Letter to a Bigot: Dead But Not Forgotten

Written by Myriam Gurba

Narrated by Myriam Gurba

With the publication of her electric true-crime memoir Mean—hailed by The New York Times as “a pair of brass knuckles disguised as a book”—writer, artist, and activist Myriam Gurba flouted expectations, of genre and style, tone and intention, and signaled a refusal to behave according to anyone else’s rules. She learned early in life, growing up in a mostly white coastal California town, that the rules are rigged, made by people who do not have her best interests as a queer Mexican American woman at heart. One man in particular schooled her in the distorting, painful effects of bigotry, using Trumpian tactics long before Trump ascended to power: George Hobbs, who served as mayor of her hometown, Santa Maria, California, off and on from 1966 to 1994.

In this direct address to Hobbs, A Letter to a Bigot: Dead But Not Forgotten, she chronicles all the ways in which he turned the bias already afflicting her community from a simmer to a boil and made her coming of age a struggle for survival. In the summer of 1990, when Gurba was only thirteen, Hobbs gave a speech before the Santa Maria Valley Economic Development Association in which he declared that the region had a “Mexican problem,” advocating for “U.S. financed colonies” for immigrants at the southern border. Calls for his resignation were no match for the support he received, and within months Gurba would experience firsthand the emotional and physical violence to which Hobbs had given license. In high school it only grew worse, and she became expert in recognizing not just the overt expressions of racism and sexism around her—the slurs and physical menacing—but the subtler expressions of it, too, as in the local papers’ debasing coverage of Indigenous people living in their region and in her English teacher’s critiques of her writing. When she was assaulted again, this time by a man who went on to murder a Mexican migrant, a woman who still haunts Gurba to this day, there was no longer any space between the political and the personal, no room for excuses for “leaders” like Hobbs or Trump and the power structures they depend on and that depend on them, no condoning the scapegoating, hate-mongering, and hypocrisy they practice. Her trauma and pain became her fuel, irreverence and rebellion her art.

Like her memoir, this timely and unnervingly candid Everand Original is a rallying cry to shatter the status quo, from a woman who has a hard-won understanding of the costs of complacency. She’s long been acquainted with the adversaries of hope and progress, and, like the fury she channels, that indeed she has become—“una diosa furiosa,” cheers author Luis Alberto Urrea in tribute—she’s taking those adversaries on one by one, dead or alive, without apology, without politeness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Everand Originals
• Release date: Oct 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781094412894

Myriam Gurba

Myriam Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the true crime memoir Mean, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. O, The Oprah Magazine, ranked Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review, Time, and 4Columns. She has shown art in galleries, museums, and community centers. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Reviews for Letter to a Bigot

[Robin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A poignant exploration of growing up under racism and homophobia. This book teaches about Indigenous Mexicans and Mexican culture along the way, and I feel like I learned a lot by listening to it.

[RoyJohnson490 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This incredible, scathing letter to a racist mayor explores racism, white supremacy, and misogyny through colorful language and disturbing real stories. You can feel the impact of the verbal lashing the author gives this man and it leaves an impact after you finish it.

[katie richmond · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Anyone who has a problem with her calling out a man for failing to do anything but bring more hate and racism into this persons life, is extremely privileged and probably white. As a white person, I enjoyed her calling out this old white guy who probably thought he was the shit. Take out “the” and you may be close. Much respect to this author for sharing her story.

[Karen Chandler · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

How can you profess to be a Christian when you are such a hypocrit? You are such a bigot. A wasted read.

[Dax · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Identity politics is for incredibly superficial people who think life revolves around their looks, that is skin color, and sex. These sad people can't see the humanity that unites us all beneath such self centered obsessions.

[Cristian Diaz Basualto · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

terrible things were described in the book, it depressed me.

[Elva Lopez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The truth of how words can hurt and empower people to act out against another human who they feel has no value !

[Thomas Clothier · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Narcissistic, unstable and weak people, incapable of the courage required to adopt a sense of responsibility or identities that are rooted in common sense or reality, are spawning a deranged ideology to coincide with their identity confusion. A terribly weak generation has emerged. Corporations, and its media machinery, support and nurture this group and in turn, the group supports whatever mission the corporations suggest. Always believing they are entitled to special treatment and prone to excessive bouts of self-aggrandizing, they're the dangerous foot soldiers of modern fascism.

[Elwyn Hudson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What I never understood as these racist that I have been around all my life in the south east, claim to be Christian. I have learned to stay away from the religion that I grew up with.

[Josie Moore · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This letter made me very sad. Brutally honest and beautifully written.

[G A McKee · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I Googled the author’s name. I read some of her bitchy literary outpourings. It’s toxic, identitarian, virtue-signaling hate speech, filled with fear and loathing with a high dose of bile. If that’s the sort of stuff that you need to read, then that’s your choice. Maybe the author would be better advised to paint her pain, like Frida Kahlo.

[Mike O · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wil not read this book,because it probably Liberal fantasy nonsense!!!

[Vay Hay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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