There is beauty in our roots. Sometimes we think our roots are shameful, and people tell you that you're no good or your ancestors are no good or that you come from a neighborhood of no hope and terrible crime. But it's about the beauty of those places, and I carry that with me.
Poetry is how I feed the soul, and it's how I fire the furnace of writing.
When 'The Hummingbird's Daughter' came out, there was a certain backlash - 'Well, this isn't 'The Devil's Highway.'' That's just the way it goes.
The concept of a literature of witness - of bearing witness - has embedded in it the need for action. One must not simply hide in the shadows and type; one must also stand in the light.
When I was a little boy in Tijuana, it was wonderland. We left when I was probably four - I was dying of tuberculosis.
Borders are liminal spaces. Anyone worthy of the title of 'writer' is a border writer. We all are border people.
I missed the Wilco phenom while busy obsessing over rock en Espanol. So imagine my surprise when I found myself at O'Hare getting on a plane with my Chi-town homeboy, Jeff Tweedy. I loved the guy right away and loved his family. How odd to know somebody before you listen to them. I don't know if that's bad or good.
We want to ascribe a kind of tragic grimness to people, but people are funny.
I am actually a 'Seven Samurai' fan.
I read most often in bed as part of my attempted sleep ritual. But I spend a lot of time reading on planes and in hotels, too.
I was torn between the Americanness my mom wanted for me and the Mexicanness my father wanted - they were wrestling for cultural influence over me.
I'm always trying to, using literature, subvert people's responses.
I have often said I come from a family of unreliable narrators. I tend to believe their struggles with racism, identity, nationality do dovetail with my motivation to write.
To me, writing is prayer. I pray all the time.
The stupidity of militarized fences between two worlds is a metaphor for all the things that divide us as human beings.
I don't like being angry all the time; it's not good for me. I have to have serenity or else go to war.
The situation was kind of complicated in that my mother didn't speak Spanish. My father spoke English, you know, as best he could.
Spanish was my first language. Honestly, I learned to first speak in Spanish, not English, because my poor mother had to go to San Diego every day to work and then come back. And she would come home when I was an infant long after I was asleep.
I had not seen lawns till fifth grade - big green lawns.
I'm a theological writer mistaken for a political writer. My theme is grace versus karma.
