was going to be written only from John Riley’s point of view because when I began the novel, I only knew about him and the other members of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion. But when I found Whittier’s poem, there were so many questions about Ximena swirling in my mind: Who is she? Why is she there on that battlefield? Who has she lost in this war? What has she suffered? So, I decided that the novel needed to be in two points of view because it is through Ximena—her Mexican eyes—that we could really understand the devastation of the war. John Riley is a fascinating historical figure, but I realized that he couldn’t carry the novel on his own. What I liked about John, though, was being able to explore the immigrant experience, as I have done with every book I’ve written. However, with A Ballad of Love and Glory, I was able to write about another kind of immigrant experience—the Irish diaspora of the 1840s. I realized that the immigrant experience is universal, and I was able to draw from my own story to write about John Riley. Ximena, on the other hand, proved to be extremely challenging to render onto the page. Because she was based on a short poem, I had nothing to go on except that she somehow ends up on the battlefield. I had to create her from scratch. The only thing I gave her from my own life was that my grandmother was a healer, as is Ximena’s.
Throughout John’s chapters in the book, you see the brutality that the American officers show the foreign soldiers in the army. It’s easy to understand why the Irish soldiers felt little loyalty to the United States and fled to Mexico, but John resists this opportunity at first. Why do you think it took so much for John to finally desert?
In my research, I learned that American soldiers accused the immigrant deserters, especially John Riley, of being nothing more than malcontents looking for a better deal. Nothing but traitors and renegades. That isn’t how they are portrayed in my novel. As an immigrant myself who has suffered from racism, discrimination, and micro-aggressions while living in American society, I have a different understanding as to why these immigrant soldiers might have deserted, and I have first-hand experience with the inner turmoil they suffered while making that decision—to leave or to stay. I gave that inner turmoil to John Riley. He had dreams of a better future for his family. He wanted to be accepted by American society, and he felt that if he fought for the US, if he pledged his loyalty to this country, he would be welcomed and allowed to make a home here. Like most immigrants, he wanted to give this country the best of himself he had to offer, but one day he had enough of the mistreatment and threw himself into the river and swam to the other side. For many immigrants, that disillusionment with life in the US is a sad reality.
One of the characters in the novel was the real life controversial historical figure Santa Anna. Ximena has multiple conversations with Santa Anna as she tends to his leg, and their relationship is incredibly layered and complex. Why was it important to include this character in the novel, and was it difficult to write him given his complicated motivations?
I couldn’t get away with not writing about Antonio López de Santa Anna. He’s such a fascinating character. I was intimidated writing about him, the most hated man in Mexico, and probably in Texas, too. A larger-than-life character, I worried how I was going to be able to bring him to the page. But from the first scene, he just jumped in and took over and then I couldn’t get him to stop talking! I liked his complexity. I’ve never liked how he gets featured in books and films as a one-dimensional character, as a “bloodthirsty, barbarous villain…” In Ballad, it was important to me to capture him in all his contradictions. It helped me to reframe the image I had of him and understanding his role in the Texas Rebellion, in the Mexican-American War, but most importantly, his impact on the formation of the Mexican Republic.
This novel is a sweeping, historical saga, but at its heart it is a love story. Why is the love between Ximena and John so integral to this novel? Why are they so drawn to each other?
I have to admit that I struggled with the love story because I wasn’t writing a romance novel, but I also wasn’t just writing a war story. I had to find a balance. It was difficult to figure out how to develop the romance without the war becoming a mere backdrop, and vice versa—how to write about the war without the love story taking a back seat. The war is as much of a main character as John Riley and Ximena, but without their love, there was no story—only battles and politics.
When I began to research John Riley, I learned that there was a rumor that he’d fallen in love with a Mexican widow. And once I discovered Whittier’s poem, I knew that Ximena was going to be that widow who stole John Riley’s heart. Another thing that influenced the relationship between John and Ximena is my father’s story. When my father immigrated to the US, he left my mother and his children behind in Mexico in dire poverty. He came here to find a better life for us, but he met a nurse assistant and fell in love with her. When I was writing about John Riley and his wife, and his conflicting feelings for Ximena, I thought of my father.
Through Ximena and John’s relationship, I wanted to honor the love that Mexico has for its Irish heroes. Ximena falls in love with him because he is an honorable man who has taken great risks to defend her country in an unjust war. John falls in love with her because of her strength, her kindness, and because they are both facing danger and death together. The war forges their relationship. They find solace in each other’s arms.
Throughout the novel, there are various comparisons between Mexico and Ireland. The landscapes may be different, but they share the same religion, and a lot of the Irish, like John Riley, see the soul of their country represented in Mexico. Why do you think so many of the Irish identified with Mexico?
I asked myself this question again and again as I was writing the book. My feeling was that because the Irish had spent years being oppressed by a Protestant nation, they worried that Mexicans would face the same fate. In the US, the Irish were being severely discriminated against for being Catholic, and the mobs were destroying Catholic neighborhoods, like in Philadelphia. In the US Army, Catholic soldiers were forced to attend Protestant services. So, religion was another factor that contributed to their feelings toward Mexico, a Catholic nation. Also the way the Americans expressed themselves about Mexicans was familiar to the Irish who had heard the English use those insults on their own people as "ignorant, filthy semi-savages, a miserable mongrel race.” In Mexico, they were welcomed as Catholic brothers and as heroes. Another point I make in the novel is that because Mexico had a caste system—where light skin offered many privileges—the Irish deserters suddenly saw themselves benefitting from their whiteness in a way they hadn’t in the US. We might see them as white today, but it took the Irish years to become part of white America and enjoy white privilege.
What do you hope that readers learn about this period of history after finishing this book? What do you want them to take away from this story?
For my Mexican-American readers, I hope that they feel empowered by this book because A Ballad of Love and Glory subverts the narrative—especially the narrative of Mexicans as the outsiders in this country. The novel also offers a new perspective—or corrective—on the history we thought we knew about the US and Mexico and especially, the southern border. I hope that this is an eye-opening read for readers in general. And although I hope everyone will love my novel, and appreciate what it’s trying to do, I know it’s going to make some people uncomfortable. But I think that’s the best part about this novel—it will challenge readers to confront the truth of our history, especially the shameful parts. US brutality and aggression isn’t something we are taught in school, but I for one am tired of the Swiss-cheese method of teaching US history in our classroom. We need to stop leaving out the parts that make us uncomfortable or don’t fit into the rosy narrative we want to tell about this country. I hope that A Ballad of Love and Glory can inspire readers to learn about the Mexican-American War and the effect that it had on Mexican people on both sides of the border.
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