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If You Live In Poor Neighborhoods - I Know From Living In Several Poor Neighborhoods - The Worst Supermarkets In The City Are In The Poorest Neighborhoods, Where People Don't Have Cars.

-Sandra Cisneros

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If You Live In

Sandra Cisneros

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If You Live In Poor Neighborhoods - I Know From Living In Several Poor Neighborhoods - The Worst Supermarkets In The City Are In The Poorest Neighborhoods, Where People Don't Have Cars.

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More From Sandra Cisneros

We Tend To Think Of Orphans As Being The Protagonist Of Stories We Read When We're Kids, And Yet Here You Are: You're An Adult, You're Supposed To Manage, You're Supposed To Get Over It, You're Supposed To Go On With Your Life, And You Feel Like A Lost Child.

I Like To Mix It Up, Because The Kind Of Comments You Can Get From A Fiction Writer About Your Poetry Are Going To Be Very Different Than What You'll Get From A Poet.

[jorge Luis Borges] Had Short Stories, And I Was Trying To Learn How To Write Short Stories, And Then He Had These Things In The Middle That Were Like Fables, And I Loved Hearing Fables.

Every Single House Has Had Death Visit.

People Paused To Listen To Denise Chávez And She Had Them - With Gum On Her Shoes, She Had Them. She Said She Stepped On Gum When She Came Up To The Stage And She Couldn't Move, So She Had To Stay In One Spot Otherwise People Would See The Chiclet.

I Can't Go To Hindu Countries Where They Respect Rats And Mice, And I Can't Go Camping. I Don't Like To Go Into Subways, Because I Always See Them. Rats Are Like My Naguales [kindred Animal Spirits]. They Follow Me.

I Have To Understand What My Strengths And Limitations Are, And Work From A True Place. I Try To Do This As Best I Can While Still Protecting My Writer Self, Which More Than Ever Needs Privacy.

Believe Me, That Nap Is Better Than Sitting There For Three Hours And Nothing's Coming. I've Learned That Even If I've Slept Nine Hours And I Just Finished Breakfast, If I Feel Sleepy When I'm In Front Of That Computer, I'll Take A Nap. And It Really Does Help.

Now I Feel Life Is Really Short And I Have To Take Care Of Things.

Everything That I Write Comes When It Wants To, Out Of Its Own Need And It Dictates Its Form. I Don't Say, "i Am Going To Write A Novel."

Some People Need Flowers, Some People Need Dandelions. It's Medicine, It's What You Need At That Time In Your Life.

Spanish Is A Poetic Language, In Particular The Spanish Of Mexico Which Has A Wonderful Animistic Attitude You Might Not See In The Spanish Of The Peninsula. I Think It Has To Do With The Indigenous Way Of Looking At Nature.

If You Start Thinking About Who's Going To Read It [you're Writing], Or What Grade Will You Get, Or Is It Going To Win That Award, Or Are You Going To Get Into This Graduate Program, You're Blocking The Light, And The Light Is That Guidance And Love We Get When We Open Up Our Hearts And Are Guided By Our Higher Selves, Or God, Or The Buddha Lupe [buddha And The Virgin Of Guadalupe Fused Together, As They Are In The Tattoo On Sandra's Right Arm], Or Whatever You Believe In, Or Love.

You Want To Be Able To Say Anything When You Do Your First Draft, Because Some Of That Goofy Stuff That You Think Has Nothing To Do With It Is Probably Where The Mother Lode Is.

Sometimes I Feel I Can't Quite Master My Written And Spoken Spanish, Because I'm Too Much A Student Of English. I Would Need Another Lifetime To Learn It.

There Are Still Many Writers Out In The Bay, Extraordinary Writers Like Gina Valdez, A Poet Who I Just Saw In Portland. We Have Young People Like Eduardo Corral, Who Won The Yale Younger Poets Award. José Antonio Rodriguez, Published By Luis Rodriguez. But There Are Only A Few Of Us Who Are Paid Attention To In New York. There Are Legions Behind Us Who Are Not.

One Of The Things I Like To Pack, That I Take With Me All The Time, Is My Virgensita De Guadalupe. It Doesn't Take Much Room In Your Suitcase. If You Have One That Isn't So Fancy, You Can Use It On The Plane When You're Scared.

I Think People Are Much More Concerned About Money Now. There Aren't The Big Advances Of The Past. You Feel The Sense Of Nervousness About The Book Industry. It's Not Like Before. Not That I Knew Very Much About What It Was Like Because I Was A Newcomer To It, But I Get That Feeling That People Are More Conservative In Their Book Choices And What They Are Going To Publish And What's A Sure Sell. As Opposed To - Just Like In The Economy - A Sense Of Luxury And Sense Of Risk Taking Ten Years Ago.

I Think One Of The Great Primordial Fears We Have Once We Become Conscious Of Our Aloneness As Children Is The Fear Of Losing Our Mother. We Have That From The Moment We Realize We Can Lose Her Just In The Supermarket. As A Child, It Was More Terrifying Than Arithmetic.

To This Day, On My Cheat Days From My Diet, Which Are New Year's Eve And My Birthday, I Buy Luxury Foods That Are Very Indicative Of My Class.

I Didn't Intend To Be Writing - The Writer's Life. I Was Just Writing What Came To Me At The Time, But It Is A Map Of How This Writer Had To Break Many Barriers To Find, Not A Room Of Her Own, But A House Of Her Own.

You Don't Have To Be The Specialist On Everything. You Can Try To Inform Yourself.

For Me, A Story's A Story If People Want To Hear It; It's Very Much Based On Oral Storytelling. And For Me, A Story Is A Story When People Give Me The Privilege Of Listening When I'm Speaking It Out Loud.

I Realize That When I Moved Out Of My Father’s House I Shocked And Frightened Him Because I Needed A Room Of My Own, A Space Of My Own To Reinvent Myself.

I Never Paid Attention When People Said, "that's Gotta Be Poetry. That's Gotta Be Fiction," Except When I Was In A Graduate Program, And You Had To Claim Your Genre.

And The Nice Thing About Writing A Novel Is You Take Your Time, You Sit With The Character Sometimes Nine Years, You Look Very Deeply At A Situation, Unlike In Real Life When We Just Kind Of Snap Something Out.

Think About The Books That You Were Reading At A Certain Crisis In Your Life, What You Were Reading, And That's Because You Needed Them To Nourish Your Alma.

If You're Poor, Potato Chips Are The Food Of Life For You. It's The Caviar.

Mexicans Don't Think Of Ghosts As Haunting You.

[thich Nhat Hanh] The One That Revolutionized Buddhism. Instead Of Being Monks Just Engaged In Meditation, It Was Active Buddhism. You Went Out And Felt The Ills Of The Community Around You. Instead Of Retreating To A Monastery, You Were Out In The Streets Working. And He's Been A Great Help To Me, Just Reading His Book, So I Don't Feel Helpless About What I Can Do About All The Violence Around Me.

Afterwards, People Come And Say, "i Felt Like You Said That Just To Me. What You Said Is Something I'm Going Through Right Now," So You Know That Spiritual Connection Is Going On.

Mom Used To Walk With Me For Something Like Two Or Three Miles To Get To The Day-old Bakery. They Had Those Machines Where You Buy Doughnuts, Those Vending Machines With The Long Johns And Doughnuts. We Would Buy Those Bagels And Pastries Because That Was Our Treat. And Come Back With Shopping Bags Of These Sweets, And Who Knows What Was In It? That Was What We Could Afford That Could Feed That Many People.

This Is The Age Of Fear And So Many Of Us Feel Afraid To Speak Out About What Has Happened To Our Lives In The Wake Of 9/11. Television Promotes The World As A Scary Place For The United States And This Justifies Peeling Away Every Element Of Privacy We Had Before. The Media Is Monopolized So We Don't Even Hear A Lot Of Dissent About This New Era.

I Don't Close Myself To The Possibility Of Someplace Outside The United States, But It Would Have To Be Someplace With An Indigenous Community, Because That's Where I Feel At Home.

What Do We Call Our Harlem Renaissance? Maybe In The Future, It Won't Be Just Latino, Maybe It'll Be More Multi-multi, Because, You Know, People Are Such Fusions Now, Of So Many Different Cultures.

For Example, There's No Word Emocionó In English, So I Have To Say, "you, You Really Emotioned Me," It's More Precise, Even Though It Sounds Odd. "my Father Emotioned Me." Or "that Performance Really Emotioned To Me."

Being On A Highway, All That Speed And Aggression, Is Very Terrifying To Me.

Post 9/11, We've Seen Such Disastrous Policies On The Border. I Live Two And A Half Hours Away From The Border, And I've Seen Changes For The Communities There. I Feel Like It's An Occupied Zone. We're Losing Our Rights, And Both Sides Of The Border Are Terrified. The Mexican Population And The U.s. Population Are United In Fear.

Maybe All Pain In The World Requires Poetry.

People Like To Blame Mexican Food, But Look At What's Happening Globally, Look At All The Fast Foods And Products Filled With Trans Fat. Before The Mexican Revolution, A Hundred Years Ago, People Were Eating What Now Macrobiotics Tells Us To Eat, Corn, Black Beans, Rice. That's What People Were Eating - And Chile Peppers. That's A Healthy Diet.

What I've Learned Is, If I Have To Go Out And Speak, The Best Way To Get People's Attention Is To Tell Them A Story, Tell Them A Story That Came From My Corazón.

I'm Most Tired After I Read, After I've Just Done A Performance, But What I Try To Do Is To Fuel And Eat A Really Healthy Meal Before I Perform. I Want To Have Enough Energy To Talk To That Last Person.

You Can Never Have Too Much Sky . You Can Fall Asleep And Wake Up Drunk On Sky, And Sky Can Keep You Safe When You Are Sad. Here There Is Too Much Sadness And Not Enough Sky. Butterflies Too Are Few And So Are Flowers And Most Things That Are Beautiful. Still, We Take What We Can Get And Make The Best Of It.

When You're In That State Of Grief, Any Little Breeze, Any Hello, Any Confrontation, Any Grazing Of Someone Meeting Your Eyes, Might Cause You Suddenly To Burst Into Grief. You Could Be Looking At A Jar Of Peanut Butter In The Supermarket, And Then Start Crying.

I Have To Get My Will In Order. I Have To Get The Macondo Foundation Going. I Want To Invest The Money And Resources That I've Gotten From Working So Hard So That It's Shared And It Has Its Life Beyond Me.

Even If You're An Agnostic Or An Atheist, You Can Create An Altar, Because An Altar Is Simply Paying Homage To Someone's Life And Celebrating What They Did.

If You Live In Poor Neighborhoods - I Know From Living In Several Poor Neighborhoods - The Worst Supermarkets In The City Are In The Poorest Neighborhoods, Where People Don't Have Cars.

Poor Neighborhoods

If You're Going To Write About The River, You've Got To Get In.

You Know, If You've Got Nine People That You've Got To Get A Treat For - Because You Do Have Sweet Food, Even If You're Poor - You Can't Go Out And Buy A Sara Lee Cake. You Buy The Big Bag Of Cookies, Those Chocolate And Vanilla Ones With The Icing. That Has A Lot Of Trans Fat In It, But It Goes A Long Way With A Lot Of People.

We Started An Organization That's The Only Sub-organization Of The Macarthur Foundation And We Are Called The Macarturos. Usually When I Win Something, I'm The Only One Of My Ethnicity To Get It, But This Time I Met All These Latinos, And I Was So Excited. I'd Meet Someone And I'd Go, [...] "can You Come To San Antonio?" And They'd Go, "oh Yeah." [...] And Suddenly I Had Twelve People That Said They Would Come. And I Didn't Know How It Was Going To Be. And That's How The Macarturos Became A Reality, Where These Very Generous Geniuses Come To San Antonio And Work Together.

God Made Men By Baking Them In An Oven, But He Forgot About The First Batch, And That's How Black People Were Born. And Then He Was So Anxious About The Next Batch, He Took Them Out Of The Oven Too Soon, So That's How White People Were Made. But The Third Batch He Let Cook Until They Were Golden-golden-golden, And, Honey, That's You And Me.

I Began Writing As An Experimental Writer.

Believe It Or Not, Mexican Cooking, For Those Of You Who Have Not Gone Farther South Than Taco Bell, Uses A Lot Of Vegetables. But Those Vegetables Were Not Brought Here, Like Corn Mushrooms, Huitlacoche, Or Squash Blossoms.

I Think That You Need To Have Books That Talk About The Lives Of The Poor, And They Need To Be Involved - Involved In Acquisitions.

I Want To Write An Essay Called "fear Of Mexico," Because I Always Feel Like Mexico's This Lover That Never Writes To Me.

True Love In Mexico Isn't Between Lovers; It's Between A Parent And A Child. Mexico Is A Very Intense Culture Of Sons Adoring Their Mothers, And This Is Why I Claim That Mexican Culture Is Matriarchal. Because The One Constant, Faithful, Inviolable, Holy Love Of Loves - The Love Of Your Life - Is Not Your Wife Or Your Lover; It's Your Mother.

I'm Filled With A New Joy Mixed With Old Grief.

When You Edit, You Imagine Your Enemy Is Seated On The Other Side Of The Table. Your Enemy! And Your Enemy Is Going To Read That With A Viciousness, Because He Knows Where You Didn't Work On It. He's Going To Shake It And Really Aim For That Jugular. So You Are Going To Polish, And Revise, And Rewrite, And Cut Out, And Shape It, So That Your Enemy Has No Place To Grip It. That's How You Revise.

The Border Between The Dead And The Living, If You're Mexican, Doesn't Exist. The Dead Are Part Of Your Life.

I Usually Meditate And I Call My Spirit Allies - Anyone In The Spirit World That I've Got Connections With. Even In The Spirit World You Need Connections!

I Have This Great Fear Of Mexico City. I Won't Go To Mexico City Unless Someone Meets Me At The Airport And Is With Me. I Just Feel Very Vulnerable There.

When I'm Starting To Feel, "how Many More People Are There?" I Go Slower. I Ask Questions, And That Person Engaging With Me Gives Me Energy.

Even If We Don't Know If God Exists, We Can Be Certain Love Exists, Because Its Power Transcends Death.

Everything That Is Most Mine Belongs To Everyone Now.

I Realize That It's Like Spices In The Kitchen. I Need That Turmeric. I'm Sorry, But Cinnamon Isn't Going To Substitute . I Feel That I Can Teach My Listener About A New Word They Can Use Too. "well, What Words Are Part Of My Own Community, Even If I'm Monolingual, That I'm Not Allowing Myself To Use In A Public Sphere?"

When I Lost My Father, I Thought I Learned About Grief And Transition. However, Nobody Tells You What It's Like To Lose Your Mother. They Don't Tell You That You're Going To Feel Like An Orphan At Whatever Age You Are As An Adult.

My Weapon Has Always Been Language, And I've Always Used It, But It Has Changed. Instead Of Shaping The Words Like Knives Now, I Think They're Flowers, Or Bridges.

The Ego's Blocking The Light From Coming.

If You Can't Fall Asleep, Learn How To Meditate. I Would Recommend You Listen To A Beautiful Tape Called Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice [energy Evaluation Meditations For Morning And Evening, 1998]. It Was The One That Got Me Out Of My Writer's Block When I Was Writing Caramelo. It's By Carolyn Myss.

I Can't Do A Linear Novel. I'm Just Going To Write What I Need To Write.

Even If You Don't Believe In God, You Have To Believe In Love.

I Like To Think About The Bestseller List As, "this Is The Medicine Cabinet Of A Very Sick Country." Let Me Look And See What They're Reading That Isn't Nourishing Them.

There Are Two Things You Need To Ask For, To Open Up That Channel, So You Get The Light. One Is Humility, Because Our Ego Is Always Going To Block That Guidance, And So You Ask For Humility.and The Second Thing You're Going To Ask For Is Courage, Because What You're Going To Be Asked To Do Is Bigger Than What You Think You Can Do.

I've Come To Some Balance Now And Calmness. If Anything Happened To Me And I Got Hit By A Bus - I Hope This Doesn't Happen, But If Something Happened - My Body Of Work Is Something I Could Rest On. I Don't Feel, "oh God, I Have To Hurry Up . . ."

My Book Would Come Out In One Language, Then It Would Come Out In Another Language, Then It Would Come Out In One City, One Read, And I Was Always Being Called Away From My Desk.

When You Speak Words That Are Relevant To People, They Automatically Shut Up And You Know You Are In The Presence Of Some Very Magical Words. It's A Gift When Someone Can Listen And Be Quiet And Not Interrupt.

There Are A Few Of The Authors That I Think Have Made A Great Big Impact On My Life. The Way I Used To Do Things When I Was Younger Was More About Being Outrageous, And There Was A Lot Of Ego Involved In That.

You Get Good At Being By Yourself And You're Condemned To A Life Sentence Of Solitude. You Think, "wait A Minute! I Should Have Been A Tap Dancer Or Something". But In My Life, I Feel Like I Take My Stories To People Orally.

I'm From Chicago, So The Chicago Working-class Poets Still Mean A Great Deal To Me.

Marshall Rosenberg Talks About How We Can Create Peace In The Communities We Work With. He's Been Traveling To Warring Nations To Create Peace Within Those Countries.

A Lot Of People Mistake The Persona That I Create In Poetry And Fiction With Me. A Lot Of People Claim To Know Me Who Don't Really Know Me. They Know The Work, Or They Know The Persona In The Work, And They Confuse That With Me, The Writer. They Don't Realize That The Persona Is Also A Creation And A Fabrication, A Composite Of My Friends And Myself All Pasted Together.

My Friend, Dennis Mathis, Was Reading Eastern European And Japanese Experimental Writers, And I Brought The Latin American Writers To His Attention, So We Exchanged Books And Bounced Off One Another.

When I Was A Child, I Was Very Shy, And There's Still A Part Of Me That's Very Shy.

We Are Told By Media - Books, Television, Reality Shows - That Heartbreak Is This Terrible Thing And Yet We Should Seek It. We're Told That Heartbreak Is All About Love And We Should Just Go After That High Over And Over Again. We Are Told It Is Healthy To Be Addicted To This Kind Of Behavior And The Highs Associated With Love. But, That's Not All What Heartbreak Is.

The Beauty Of Literature Is You Allow Readers To See Things Through Other Peoples Eyes. All Good Books Do This.

You Know, We Should Have Cards Like The Deaf Have. "can't Talk, I'm Writing Today."

I Lose Things. I Write Things And They Disappear From My Desk, My Life. I Move A Lot. I Wanted To Gather Them And Put Them Under One Roof, Under One Cover, So I Could Document My Life In A Series Of Snapshots.

There's A Lot Of Things That Haven't Been Communicated To Our Communities. I Didn't Know These Things Myself. I Didn't Know That If You Ate Cheap Food, It Was Like Buying Cheap Gasoline, And There Was A Reason Why After An Hour You Get Headaches, Or Youhypoglycemic.

You Meditate And Then You Can Put On Your Pajamas, Or You Can Imagine You're Wearing Your Pajamas, And You Talk About Your Piece Of Writing In The Language You Would Use If You Were Wearing Your Pajamas And You Were Seated At A Table With Your Very Good Friend. And You Wouldn't Have To Get All Dressed Up Or Clean Up The Table.

I Was Looking At A Lot Of Experimental Writers, And I Was Very Intrigued By Short-short Fiction, Writers Who Would Write Little Things, What I Call Buttons Now, Little Vignettes.

I Prefer To Go To The Little Towns Now, Because In Little Towns People Are Kind. I Like Going To Tepotzlán.

Even My Mom. I Have To Tell Her, "if You Want A Snack, Don't Go To Bed With Potato Chips. Eat A Handful Of Pistachios And A Handful Of Dates."

Bricks Are Crumbling In Places, And The Front Door Is So Swollen You Have To Push Hard To Get In

Every Book Takes You To The Terror, That Terrible Place Of Possible Failure.

I Had A Mother Who Walked To The Library With Me, And You Can't Walk To A Lot Of Libraries In San Antonio Because - Guess What? - There Are No Sidewalks, Except In The Neighborhoods. And They're Across Big Boulevards, And It's So Hot, You Can't Even Walk To The Corner. So Things Like That Affect How Children Can Get To Libraries. So There Are A Lot Of Things Involved.

One Of The Books That Has Guided Me In The Last Ten Years Of My Life To Help Me To Be That Leader Is The Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace. He's A Vietnamese Monk. He Was Nominated For A Peace Prize By Dr. Martin Luther King.

I Think My Family And Closest Friends Are Learning About My Need To Withdraw, And I Am Learning How To Restore And Store My Energy To Both Serve The Community To The Best Of My Ability And To Serve My Writer's Heart.

You Know That You Wouldn't Take A Baby On A Plane Without Diapers, So When You Leave Your House, Take Care Of You, Like You Would A Baby. Don't Leave Your House Without Packing Some Healthy Things.

'hispanic' Is English For A Person Of Latino Origin Who Wants To Be Accepted By The White Status Quo. 'latino' Is The Word We Have Always Used For Ourselves.

Challenging The Status Quo

I Would Drive On Streets That Were One-way And Think, "why Are They All Honking At Me?"

Something I Always Tell Students Is, When You're Writing Something, You Want To Write The First Draft And You Want It To Come Out Easily In The Beginning. If You're Afraid To Say What You Really Have To Say, You Stammer. When You're Thinking Of Your Listener, That's When You Start Stuttering And It's Just Because You're Nervous That Your Listener Is Passing Judgment.

Thinking Of You

You Were Given That Pain And That Vision Because You Have Something To Do With It.

Even Though It's Hard To Believe, But People Who Know Me Really Well Know I'm Shy. I Have To Go Past That Fear.

You Know How Women Have This Clock When They Want To Have A Baby? I Had This Clock Where I Wanted To Win A National Award By Thirty, Be At A Big Press By Thirty-five. I Was Always Working With These Self-driven Goals.

Imagine Americans Who Go To Paris. Why Would You Want To Go Where Someone's Going To Disparage You? Why Would You Go Anywhere Where They Treat You Bad? Well, That's How It Is For Us To Go To Mexico. You Have To Be On Your Guard, Because I Think The Mexicans Are Harder On The Mexicans, The Mexican-americans. They Don't See Us As Mexican. I Think Part Of It's A Class Issue And A Color Issue. We're More Connected To Their Servants, So What Are We Doing Staying At A Nice Hotel? There's A Kind Of Shame.

When You Have Your Heart Broken Wide, You Are Also Open To Things Of Beauty As Well As Things Of Sadness. Once People Are Not Here Physically, The Spiritual Remains, We Still Connect, We Can Communicate, We Can Give And Receive Love And Forgiveness. There Is Love After Someone Dies.

I Want To Thank You, Especially Those People Who Are Agnostic Or Atheist. I Don't Mean Any Offense By The Things I Said Of The Spirit World. Thank You For Allowing Me To Speak About The Spiritual, Because I Can't Talk About My Life Or Writing Without Mentioning That.

Writing Poetry Helps Me To Write My Fiction; Each Thing Helps The Other.

That's All You Have To Ask From Yourself Writing A Book. That It's The Best You Can Do And That You Did It Without Any Ego Involved And That You Did It For Somebody Else. That's The Best You Can Do.

Get Yourself Empty In The Eastern Sense. Not In The Western Sense. In The Western Sense When We Feel Empty We Feel Lonely, Miserable, But In The Eastern Sense - "i'm So Empty, Because I'm Filled With Everything, And I'm Connected To Everything." It's Very Energizing. You Want That Kind Of Emptiness, Whatever You Have To Do To Get Yourself Quiet.

The Truth Has A Strange Way Of Following You, Of Coming Up To You And Making You Listen To What It Has To Say.

All Of My Works Are Performance Pieces, As Is True For Many Writers Of Color, Writers Who Have Indigenous Roots - Because Our Basis Is Spoken Word.

There's All Kinds Of Ways To Wean Yourself Off Of Sugar - Because It Is Like An Addiction.

The Devil Knows More From Experience Than From Being The Devil

People Want You To Be The Ambassador Of Everything. This Happens To Me Especially When I Go To Europe. I Have To Be The Ambassador Of Everything. I Learned This From Elena Poniatowska - Intelligent Woman, Great Lady, One Of My Heroes, One Of My Spiritual Mentors, I Love Her. Someone Is In This Big Museum And They Ask Her, "elenita, What Do You Think About Mexican Women . . ." And She Says, "i Haven't A Clue!"

We Can Have Our Hearts Broken Over So Much More. It Is Important To Recognize The Full Spectrum Of Heartbreak. We Can Be Heartbroken By Lost And By Disappointment. But Heartbreak Is Not Just This Negative Image We See, It's Not This Terrible Experience That Brings No Benefits.

There Are Many Latino Writers As Talented As I Am, But Because We Are Published Through Small Presses, Our Books Don't Count. We Are Still The Illegal Aliens Of The Literary World.

I Learned From The Macarturos. I Had Never Been At A Table With A Labor Organizer And A Playwright And A Performance Artist And An Anthropologist And A Human Rights Lawyer. Usually At Most Gatherings, It's All Writers. But Suddenly I Was At A Table With All These Different People And I Learned From Each Of Them, Learned From The Work They're Doing, Learned New Ways To Solve My Problems.

A Second Person That's Come To My Life Very Recently, And I'm Thankful For It, Is Marshall Rosenberg, The Founder Of The Nonviolent Communication Organization. He Has All These Books About How We Can Use Our Language Nonviolently To Help Create Peace. He's Using A Lot Of Buddhism Too, But He's Helping Me To Think About Language.

I Had To Learn Quick, Because I Was Performing In Cinco De Mayo Festivals With Babies Crying And People Lifting Their Beers, And You Know The Feather Dancers Would Come, And They'd Say, "what Are You, A Poet? You're Next".

Perhaps The Greatest Challenge Has Been Trying To Keep My Time To Myself And My Private Life Private In Order To Do My Job. Everything That Is Most Mine Belongs To Everyone Now.

I Find Myself Using Spanish Words Much More Now That I'm Older, And I Guess I Have The Authority To Do It In Public Spaces In Ways That I Felt I Couldn't When I Was Teaching Here Fifteen Years Ago.

Your Prospective Employer, Or The Person You Have A Crush On, Or The Person You Want To Talk To. You're Judging Yourself, You Know, Thinking About Your Listener. You're Not Thinking About What You're Saying. And That Same Thing Happens When You Write.

Thinking About You

I Feel Comfortable In Spanish, I Chat Like A Parrot, But I Don't Have The Confidence In Spanish That I Do In English.

I Know There Are A Lot Of Women Who Are Afraid Of Driving On Highways.

Those Of Us Who Are Writers And Have To Perform To Communities That Aren't Used To Coming To Book Events, I Would Recommend Taking Some Theater.

"you're Next, After The Feather Dancers." And You Had To Get Their Attention, Because Otherwise People Would Go, "oh, A Poet." You Really Have To Learn.

I Try To Be As Honest About What I See And To Speak Rather Than Be Silent, Especially If It Means I Can Save Lives, Or Serve Humanity.

I Think A Lot Of Education Has To Be Involved. If They Would Have Alternative Items, So That, Say, For A Dollar More, You Can Get Breakfast Tacos Stuffed With Egg Whites, And Olive Oil, And Avocado; Not Guacamole, Because They Put The Salt In It. Just Ask For Fresh Avocado Slices, And You Could Have That.

I Was Reading Emily Dickinson And Edwin Arlington Robinson, But These Weren't The Poets That Influenced Me. I Think Gwendolyn Brooks Influenced Me Because She Wrote About Chicago, And She Wrote About Poor People. And She Influenced Me In My Life By Giving Me A Blurb. I Would See Her In Action, And She Listened To Every Single Person. She Didn't Say, "oh, I'm Tired. I Gotta Go." She Was There, And Present, With Every Single Person. She's One Of The Great Teachers.

I Was Very Lucky. I Don't Know German, Or Dutch, Or Chinese, Or Thai. I Don't Know Them, So I Can't Judge, So I Have To Go On The Word Of The Publisher That It's A Good Translation.

The Only Reason We Write - Well, The Only Reason Why I Write; Maybe I Shouldn't Generalize - Is So That I Can Find Out Something About Myself. Writers Have This Narcissistic Obsession About How We Got To Be Who We Are. I Have To Understand My Ancestors - My Father, His Mother And Her Mother - To Understand Who I Am. It All Leads Back To The Narcissistic Pleasure Of Discovering Yourself.

It's What's Available To The Poor Communities. They Do Buy Healthy Stuff, You Know, But The Lettuce Is Usually Iceberg Lettuce And To Get Any Taste, They Have To Use All That Ranch Dressing.

Before You Speak, Get Very Quiet, Do The Meditation, Say, "use Me As A Channel For What Needs To Get Said To This Community. This Community Needs To Hear Something Very Important That I'm The Only Person In The Room Who Can Say It. Please Help Open Me So That I'm Not Frightened And Speak Through Me. Let Me Be That Channel So That I Can Help Heal." You Make Yourself So Humble That You Really Are Like A Flute And That Music That Comes Out Comes From El Corazón. All The People You're Connected To From That Light That We Call Love.

She Became Politically Conscious Thanks To Studs Terkel And The Radio. She Started Reading All The Books We Brought Home From College And Was A Great Fan Of Noam Chomsky. She Was A Real Lefty And Yet Was Not Able To Meet Her Dream Of Becoming An Artist. She Got Drafted Into Motherhood Big Time - Seven Kids - And That Wasn't The Life That She Had Planned. So She Opened The Path So That I Could Be The Artist That She Wanted To Be.

You Know How Sometimes You Meet Writers That Are So Full Of Themselves? They Feel Really Proud That They Wrote Something . But What They Don't Understand - And I Like To Tell This To Writers - Is That Writing Is Like Fishing. It's Just Like Fishing. If You Don't Fish That Often, You're Not Going To Catch That Many Fish.

I Think There's Some Great Stuff Coming. I Do Feel That. I Think We Have Reached Our Harlem Renaissance.

I Think There's A Rule That Once You Want To Live Somewhere, You Can't Find A Job.

I Was Raised In Chicago, So Always Used Latina. It's What My Father And Brothers Called Ourselves, When We Meant The Entire Spanish-speaking Community Of Chicago.

One Press Account Said I Was An Overnight Success. I Thought That Was The Longest Night I've Ever Spent.

So How Are You Supposed To Learn How To Drive With This Guy Yapping At You? My Brothers Were The Ones Who Got To Practice. So When You Have To Get On The Expressway, You're Afraid. That's What I Think. That's Why I Take Back Routes On Two-lane Highways.

My Idea Was Always To Start With A Small Press And Then Move Up To A National Press. I Had Those Goals For My Career From The Time I Was A Very Young Woman. I Wanted To Win A Local Award, Then I Wanted A State Or National Award. Small Press, Big Press. Some Women Fantasize About Their Weddings, Their Husbands, And Children. I Fantasized About What I Wanted To Accomplish With My Books.

I Always Tell People That I Became A Writer Not Because I Went To School But Because My Mother Took Me To The Library. I Wanted To Become A Writer So I Could See My Name In The Card Catalog.

I Can't Stand It When People Say, "if You're Writing A Novel, You Should Read This And That." Because It's Like Giving Someone Another Person's Prescription. How Do You Know That's What They Need?

I Learned When I Was A Student In Connecticut. I Had An Italian-american Teacher Who Gave Me Classes For A Week, And Then Said, "okay, You're Ready." And I Wasn't Ready. I Didn't Know How To Drive!. But He Knew The Policeman Who Gave The Test. And That's How I Got Through.

I Usually Say Latina, Mexican-american Or American Mexican, And In Certain Contexts, Chicana, Depending On Whether My Audience Understands The Term Or Not.

I Can Get By And Chatter And Talk And Tell Funny Stories, Make People Laugh, But I Don't Have As Many Words, I Don't Have The Vocabulary. I Think If I Forced Myself To Read In Spanish - You Know, I Always Say I'm Going To, But I Lose My Patience Reading In Spanish, Because I Really Do Read The Way A Third Grader Does, Mouthing The Words. That Takes A Long Time!

You Can Try Reading Books That Will Help You Be A Leader, Like Marshall Rosenberg And Thich Nhat Hanh. Be Very Humble And Say, "i Don't Know Why. I Don't Feel Qualified, But I Accept This Role That You Gave Me, And So Help Me."

Every Writer I Admire Is My Teacher. If You Look At It, And If You Care To Read Carefully Enough And To Read And Reread A Text, You Teach Yourself Something About Craft.

When I Say What I'm Reading, This Is What I Need. I Know The Ills That Plague Me.

One Of The Things We Learned From That Panel Is The Way Poor Communities Use A Library Is Very Different From Wealthy Communities. But The Way The Library Books Are Measured Are By How Many Books Are Taken Out. And People In Poor Communities Sometimes Won't Take The Book Out Because They're Afraid To. They're Afraid Of Losing It And Not Being Able To Replace It.

You Don't Want Somebody Who Doesn't Know His Own Heart, Do You? You'll Find Someone Who's Brave Enough To Love You. Someday. One Day. Not Today.

The Most Powerful Speaking You Can Do Is The Speaking That Comes From Your Heart And Your Love.

I Believe Love Is Always Eternal. Even If Eternity Is Only Five Minutes.

The Tsa Tears Through Your Bags At The Airport And The Nsa Watches What Books You Buy And What You Say Over The Telephone And Online. It Doesn't Feel Like Anything Is Private Anymore.

To Me, The Virgen De Guadalupe Is Just A Vessel For Me To Recognize My Own God Within Myself.

I Was Interested In Cross-pollinating The Two. I Thought There Was Something Lovely In The Little Vignette Forms. I Wanted To Explore That.

I Look At Thich Nhat Hanh And I Look At Marshall Rosenberg, And They're More Concerned About The Long Range. And That Long Range Means That You Have To Sit Down With People Who Don't Think Like You. I Want To Reach People Who Don't Think Like Me.

My Readers Are As Diverse As Any Group You Will Ever See. Something That Booksellers Always Tell Me. That They Are Always Surprised At The Kind Of People That Come To My Readings. That They Are Such A Mix Of Ages And Colors. It Looks Like People Spilling Out Of An Elevator.

[courage] Always Bigger Than What You Think You Can Handle, But You're Never Going To Be Given Something You Can't Handle. So You Say, "okay, When You Tell Me What It Is That I'm Supposed To Do, Please Give Me The Courage To Do It."

You Know, You Want To Be Outrageous When You're Young, So All The Young People Say, "oooh . . ." Now My Tactics Are Different.

I Think I Didn't Know What I Was Creating, As Much As I Knew What I Didn't Want To Do. And I Didn't Want My Mother's Life. She Was An Unhappy, Frustrated Artist Who Always Dreamed Of A Life That Was Never Going To Be Hers.

We Changed It To Emocionó, The Way You Say In Spanish, "to Emotion Me" [to Be Moved]. That, As Opposed To "haunt." We Wanted The Feeling Of Sadness And Grief And Obsession, So We Used Emocionó.

My Idea Of A Meal, If I Was Hungry, Was To Open A Bag Of Potato Chips.

I Do Travel A Lot, Because I Need Oxygen, I Need To Go To Places To Meet People Who Aren't Upset At Me Because I'm Asking For Peace.

Revenge Only Engenders Violence, Not Clarity And True Peace. I Think Liberation Must Come From Within.

One Of The Things I Used To Dream Of Is That If I Could Just Be Funny Like Red Skelton, If I Could Be A Comedian Like Red Skelton - That's What I Watched On Tv - Then Maybe I Would Have Friends. I Just Remember That If I Told Stories To My Friends, They Listened. And In My Family, With Nine People Talking At The Same Time, It's Really Hard To Get People To Listen To You. We Were All Craving Attention.

Generally If You're A Daughter In A Mexican Family, No One Wants To Tell You Anything; They Tell You The Healthy Lies About Your Family.

My Trainer Taught Me, Because He's Iranian, And That's A Beautiful Snack [pistachios]. I Have Some With Me, Actually, In My Bag. You Could Eat That On A Plane Instead Of The Salted Nuts. And A Serving Size A Day Is The Size Of Your Hand, Not The Size Of Your Head!

That's What You Need For Your Writing - To Learn How To Be Present, Learn How To Be Calm. So Take That Nap, Do That Meditation.

I Know The Books That I Need To Help Me To Be Wiser Than My Years And Be Kinder And More Compassionate And More Patient Than I Really Am.

But I Deal With This By Meditating And By Understanding I've Been Put On The Planet To Serve Humanity. I Have To Remind Myself To Live Simply And Not Overindulge, Which Is A Constant Battle In A Material World.

The Ability To Be Present With Every Single Person And Engage Was A Great Model For Me Of The Work That A Writer Needs To Do. Writers, Living Or Dead, Still Guide Me In Many Ways.

I Learn Through Listening And Watching Other Performers That Are Very Good, Like Denise Chávez, Dorothy Allison.

I Hope I'm Not Just Looked As A Writer That Is Popular But As A Writer Of Literary Value.

There Was A Time When I Used To Go To Mexico Every Year. But Then Mexico Changed A Lot - Between 1995 And 2005, Mexico Changed A Lot.

I Don't Just Want To Talk To The Choir. I Want To Sit Down And Be Respectful Of The People Who Are Most Unlike Me, To Get Them To Hear Me And Think. It Doesn't Mean You're Going To Change Them Right There, But Just So They Can Hear You And What You're Saying.

I Think Of Reading As Like A Medicine Cabinet.

By Community I Mean That Community You Have A Special Vision For, That Only You See, That No One Else In A Room Sees. That Special Community In Pain, That Through A Pain You've Suffered, You're Able To Have That Vision, That Super-ray Vision.

I Think That It's Not Enough To Do The Little Band-aid Things Of Having Celebrities Come And Read To Children. Not That We Don't Need To Read To Children, But We Don't Need To Just Do It One Time And Feel Good About It. I Think We Need To Think Long Range About Poor People And Their Relationship To Libraries.

Each Book Gets Harder, Each Book Gets Harder And Harder. I Always Feel Like Crying When I Have To Write.

I've Been On Television Saying, "¡vamos A La Biblioteca!". That Was Great. Nobody Had Ever Asked Me.

If Educators Were Really Understanding Of That, They'd Say, "you Know What? Forget About Bilingual, We're Going To Do Multilingual Education." So Children Are Ready For The New Millennium. We're Way Behind Compared To Countries In Europe. If We Were Multilingual, Imagine How Much You Would Learn About Your Own Culture, About The Sensibilities Of What's Important In Your Own Culture.

That's Why It's Important To Be Multilingual, Because It Teaches You So Much About Your Own Language.

I Was Reading Carl Sandburg And Gwendolyn Brooks, And I'm Still Very, Very Deeply Moved By Gwendolyn Brooks's Life And Her Work.

The More You Speak More Languages, The More You Understand About Yourself. It's Like Being Blind. You Aren't Less Of A Person, But You're Missing Out On Wonderful Things.

There's A Lot Of People That Need These Stories, And They Can't Come To My Book, So I'm Going To Be The Bookmobile And I'm Going To Come To Them.

I Grew Up With This Kind Of Grocery Store That Caters To The Poor. They Serve You The Worst Food.

I Remember When They Started Publishing Latino Fiction Years Ago. You Had To Be Really Good To Get Published. Now You Don't Have To Be That Good.

What You're Going To Be Asked To Do Is Bigger Than What You Think You Can Do. It's Always Bigger Than What You Think You Can Handle, But You're Never Going To Be Given Something You Can't Handle.

I'm A Witch Woman--high On Tobacco And Holy Water. I'm A Woman Delighted With Her Disasters. They Give Me Something To Do. A Profession Of Sorts...i Have The Magic Of Words. The Power To Charm And Kill At Will.

We Need To Write Because So Many Of Our Stories Are Not Being Heard. Where Could They Be Heard In This Era Of Fear And Media Monopolies? Writing Allows Us To Transform What Has Happened To Us And To Fight Back Against What's Hurting Us. While Not Everyone Is An Author, Everyone Is A Writer And I Think That The Process Of Writing Is Deeply Spiritual And Liberatory.

We Women Shouldn't Get Our Driver's Licenses Till Real Late In Life.

I Live In A Town That's Two And A Half Hours From The Border. I Know People Who Have Lived In San Antonio For Generations, Sometimes Seven Generations, Their Families Are From There, And They Are Of Mexican Descent, And They've Never Gone Farther Than The Border.

You Know How Sometimes You're Talking To People Who Love You And Give You Unconditional Love, And You Say, "but You Know What? Let Me Back Up. I Forgot To Say . . ."you Can Do That, Right? You Don't Hesitate And Say, "oh My God! I Forgot To Say That!". You Just Speak! And You Say It All, Until You Have Nothing More To Say. And That's Your First Draft. It's Done.

Unconditional Love

[dennis Mathis] Was Very Sensitive About Keeping The Unique Way That I Spoke English - It Had A Lot Of Mexicanisms Or Mexican Syntax. So You Keep It In Because It's Adding Something Unique.

You Know How They Say, "find Your Voice"? That's Your Voice, In Your Pajamas. And It Doesn't Mean That You're Going To Publish It Or Print It Or People Are Going To See You In Your Pajamas. It Just Means You Are Going To Construct The Foundation In Your Pajamas, In That Voice.

I Was So Happy When I Went To Rome And I Saw That The Romans Eat Them Too, The Squash Blossoms. [...] No Wonder I Like The Italians!

Books Are Medicine And You Have To Take The Right Medicine That You Need At That Moment Or That Day Or That Time In Your Life.

I Don't See Any Kind Of Mirror Of Power, Male Power, That Is, As A Form Of Liberation. I Don't Believe In An Eye For An Eye. I Don't Believe This Is Truly Freedom.

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