The Story of My Anger: A Deep Dive into Jasminne Mendez’s YA Debut

The tone of Jasminne Mendez’s YA debut, The Story of My Anger, is set ablaze in the prologue.

“My name is Yulieta Lopez

and this is the story of my anger,

and how it became

a five-alarm fire I tried

to smother silent…”

Yulieta doesn’t want to play the part of an angry Black girl. However, her surroundings ignite her frustration. As a Texas teen, she grapples with a racist drama teacher who overlooks Black students for lead roles. She is furious that her favorite teacher’s livelihood is threatened due to the literature he introduces to her and her peers. This fury soon erupts, prompting Yulieta to take action.

The Story of My Anger (out Sept. 16 from Dial Books) is a powerful novel-in-verse about the need to find and use your voice. It resonates with women of color who navigate challenging and unwelcome spaces. Yuli’s anger is palpable, and rightfully so. Mendez, a poet and playwright, brings crystal-clear authenticity to her protagonist and the complicated world of high school theater. The threads of book banning and tensions between students and administrators are timely, deepening the story further.

Ahead of the book’s release, Mendez spoke with the Dominican Writers Association about writing about anger, book banning, and much more.

Congratulations on The Story of My Anger. This is your YA debut. How do you feel about unleashing this story into the world soon?

I was definitely nervous, especially as the ARCs were coming out and people were reading it. I’m hoping that assuages when the book actually comes out, which is usually when I get nervous.

Given the social and political climate we’re in right now, and this book touching on all of those now taboo subjects, I’m definitely nervous about the trolls coming out or any kind of backlash that may ensue. But I am really excited for the story itself, regarding the relevant topics that it deals with. It’s really about Black girl anger and empowerment, and how anger doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We often see it as a negative emotion, but I believe it can fuel change and empower individuals, particularly young Black girls who are often villainized for expressing any emotion other than happiness.

I think about how I have suppressed my own anger for fear of being labeled as the angry Black girl or woman. So, I’m excited to send a message to young Afro-Latinas and Black girls: it’s OK to feel all your emotions. It’s just a matter of how you channel and express them. Overall, I’m thrilled to enter the YA space. I hope it reaches the people who need it and connects with readers.

Your book follows Yulieta Lopez, a Texas teen who longs to be cast in the lead role of her school’s fall play, titledOur Town. What does the lead role signify for Yulieta?*

It signifies the idea that she’s finally being seen. Her talent is being recognized. It’s a sense of validation: My hard work has paid off. The talent that everyone says I have is finally shining through. Despite her skin color suggesting otherwise, she can surpass those barriers. Her talent matters more than her appearance. It’s a form of validation for her to say, It doesn’t matter what I look like. My talent supersedes all of that, and I deserve this role.

Yulieta soon finds herself battling racism in her theater program. She has a drama teacher with outdated ideas about casting. How did you arrive at this major obstacle for your main character?

Personal experience. I was a theater nerd in high school. I did theater in middle school, high school, college, and beyond. Many encounters in the theater world involved microaggressions and macroaggressions. Often, casting calls didn’t include girls or women who looked like me. Even when I auditioned for plays seeking Latinos or Latinas, the understanding was, We don’t mean you. The shift in tone from casting directors was evident.

This book is set in Texas, in a predominantly white school. Some teachers and adults don’t realize their biases are racial. They think, This is how we’ve always done things. But Yuli is more aware. It raises her understanding of what is happening, which frustrates her. She hoped this year would be different, but it proves not to be.

I want to address the structure of The Story of My Anger, which I enjoyed. Your book is categorized as a novel-in-verse, but you also include prose and scenes written like play scripts. How did you decide on this approach?

It took a while to get there. My first version was a full prose novel written back in 2020, sparked by the George Floyd murder and the protests. I analyzed how I dealt with micro- and macroaggressions and racism in my life. It started as journal entries of a young girl writing about a problematic theater teacher. I wrote 60,000 words in prose and then tucked it away. After writing Aniana Del Mar, my editor asked, ‘What else do you have?’ I dusted off this book.

I realized, Let me try it as a novel-in-verse, which meant rewriting the whole thing. I faced challenges because much of what was happening was dialogue-based. Then, a light bulb went off: This is a book about theater. Why not write the scenes like a play? This approach opened up the book and allowed for more possibilities.

In the book, you reference for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, the 1976 work by Ntozake Shange. Yulieta keeps a worn-out copy of the play on her nightstand. What role did for colored girls have on you?

For Colored Girls was the first play I encountered with an all-Black female cast. I played Lady in Purple in college and later Lady in Blue in another version. It changed my understanding of what theater could be. It’s a choreopoem, mixing dance, lyrical work, and poems. It features voices speaking together and apart. It was a powerful experience to be part of a production directed, stage-managed, and cast with all Black women.

For Yuli, reading that play at a young age was transformative. It showed her the possibilities of theater and that she had a place in it.

The Story of My Anger also touches on book banning when the school board threatens her favorite teacher for the literature in his classroom. What message were you hoping to send by incorporating this thread in your book?

This is about fighting the violence of erasure on Black girls, Black people, and people of color. If our stories are silenced, you’re trying to erase our humanity and lived experiences. There are connections between theater and book banning. Who gets to be on stage or published reflects what stories we read and consume. This is all about storytelling and the stories that should be highlighted or taken away. Some may not see these connections, but I do as someone involved in both theater and writing.

Speaking of Yulieta’s favorite teacher, he is Mr. Gonzalez. In his class, she and her peers read books by BIPOC and disabled authors. Who inspired this character?

Yes, my husband inspired Mr. Gonzalez. He is an incredible educator and mentors many young people. He’s often the first BIPOC male teacher that many students have had. I’ve spent time in his classrooms and see how students respond to him. He loves teaching and making an impact. He’s a mentor even after students graduate.

I wanted to highlight that teachers like him exist. There are dedicated teachers who pour their heart and soul into their classrooms to uplift their students, especially students of color.

Anger, among other themes, is the undercurrent of this novel. What was your approach to characterizing Yulieta’s growing anger?

At first, she represses and stifles it. There’s a metaphor of the flame. Aniana was about water, while this book is about fire. Fire can create and destroy. It can make beautiful things but also cause harm. Yulieta stifles her anger, which grows and eventually causes harm. Her mom helps her harness this fire and anger to create change.

Women are often told that our anger is bad or wrong. We aren’t taught how to express it productively.

What do you hope readers take away from The Story of My Anger?

That art can be activism. Activism is a marathon, not a sprint. Even if the change we want doesn’t happen right away, we can and should keep fighting. We all have a voice and a story that matters. We should use our voice and story to uplift others and make a change in our communities—big or small.

I think about how activism doesn’t have to be on the frontlines. Yulieta and her brother are on the frontlines at times, but their mom is a patient advocate in the background. There are different ways to influence the resistance or causes we care about. I hope students realize that if public speaking terrifies them, they don’t have to speak in public. There are other talents they can use to help their communities and causes that matter to them. I hope they see themselves in these characters and think, ‘Oh, I can do that. Maybe that’s how I can help.’ That’s my hope.

_____________________

Visit our BookShop to preorder a copy of The Story of My Anger.

_____________________

About the Author:

Jasminne Mendez is a Pura Belpré Honor Award recipient and a Dominican-American poet, playwright, and author of several books for children and adults. She is also a translator and professional audiobook narrator. Her most recent publication, Aniana del Mar Jumps In (Dial), is a novel in verse about a young girl diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, receiving starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and others. Her YA memoir, Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American (Arte Público Press), and her debut poetry collection, City Without Altar (Noemi Press), were recognized with honors and awards by the Texas Institute of Letters. Her debut picture book, Josefina’s Habichuelas (Arte Público Press), won the 2022 Writer’s League of Texas Children’s Book Discovery Prize. She has translated Amanda Gorman’s best-selling picture books Change Sings (La canción del cambio) and Something, Someday (Algo, algún día), the best-selling picture book The 1619 Project: Born on the Water (El proyecto 1619: Nacieron sobre el agua) by Nikole Hannah Jones and Reneé Watson, and the Pura Belpré Award-winning graphic novel Frizzy (Rizos) by Claribel Ortega.

_____________________

Amaris Castillo is a journalist, writer, and the creator of Bodega Stories, a series featuring real stories from the corner store. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, the Lowell Sun, the Bradenton Herald, Remezcla, Latina Magazine, Parents Latina Magazine, and elsewhere. Her creative writing has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Spanglish Voces, PALABRITAS, Dominican Moms be Like..., and most recently in Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology and Sana Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice. Her short story, "El Don," was a finalist for the 2022 Elizabeth Nunez Caribbean-American Writers’ Prize by the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival. Amaris lives in Florida with her family. You can follow her work at amariscastillo.com.