Lilliam Rivera on the American Dream, capitalism, and the appeal of writing for a teenage audience
"It's about capitalism! It's all about capitalism," Lilliam Rivera told me, when we met to talk about her latest book, Dealing in Dreams. She was laughing as she said this, because Dealing in Dreams would more typically be described as being a YA novel that centers around teenage girl gangs, roaming the streets of Mega City, an urban dystopian wasteland governed by a questionably benevolent matriarchy.
Below, I speak with Rivera about the American Dream, capitalism, and the appeal of writing for a teenage audience.I love capturing that young voice—and I think I do it well. It comes easy for me to go to that side, to that age. It's the most dramatic and traumatic period of time for a young person. It's really when you're creating your family, in a way, the family you want to rely on, the family you want to call you out on your stuff.
I'm always in awe of that they're much more accepting, and it's usually the adults who are way more nervous about things. Even say, for example, Dealing in Dreams; I'll talk to an adult or a librarian or a teacher and I'll say,"Dealing in Dreams is about girl gangs," and you'll just feel this, Oh no, girl gangs. And I'll be like,"You read The Outsiders. It's a Latinx flip of it." Then they're okay with that.
The Women's March was happening at the time I was re-writing this novel. I kept thinking about how people were saying,"We just need a female president and everything will be great." And I was just thinking, There's something really disturbing about that mindset. I'm like, Is it really great for all women of color? I kept thinking about the women's suffrage movement and how women of color were pushed aside.
When I speak to kids, I don't really sugarcoat any of my history; growing up in the South Bronx, the violence that I'd witness as a young kid, I'm pretty open with all that stuff. I feel like, for kids, it really makes a difference [to hear the truth]. That's the thing that always blows my mind. It's like, let's get into the history of the first people who used that drug, it was Puerto Rican women on the islands. We were the guinea pigs. It's like, who are we disregarding when it comes to conversations about addiction and government policy toward that? Who's going to get help and who isn't? I'm always writing about those things, and also not changing who the enemy is.
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