Read Brave Talk Brave: A Discussion About the Power of Women, Food, and Reading

Maureen Hartman (Saint Paul Public Library Director), Saint Paul mayor Kaohly Her, Lobizona author Romina Garber, and reader panelists Arayah and KT (photo by Liam Doyle)

Last summer, Romina Garber’s Lobizona was picked as the book for the Read Brave Talk Brave program — a Saint Paul-area library reading program that invites community members to read the same book over the course of a year. The author, other panelists, and readers were brought together in March to discuss the book, as well as to enjoy catering by local chefs.

Lobizona is a vibrant, magical, and poignant coming-of-age story about undocumented teenager Manuela ‘Manu’ Azul, who must conceal her true identity — both in the real world against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and in a fantastical world out of Argentinian folklore. In the magical though rigidly gendered realm, men are lobizons (werewolves) and women are brujas (witches). Manu discovers she is a lobizona, a female werewolf whose very existence defies magical law. 

Talking About the Book

Hartman facilitated the discussion with author Garber, Saint Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, and youth panelists KT and Arayah. The conversation began with a check-in for panelists regarding the aftermath of Operation Metro Surge. 

“It’s definitely been hard,” said KT.  “Having our school shut down for a week … just to keep people safe. It’s also heartbreaking. Watching our community have to go through something so unfair, and at times you feel like there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Arayah’s mother is independent journalist Georgia Fort, who has faced indictment charges for covering the Cities Church protest. Arayah said reading has grounded her and helped her make sense of recent events. 

Garber noted: “I wrote this book in 2018 hoping that nothing like this would ever happen again. That prologue feels like it was written today, and that’s scary.” 

The prologue of Lobizona ends with one of Manu’s neighbors being taken by ICE:

“Screaming starts. Followed by scuffling. There are other people shouting now, and I recognize the voices of those neighbors whose papers are in order, yelling at the officers in Guillermo’s defense. Everyone else is probably hiding like us. I have to pee and my leg has a cramp, but we stay under Perla’s bed for forty-five minutes. Ma and I don’t even speak until we hear the SUV drive away. When the morning exhales, the street looks untouched. But it’s not.”

Garber’s book begins with a quote by Pablo Neruda — “The moon lives in the lining of your skin” — which fits not only with the werewolf theme of the story, but relates to an opening dialogue about menstruation.

Before Manu learns she’s a lobizona, she takes medication that knocks her out for the duration of her period, which for her is extraordinarily painful. After she discovers her lobizona identity, however, she no longer takes the medication and quite literally transforms. 

“I wanted to write about a character who finds power and strength in her period,” Garber said. She indicated she also wanted to reclaim the werewolf story as an allegory for the changes a female body undergoes each month during menstruation. “For so long, it’s felt like the werewolf was a male, and the truth is no: the werewolf is an allegory for what we go through every month. It is tied to the moon, our cycle — we change a little bit, so I wanted to make a case for that.” 

Since the majority of the story takes place at a magical school, Garber felt it important to address the trope of “the chosen one,” popularized by franchises like Harry Potter. “In Harry’s case, he was a white male, straight, cisgender character. But what happens when your chosen one is a brown girl, who is undocumented, who is ‘born into the wrong body’ because she’s a wolf and not a witch? What happens then? Well, she gets to be a hero by shrinking, by dimming her light and hiding her power. That is how she survives. I thought it was important to highlight that something cannot be a trope or cliche until we’ve all had a chance to sit in that seat.” 

The novel’s focus on coming-of-age as a young girl whose identity is weaponized against her resonated with panelist Mayor Her, who said her culture values boys more than girls. She said she learned to embrace that there was nothing that prepared her more for being a new mayor during the ICE occupation than having been born a Hmong woman. “Being able to carry everyone with us during this crisis: being in community, helping unlock doors, delivering groceries for people who are afraid. It is everything we are taught as women: to love other people and to care for them, and that we are just as strong just as they are.”

KT praised how the book tackled themes of womanhood like menstruation, struggles with identity, and not being taken seriously, especially by men. “Society is not set up for women,” KT said. “We do have to go out and buy these products and do these things, and we are different, and that’s okay, and that’s good.”

Garber and Her, who both started life as non-English speakers, both revealed their love for reading stemmed from hearing Shel Silverstein’s Where The Sidewalk Ends for the first time. Both women struggled to read at the same frequency as classmates, citing it as an early hardship during school. “It was one of the things that I was so ashamed that I struggled with. I still remember my third-grade teacher holding a ruler over the word, revealing one syllable at a time, trying to help get me there,” Garber said. 

After Garber heard Silverstein’s writing, she began writing poetry. “I really felt like I heard the English language for the first time. I wrote my first poem after that, it was this whole Spanish thing, and my Spanish teacher loved it. She sent it to the Miami County Fair, and I won first place. I was nine, and I had no talents that I knew of yet. It changed my life. I never stopped writing.”

Her also wrote her first poem in the fourth grade after discovering Silverstein’s work, saying poetry was more accessible because she struggled with longer books — because of the language barrier, and what she believes is undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD.

When she pursued her undergraduate degree, Her would study by memorizing English words, not by sounding them out. Getting a doctorate degree was how she fell in love with reading theory and other academic works, though she says her love of reading for fun truly clicked when she read The Hunger Games series after some nudging from her daughter. 

“I remember reading all three books,” Her said. “I’ve never done that before, but I read it all night, all day, all night. I finished the book and I thought ‘This must be what it feels like to love a book.’”

Garber mentioned another book of hers in which a teenaged girl, whose parents move from place to place without putting down roots, dreams of having a library card. “Because the moment she does, she knows she has a community, she has a steady home, and she belongs.”

Mecca Bos (left) talks about the culture of food in immigrant kitchens, alongside Rocio Arias and her mother chef Paula Gutierrez (photo by Liam Doyle)

Honoring Culture Through Food

To celebrate the Argentinian culture in Garber’s novel, the main course served at the book discussion event was empanadas de humita, de carne dulce (corn and sweet beef) and a guiso de lentejas (lentil stew), made by chef Nico Nikolov. Dessert was a Chocotorta (Argentinian chocolate cookie) and an Alfajor da Maicena (cornstarch alfajor), made by Paula Gutierrez and her daughter Rocio Arias. All food was made in partnership with Immigrant Kitchen. 

Founded by Mecca Bos, Immigrant Kitchen is a part of BIPOC Foodways Alliance, which “provides a platform for immigrant communities, elders, and women of color, to tell their stories, and their cultural legacy through food.” 

Nico Nikolov and Miriam Lea (photo by Liam Doyle)

Nikolov shared that he spent half his life in the U.S. and the other half in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Growing up, Nikolov’s father showed him different empanada folding tricks — the fold indicates the type of flavor inside. “The fold is called repulgue. When you grow up in Argentina, you make empanadas as a family. Everybody gets a piece of dough, and your mom puts a scoop of filling in it, which you then try to close [by wetting the edges]. There’s a lot of tricks, and you can’t just bite into an empanada if you don’t eat meat. So you do different folds for different flavors.” 

Gutierrez also is from Buenos Aires. The desserts she made for the event were what her grandmother made when she was growing up.

Arias, her daughter, came to the U.S. when she was 11. She says she misses the social culture of sharing meaningful conversation with food, which is prevalent in Argentina, “sitting down and talking with family for hours.” 

Arias recounted that her mother has never written down a recipe; she had to learn recipes by joining her mother in the kitchen. 

“When women cook the food of their mother and their grandmother,” Bos added, “it is an emotional special thing. That food is typically not a recipe. You really do have to get into the kitchen with your mom or your grandmother. It’s oral history.” 

Another panelist with the chefs, Miriam Lea, spoke about her experience teaching traditional Argentine tango — a creative outlet to feel like her best self. Lea met Nikolov shortly after moving to the Twin Cities in 2017 and the two began collaborating with their respective arts. They now the nonprofit Argentine Tango in the Twin Cities, which offers performances and education, helping to share Argentine culture.

Lea explained that mate — a caffeinated, herb-based hot drink with varying flavors — functions as a traditional Argentinian drink that people share with a bombilla (metal straw). “It’s more than a drink. We use the mate to share with our friends, and you can spend a lot of time talking and passing the mate.” 

This social drink is present in Garber’s novel, when Manu begins to make connections and friendships with her magical peers. It serves as a way to help Manu hone her newfound lobizona abilities.

Learn More

The Saint Paul Public Library Read Brave Program

Immigrant Kitchen

Author Romina Garber 

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