Only Little Boys Stories that they told me when we were little were stories about how she drowned her children--like a scary type of story. Most of them have her by the riverbank on a stormy, windy evening. She was used as a sort of boggy man. "If you don't behave, La Llorona is going to get you." She was my sanity. The way you believe in Santa Claus. Except it was something that would scare you and made you behave. But I was a little girl, and remember that basically they were little boys that were drowned. So I always looked at it from that point of view. "Oh...they were little boys. She's not coming after me. I'm a little girl." To me, the way it happened is like the lloronas of today. Remember the incident of the woman that pushed her car into the water with the two little boys? I think there has always been a Llorona in every culture. I don't think she's just in the Hispanic culture.

Interview with: Josefina Lovato Storyteller on Colchas Copyright 2001