The Grasshopper Lost Its Wings centers around the tender love story between a poor young juice vendor and a wealthy university student, and the class pressures and family expectations that threaten their relationship. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The inspiration came from my own life and from the people I have known along the way. I went to university in Mexico City, and many of the people who appear in the beginning of the book are inspired by people I knew there. I saw how love, friendship, ambition, and family expectations could be shaped by class, money, and social pressure.

Later, when I moved to Chicago, I met many immigrants and listened to their stories. I heard about what they had left behind, what they missed, and what they had to do to survive in a new country. I wanted to share those stories too.

So the love story between a poor young juice vendor and a wealthy university student became more than a romance. It became a way to show the divisions in Mexico City, the pain of leaving home, and the dreams that follow people when they cross borders.

How much research did you conduct into Mexico’s political climate during the 1990s?

I conducted a great deal of research, but I also lived through that period, so the political atmosphere was not abstract to me. I was in Mexico City during the 1990s, and I remember the uncertainty, the conversations, the fear, and the shock surrounding the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio.

There are many movies, documentaries, articles, and interviews about that moment, and I wanted to understand not only the facts, but also the confusion and fear people felt in Mexico at that time.

After I finished the book, I wanted to keep the same format of my first book: a novel where history, memory, and personal stories are woven together. But this time, I also wanted to bring in stories from Mexicas and other Indigenous traditions from central Mexico. I spent almost a year reading, learning, and trying to match each chapter with the right story or legend.

For me, the research was not only political. It was also cultural and emotional. I wanted the history of the 1990s, the Colosio assassination, and the older Indigenous stories of Mexico to speak to each other inside the novel.

What does the image of the “grasshopper losing its wings” symbolize for you?

Chapu is a diminutive of chapulín, which means grasshopper. In Mexico City and central Mexico, the grasshopper is not just an insect; it carries many cultural references. Grasshoppers are everywhere in our language, our parks, our food, and even our popular culture. We eat chapulines, there are places named after them, and many people remember television characters like El Chapulín Colorado, a kind of comic grasshopper hero.

So for me, the image of the grasshopper losing its wings is connected to Mexico itself. It is playful, humble, and familiar, but also symbolic. Chapu carries that name because he comes from that world: a world full of humor, memory, survival, and cultural identity.

I do not want to give away too much of the story, but there is a reason I chose the word lost. For a while, I thought about using the word grow, because the story is also about change and survival. But lost felt more honest. Sometimes life does not simply make us grow; sometimes it takes something from us first.

The title is about that loss, but also about the strength to keep moving.

When readers finish the novel, what feeling or question do you hope remains with them?

When readers finish the novel, I hope they really like Chapu. I want them to see him as a nice guy, a good person, someone with a big heart who is trying to survive the circumstances around him.

I also hope readers understand immigrants a little better. Many times, people do not leave because they stop loving the place where they were born. They leave because life, family, money, politics, or opportunity push them into circumstances where they have to move.

I believe most immigrants love the place they come from. They remember it constantly: the food, the streets, the sounds, the people, the small things that made them feel at home. Those memories travel with them.

And immigration is not only between countries. It can also happen between states, cities, or communities. Anytime you leave the place that shaped you, a part of you stays behind, and another part of you has to learn how to belong somewhere new.

So I hope readers finish the book with more tenderness and compassion, not only for Chapu, but for anyone who has had to leave a home they loved.

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