The Mixquiahuala Letters

Negative male-female relationships abound in The Mixquiahuala Letters. Teresa’s male relatives all have issues surrounding women. Numerous other male characters pursue Teresa and Alicia sexually without provocation, including the Alvaro, the drag queens, the men who take them to the university and then try to rape them, Ponce, and his bosses. Wolfgang hurts Alicia by using her as a pawn to get to Teresa. The men whose interest they do reciprocate treat them as servile, use them to fulfill their own needs, or otherwise treat them unfairly, including Alexis, Libra, the medical student from Mexico City, and Abdel. Several men get involved with and then leave Alicia on her European/Caribbean trip, and her troubled relationship with her father is likely the foundation for her troubled interactions with other men. In contrast, Teresa’s father is nonexistent until the last section of the book. The feminine body is sometimes seen in startling juxtaposition to the masculine world, as when Alicia changes her tampon at the Mexican ruins, a juxtaposition that implies a fundamental conflict between the two realms. However, the women are bound to men by their need for sexual and emotional fulfillment.