Dagoberto Gilb, writer and essayist: ‘To Americans, Chicano culture doesn’t exist’

Dagoberto Gilb, writer and essayist: ‘To Americans, Chicano culture doesn’t exist’

A full 75 years after being born in the United States, Dagoberto Gilb is still seen as an exotic man, while in Mexico, he’s just another gringo. The latter doesn’t bother him: he understands where it comes from, as he barely speaks Spanish and has lived practically his entire life north of the border. The former, on the other hand, gets on his nerves, but he accepts it with the resignation of someone who knows in advance that they’re on the losing side. The Mexican-American writer — MexAm or Chicano, he would say — is known for his stories and essays about the working class to which he has belonged his entire life, and last year he published two new books, one fiction and one non-fiction, which once again portray the everyday life without stereotypes of a community that, though comprising the majority of the population on the U.S. southern border, continues to be looked down upon by the hegemonic culture.

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