Pedro Martín is the author and illustrator of the middle grade graphic novel Mexikid. The book is based on his own family stories.
Q: What inspired you to create Mexikid?
A: I had been collecting my family stories and stories from when I was a kid for years. I would doodle them on 3x5 cards at work and drop them into a Batman lunch box I had near my desk.
When I retired, I found the lunchbox and thought I would share those stories with the world on Instagram. After about two years, I decided I wanted to sell them all as a collection, but nobody wanted them.
My agent suggested I do a longer story and make it into a graphic memoir. So I took a story I was holding back on and I worked up into Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir!
Q: How would you describe your relationship with your abuelito?
A: It was as good as any kid could have with an almost 90-year-old dude who spoke no English and came from a whole different time and country. It took a while but we eventually learned how to communicate and share a living space like any ol’ family. We respected each other’s passions. We bonded over drawings here and there.
Q: The writer Chris Mould said of the book, “The graphic novel was definitely invented for important human stories like this.” What do you think of that assessment?
A: I think Chris is amazing and was being extra amazing in that review. I don’t know about my story, but the graphic novel format is one of the best ways to express comedy, tragedy, and history through a mixed art form. I think its possibilities are endless. I hope more people find them as important to our culture as any other art form.
Q: Another review, from Kirkus, said in part, “Though the family's travels took
place decades ago, the struggles with establishing identity, especially as a
child of immigrants whose identity straddles two cultures, feel as current as
ever.” How does that description strike you?
A: This story, a story of two worlds, is happening every day. Right now there are kids, first- and second-generation immigrant kids, looking for that connection to their origins that seem cut off to them today. It’s a struggle that is very current.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I apologize again for the lateness of these responses.
I’ve been working on the sequel to Mexikid. It will hopefully shine a light on
the other half of the immigrant experience. The path that leads the kids of
immigrant farmers into the first generation outside of farm labor.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m terrible at following up on emails from lovely people such as yourself.
Also, I’m still trying to tell my weekly stories in my weekly Instagram feed @Mexikidstories and at Mexikid.com. Although, with this new book, it’ll be more like a monthly story.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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