Centering Brown Girl Stories: An Interview With Author Daphne Palasi Andreades
Turning her short story originally published in Kenyon Review in 2019 into a full-length novel was a feat author Daphne Palasi Andreades never expected to begin, much less see all the way through.
Flash forward some three years later in 2022 and Andreades has not only published her debut novel Brown Girls through Penguin Random House, one of the largest publishing houses in the country, but also given voice to the experiences of brown girls and daughters of immigrants. An ode to the vibrance of Queens, NY where Andreades herself grew up and a reflection on growing up, beauty standards, whiteness, and death as well as life, there really has never been another book like this–until now.
We caught up over email to chat all about the journey behind writing Brown Girls, Andreades’s stylistic choices, and what she hopes readers–especially brown girls–take away from such a blazingly honest and beautiful story.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Was there a moment in your life where you first felt drawn to writing and telling stories, and if so, what was it?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: I don’t think there was one moment, but I have kept a journal since I was kid—an aunt gifted me my first one for Christmas when I was seven. The journal had a teal cover and lined pages made of cardstock paper that felt luxurious, at least at that age. I’d record simple stories about my day. Later, as a teen, I would jot down three striking observations—images, bits of dialogue—before I went to bed. I’ve since done my best to hold on to the practice of keeping a journal. I’d also say that I felt drawn to writing and telling stories because of my family—I love listening to them. They tell stories that are vivid, humorous, tragic, nostalgic, full of slang and sometimes Filipino dialect, they weave in memories, pop culture, politics, and so much more, all at once. They model for me how rich and complex stories can be.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Who would you name as influences on your writing, both in your early years and today?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: The writers Edwidge Danticat and Jhumpa Lahiri were some of the first contemporary women of color authors I encountered as a teen, which had a profound impact on me. Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic influenced the “we” voice in my debut. Claudia Rankine’s Citizen and Maggie Nelson’s Bluets were books of poetry—hybrid texts, really—that were life-changing; they helped me see how art could be voracious, and draw from history, philosophy, visual art, media, autobiography, and blur genres in order to create something fresh and innovative.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How would you describe Brown Girls to a prospective reader?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: Brown Girls is my debut novel. The story follows a group of young women of color who are first and second-generation immigrant daughters, as they come-of-age in Queens, New York. It traces the arc of their lives, and examines motifs such as race and marginalization, as well as the solidarity that can exist across people of color from different diasporas. My book is set in Queens, which is actually my hometown. I’ve found that Queens, unlike Manhattan and Brooklyn, is a region that’s totally underrepresented in contemporary art and literature, despite being one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse places in the whole world. It is a place that’s incredibly vibrant. I also wanted to write about the complicated ties one may have to their community and home. In terms of form, it’s a novel that’s told entirely in the first-person plural, the “we,” a chorus of women’s voices.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How excited are you for your debut novel to finally be out in the world?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: Extremely excited! I worked on this book throughout grad school, various day jobs, a presidency that felt soul-crushing, and a global pandemic. I can’t count the number of times I wanted to give up—I’m glad I didn’t. It is extremely gratifying to see my book out in the world.
[UNPUBLISHED]: An excerpt of Brown Girls was first published as a short story in the Kenyon Review in 2019. How did you decide to transform those pieces into a full-length novel? For you, how does the process for writing a short story and a novel differ, if at all?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: Brown Girls originally began as a short story, which morphed into a novella. It wasn’t until later, when I’d accumulated more pages and found that I still had more to say about this world and its characters, that I took the leap and decided to call it a novel. Up until that point, however, I’d only written short stories (a form I still love). In terms of the process between writing short stories versus novels, there are many similarities and some major differences, at least in my experience. In any draft I write, regardless of genre or form, I go sentence by sentence, scene by scene. During revision, I focus on deepening characterization, cutting clichés and replacing them with fresher language; I zero in on how the sentences and broader sections flow together, in terms of pace, mood, and rhythm. When Brown Girls became a novel, though, I’d say there was a heightened layer of intensity and obsession compared to when I’d written short stories—I just couldn’t stop thinking about this world and these characters, and kept writing more pages.
[UNPUBLISHED]: As you mentioned, throughout the book, you employ a “we” point of view. How did you balance using a collective voice while also acknowledging the depth and breadth of brown girl experiences?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: I wanted the “we” to be a very elastic point-of-view, with the ability to expand and contract whenever I wanted. I was influenced by how the author Julie Otsuka used “we” in her gorgeous novel, The Buddha in the Attic—At any point in time, the “we” follows a wider group of girls for several pages; at other times a character appears in one scene and re-appears others; sometimes one character’s life encapsulated in a single sentence, and you never see her again. I wanted the “we” to be deft and shifting. It was a challenge that pushed me. To capture depth and breadth within the collective, however, I found that it was really important to show a wide range of experiences and paths within this “we.” To do so, I made these details as specific and as varied as possible.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How did you approach incorporating brown girl experiences that were different from your own?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: In the early stages of writing the novel, before I had any idea it would become a novel, I knew I wanted this “we” voice to include women of color across different diasporas, and who’d all grown up in Queens. This necessitated moving beyond my own experiences in order to truly capture a range. As preliminary research, I interviewed some of my childhood best friends, who, like me, were second-gen immigrant daughters and women of color. My friends are Panamanian, Haitian, Chinese, Dominican, Filipino, to name a few. I asked them about growing up in Queens, about their experiences within the immigrant communities they were raised in, and other questions like, what were the sounds, sights, and tastes they remembered from their neighborhood. It was really fascinating—I noticed these shared experiences, too, in the different ways colonialism had impacted our family histories, the various gender and cultural expectations that were imposed on us, as well as instances where our experiences diverged. I’m grateful to my friends for their generosity. I will say that their responses did not make it into the story in any parallel way, but instead, allowed me to imagine scenes, conflicts, and flesh out this Queens setting.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Few of the brown girls are seen frequently throughout the novel, with the notable exception of Trish and several others. What do you love about Trish and why is she so important within the larger story? For you, what does she represent?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: I have my own thoughts about what Trish represents within the story, but I want to leave room for readers to have their own interpretation! I’d prefer not to say more. Except that Trish was one of the hardest characters to write, the one who gave me the most “trouble,” as well as the one who taught me the most, in terms of being tenacious and determined as a writer.
[UNPUBLISHED]: For me, one of the most moving threads throughout the novel is when the characters find themselves preferring white boys over brown boys, believing the former is a more valuable status symbol. What were you hoping to say about colorism, beauty standards, wealth inequality, and cultural divides?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: Only some of the characters in the book have crushes and partners who are white, but not all of them do—there are characters who fall for people of color, too, and they play a huge role in the book.
Including the thread of romantic partners was just another example of how I wanted to capture the ways white supremacy—how whiteness has been centered and treated as superior in American society, as well as in other societies that have been impacted by Western colonization and imperialism—affect the psyche of these characters. White supremacy has perpetuated myths such as white skin being more beautiful and desirable, and whiteness—along with the power and privileges that accompany it—as something to aspire for, in general, especially among immigrants. I wanted to capture how this mindset manifests not just with regard to romantic partners and beauty standards, but within larger systems, as well–For example, in education/academia and corporate America. To speak more specifically about the romantic thread, however, there are certainly characters who’ve internalized the racism they encounter, as well as characters who genuinely fall in love with individuals who happen to be white, and grapple with the complicated histories between them.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What do you hope readers take away from the novel, especially those who also identify as brown girls?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: I hope that readers recognize themselves in these pages and, if they are women of color in particular, understand that their lives are absolutely beautiful and worthy. I hope my book sparks difficult, yet necessary, conversations about race, marginalization, history, immigration, privilege, and belonging. I hope that, in some way, shape, or form, it inspires people to work toward greater justice and inclusion. I hope it empowers people of color, immigrants, and marginalized folks to speak up and know their stories are incredibly valuable.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What do you love about this book and about brown girls?
[DAPHNE PALASI ANDREADES]: I love that brown girls—women of color—are complicated, resilient, and utterly beautiful in every way. I love that this book was written, in the beginning, for my younger self—all the things I wish I could have told her. I love that this book is an ode to Queens, and that it has already reached people in ways I never dreamed of.
