Between The Sun And Poverty There Was

I Had Serious Reservations About Putting My Son In The Public Schools In My Area. I Have A Tremendous Amount Of Fear For The Future Of My Boy. He's Nine-and- A-half And Dark-skinned. By The Time He's 12 Or 13, Who Knows Who He's Going To Be Identifying With In These Days When You Get Shot Down For Wearing Expensive Nikes To School...i've Heard That If A Latino Makes It To 19 Years Of Age, He Has A Good Chance Of Surviving Into Adulthood. Up Until Then, You Don't Know.

As Time Has Gone On And We're At The End Of The 20th Century And Major Publishing Is A Big Business, Yes, Of Course We're Going To Get A Lot Of Plain, Mediocre Trash. There Are A Lot Of Writers Who Get Huge Advances For Books That Don't Go Anywhere And They Have To Burn Them Somewhere Or Throw Them Away. I Always Think About All The Poor Trees That Have Been Sacrificed.

I Was Just, Like, Not At All The Office Type; I Was The Artist Type.

Many European Countries Are Fascinated With Minorities From The United States. They Still See This Country As A World Power And They Covet That Power...i Was Approached By A Professor Once At The Sorbonne In Paris And Asked About Racism In This Country, And When I Reflected On Racism On The Streets Of Paris - You Know, I'd Be Considered An Arab There -well, She Didn't Want To Address That...it Just Goes To Show It Was Easier For Europeans To Study Racism In The United States Than It Is From Within The Belly Of The Beast.

The Language In New Mexico Is Very Different. At First When You Hear The Speech Here, You Don't Really Know What To Do With It, But Then I Just Went With It, Because As A Writer As Well As A Translator I Do Believe That Translated Words Are Not Different Names For The Same Thing. They're Different Names For Different Things. I Tried To Stay As True As I Could, So I Used Ruben Cobos' Dictionary Of Southwestern Spanish, And When I Went Into Spanish I Never Assumed The Word I Would Use Would Be The Word A Nuevomexicano Would Use.