Acknowledgements

Country of Under was ten years in the making and a whole lot of people helped make this book.
 

Thank you to Marcelle LaBrecque, aka Marilyn Monhoe, for being my brilliant, tireless consultant on all things NYC drag as I wrote this novel. Your radiance, work ethic, generosity, and sense of play never fail to inspire me.

Thank you to Kara Juarez, aka Kara Foxx-Paris, who, in performing drag as a teenager in the 90s in our small Texas border town, showed me what freedom felt like if you were brave enough to be it, who talked generously with me about Texas drag as she’s experienced it, and whose courage is an ongoing inspiration.

Thank you to Dr. Ben Leonel Garza (January 17, 1939 to February 5, 2021), the father who took me on as a strong-willed adolescent and brought me to the border, a man of faith—in God, medicine, music, laughter, and family. You taught me that you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need, and the border taught me how to see and be. When the rejections got me down, I remembered you waking up from six years of dementia to look in my eyes and say, “I’m so proud of you, baby. Your depth pleases me.”

Country of Under is about the power of stories. Thank you to all of my Garza family and their wonderful stories, especially my tio Dr. Marin Garza, the last living of his nine siblings; my prima Claris Garza, who shared her story of becoming a novice nun and her ultimate choice to live out her faith in the world; and my primo Dr. Jimmy Garza, who told me the story of women crossing the Rio Grande holding hands, praying the rosary.

Thank you to my Goldfaden family, especially Josh and Brenda, who’ve walked with me through death, into love. Brenda, thank you for your electric empathy and the unwavering brightness of your belief in me. Thank you to my mother, who let me finish a fifth draft of the novel in her home in the Rio Grande Valley, watching snowy egrets glide over the lake that inspired Marin and Pilar’s resaca. Thank you to my bighearted sister, Brennan, for her love and support and for promising to teach me how to use social media. Thank you to my father Jeff Shaffner, who shows me how to live beyond the brokenness of our bodies, and my wonderful stepmother Susan Clark, whose stories of nursing AIDS patients in the 90s also found their way into the novel. Thanks, also, for letting me write in the light in the SADdest of winters!

Thank you to my love Niteesh Elias for believing in, loving, and creating with me. You couldn't have dreamed up a more perfect book cover and I couldn’t have dreamed up a more perfect collaborator.

Thank you to my partners in creating Our Voices: an Immigration Story: Carlos Ramos, Diana Arreaga, Dr. Shirley Leyro, Anthony Alarcon, Thanu Yakupitiyage, Theo Rigby, Barbara Fischkin, and Theatre of the Oppressed, whose activism, artistry, and stories were an inspiration.

Thank you to all of the inspiring youth activists with whom I connected through immigrant advocacy projects, especially Mateo Tabares, Jazmin Cruz, Nabila Eltantawy, and the students in my writing workshop at Make the Road. Marching in Make the Road’s Trans Latinx March and the Queer Liberation March and volunteering with the New Sanctuary Coalition were also integral to the writing of this novel.

Thank you to my longtime friend Ana-Klara Anderson for her editorial eye on the Spanish passages in this novel and enthusiastic support through early drafts.

Thank you to John Drew, who made the documentary Border Stories, for meeting with me when I was just beginning this book and generously offering research resources.

Thank you to Dr. Francisco Guajardo, who co-founded the Llano Grande Center, for a generous early interview.

Thank you to Los Angeles Immigration Judge Rachel Ruane for the interview and for sharing research crucial to writing the novel. Thank you to immigration lawyer Stan Weber and Padre Bob Vitaglione for interviews. Thank you to Ravi Ragbir, Executive Director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, for his interview about the New Sanctuary Movement and his experience of being held in ICE detention. Thanks to Episcopal priest and social worker Edward Sunderland for the interview on faith and activism and the Sanctuary movement. Thank you to the speakers at Greenwood Cemetery’s Living Inside Sanctuary Artist Talk.

Thank you to Emma Taati, Katherine Mosquera, Guillermo Gomez, Justin Chan, and Felipe Alberto Herrera, who shared generously with me about their particular immigrant experiences and helped immensely with research.

Thank you to Diane Zinna and Mason Jar Press for seeing and believing in this book. I’m so grateful to everyone on the Mason Jar Press team for guiding this novel into the world with brilliance, big heart, humor, and a spirit of adventure. 

Thank you to my many readers over the years, especially my Stumblers workshop and Julia Miller, my longtime writing partner, which her phone changes to “whoring partner”. 

Thank you to my teachers, in particular my Davidson advisor Dr. Anthony Abbott; Columbia MFA professors Richard Locke, Honor Moore, and Patty O’ Toole; and VCCA France workshop instructors Stephen O’ Connor and Helen Benedict.

Thank you to the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Saltonstall Foundation, the Edward Albee Foundation, the Jentel Foundation, the I-Park Foundation, and VCCA for writing residencies and to United States Artists and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for artist grants.

Thank you to all of the wonderful Rio Grande Valley students with whom I’ve worked over the past 14 years, whose stories remind me of that incredible time of creating yourself as you leave home for college, who keep me connected to the Valley, and who give me hope for the future.

Thank you to Áine Chalmers for insights into Columbia University’s First-Generation Low-Income Partnership and undergraduate student experience.
 

Thanks to the documentary The Devil’s Miner, which was instrumental to researching child miners in the Cerro Rico silver mines of Bolivia.
 

Thanks to Julia Solis and Bob Diamond for interviews and insights into the world of subterranean exploration.

Thanks to Ryan Berg, both for reading early sections of this novel and for his book, No House to Call My Home: Love, Family, and Other Transgressions, which I returned to while writing Country of Under.

Mary Jo Weaver’s Cloister and Community: Life within a Carmelite Monastery and Mark Salzman’s novel Lying Awake, about a Carmelite monastery outside present-day Los Angeles, were also integral to my research.

The story of Luz Oscura was adapted from a real-life story, deftly told in Yuri Herrera’s “Diana, Hunter of Bus Drivers” on This American Life.

Thank you to the breathtaking artist Jayoung Yoon, who in working with me on artist statements shared an artistic history, practice, and philosophy that shaped the fictional character of Dr. Yoon.

Thank you to costume designer and author Coleen Scott Trivett for the interview on drag costume and makeup.

Thank you to Ryan Boyle, for your keen insights into Patti Smith’s music and for telling me about desire lines.

Thank you to Adrian Palacios, whose friendship was so important to me in those searching early years of finding ourselves as artists in New York and a touchstone for Pilar and Río’s friendship. When I stare up at the Hayden Sphere, I still think of us, in our teetering 20s, claiming it as our planet.

Thank you to all of my family—blood and chosen—whose community, love, and support carried me through the solitary work of writing this novel.