Summer of the Mariposas Study Guide

Born in Mexico, Guadalupe Garcia McCall immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of six. Like the Garza sisters in Summer of the Mariposas, McCall grew up in the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, with her own cinco hermanitas (five little sisters). At age 17, she lost her mother to cancer and turned to writing for comfort. McCall earned her bachelor’s degree in English and theater at Sul Ross State University and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. Her debut novel, Under the Mesquite (2011), is written in verse, showcasing McCall’s poetry. It follows Lupita, a young Mexican American immigrant, as she copes with her mother’s cancer and cares for her younger siblings. Under the Mesquite won the Pura Belpre Award in 2012. Fluent in both English and Spanish, McCall has been a featured speaker at many schools, conferences, and organizations, including the 2016 Sirens Women in Fantasy Conference, and the 2017 National Latino Children’s Literature Conference. A lifelong educator, McCall has taught grades K-12 in San Antonio, Texas, as well as undergraduate creative writing, women’s studies, and literature at George Fox University in Oregon. She also teaches graduate courses for Antioch University’s MFA in Creative Writing program while living in San Antonio, Texas with her husband.

The early 2010s in Mexico were marked by continued escalation of the conflict known as the Mexican Drug War. Felipe Calderón was the first Mexican president to deploy large-scale military force against drug cartels trafficking illicit substances into the United States. By the end of Calderón’s six-year term, his administration estimated that 50,000 drug-related homicides had occurred. Against this backdrop, it’s unsurprising that the Mexican authorities in Summer of the Mariposas would blame Gabriel Pérdido’s death on drug cartels. While McCall does not explore the topic in great detail, she also hints at corruption within the realms of politics and law enforcement, primarily related to crossing the Mexican-American border. Although the 2014 immigration crisis—which saw a significant uptick in migrants crossing the Rio Grande from Central America—was still a few years away at the time of McCall’s publication, unauthorized Mexican migration across the border was already common and the subject of much controversy. The novel also frequently refers to the colonization of indigenous Mexican peoples such as the Aztecs, whose capital city of Tenochtitlan was invaded by Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés in the year 1519. As Odilia and her sisters see in the vision Tonantzin grants them, Tenochtitlan was founded on Lake Texcoco in 1325 after indigenous tribes perceived an eagle with a snake in its beak perched atop a cactus, which they took as a prophetic sign that this was the destined site of a great city.

Summer of the Mariposas (2012) uses Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey as a source text, retelling the mythical journey of Odysseus with an all-female Latinx cast. Using the male-centric Odyssey as a blueprint for the trials and monsters the Garza sisters face on their quest through Mexico allows McCall to reimagine gender roles in adventure fiction and explore the parallels between Greek and Hispanic mythologies. McCall has cited Gabriel García Marquez’s famous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) as foundational for her love of magical realism, which blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. Lilliam Rivera’s young adult novel Never Look Back (2020) takes on another ancient Greek myth, retelling the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice from the perspective of a haunted and displaced Puerto Rican girl. Similarly, Michelle Ruiz Keil’s Summer in the City of Roses (2021) draws on the Greek myth of Iphigenia and the Brothers Grimm to explore the bonds of siblinghood through a magical realist lens. For a further examination of Mexican folklore, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow (2019) presents another cross-country odyssey, this one set in the Jazz Age and initiated by the Mayan god of death. Finally, for readers wanting to go deeper into Mexico’s colonial history, McCall’s collaboration with fellow Mexican American author David Bowles, Secret of the Moon Conch (2023), delves into the similarities between Spanish imperialism and the modern-day migrant experience.