Letras Latinas, Part 17: A Conversation with Javier Zamora

Episode Topic: A Conversation with Javier Zamora

Listen in to an oral history conversation with celebrated poet and child migrant survivor Javier Zamora, about his transformative journey. Interviewed by Francisco Robles, associate professor in the Department of English at Notre Dame, they discuss how Zamora’s keen observational eye, forged in a childhood immersed in nature, became a tool for survival, and how he channels trauma and identity into powerful art and uncompromising advocacy.

Featured Speakers:

• Francisco Robles, University of Notre Dame
• Javier Zamora, poet

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/0641a3.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Letras Latinas. 

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Transcript

Introduction and Setting the Scene

1 0:07

So my name is Francisco Robles. today is Friday, September 20th, 2024. This recording is taking place in Hall at the University of Not Dame, uh, in South Bend, Indiana. I'm here with who I have the pleasure of interviewing for the Latinas Oral History Project. So for the purposes of beginning the oral interview, please tell us your full name, the date of your birth, and where you were born.

Speaker 2 0:32

JI was born on February 6th in 1990 and I was born in the capital of the state of in el, which is called means the grassland of Great.

Speaker 3 0:49

Where are you living now? In Tucson,

Speaker 2 0:51

Arizona. And how long have you been there? Since 20. Since October, 2020, so about to be four years.

1 1:00

Great. Well, thank you. And thank you for joining us here. So my first question is, when did you realize that you were a writer? Where does your story begin as a writer?

Speaker 3 1:12

When I realized it myself, um, I think was, you know,

Speaker 2 1:20

that's a complicated, question. And for me, I think it took getting an MFA or getting that acceptance call that made it real for me. But that's not when I started writing and that's not when I fell in love with writing. For my own personality, I'm an only child, an immigrant. At the time I had just gotten TPS, so I was like, also between being un undo, fully undocumented. In this country to having a social security number and having this partial, I don't even know what to call this partial, citizenship

Speaker 3 2:01

almost, and having, all I'm

Speaker 2 2:05

trying to say is that I need, validation for my own sake and it didn't feel real for my own personality. My own ethic because I felt like I was trying to prove somebody, something in this country, not only to other people, but to myself and to my parents that I could, that this could be a career choice. And so that's when I realized that I had pursued it enough to a point where I was trying to make this thing happen for me. Yeah.

1 2:41

You might, you might dispute this, but one of the things that I noticed in Alito and unaccompanied your, uh, two books is that you have a very keen observational eye. So even as you're remembering what it was like as a child, as, you, you have a very strong sense of observation, of noting things, of noticing people. And I wonder, since that's something that is conveyed in your own writing, do you feel like that's something you were, you developed very young. Made you artistic in some way or made you feel like somehow you were rendering the world?

Speaker 2 3:12

Well, one, we were, I grew up very poor in wartime, I didn't have running water. Mm-hmm. I didn't grow up with colored television. it was black and white. and, and I was an only child. Mm-hmm. And so for me, play was always going to the garden. Going to my grandma's garden. I grew up very rural, from a very small coastal town. Then now it's, uh, bigger. But when I wanted to go play, I literally just went outside and climbed mango trees. we have a, we had a sweet so and sour, so trees, and when I was four, I broke this arm. So that was my entertainment. and I think from that point, when you teach a child to go out and play nature. I remember even before I knew what a microscope was, I knew how to zone in to, for example, the sweet so tree and into,'cause I was looking for walking sticks. Mm-hmm. For praying mantas for, you know, highways of ants. That was my entertainment because when you don't have color television, when you don't have screens, this seems more alive than sitting in front of a very grainy. and, you know, we had a antenna that sometimes didn't work and you had to like kick it. So I think, I think that was my first craft lesson and taught me how to

Speaker 3 4:43

move

Speaker 2 4:45

the lens, you know, move the camera. in Soto I talk about, you know, one of the mo, one of my most cherished memories of childhood is. Sitting in the bed with my aunt or my mom and my grandpa did, you would call it like a skylight, but it wasn't really a skylight. He had gotten, I dunno how glass terracotta tiles, so they weren't terra cota. They were like clear. So, and he had built like eight of'em in which he created like a skylight right above our bed. So I remember viewing through that and to me, just that little hole in the roof was way better than a screen, and I could like see the stars. So I don't, I dunno.

1 5:31

Yeah, that's actually something you write about quite a bit. And you remember, uh, as you are traversing in Soto mm-hmm. You remember laying with your feet against the wall and looking up. Mm-hmm. So that's something that obviously has stuck with you a lot.

Speaker 2 5:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very since childhood.

1 5:44

Yeah. One of the things that I love that you just said too, and I'm gonna skip ahead and, my questions and then I'll ask it again, but, uh, your observation of the small things is really interesting because both, in both unaccompanied of your poetry collection and in solita, your memoir. You talk about small things, you talk about ants, little creatures. You talk about Bala, this lizard mm-hmm. Uh, that you see in the dirt, when you're crossing. Can you talk a little bit about that too? Like why is that something so like the small things, something that you pay so much attention to?

Speaker 2 6:12

Well, was a real lizard. Mm-hmm. and the best way that I could explain that is that after years of therapy, my therapist. That, and I didn't know that this is what I was doing, but when you take a child and you throw him in a traumatic experience, that child is gonna use whatever he knows up to that age, and he's gonna use those tools to cope. So my coping mechanisms, when you threw me into this 3000 mile journey. Best, coping mechanism was nature and how to use my eyes to distract myself from the very harsh, uh, life and death realities that I was facing. another coping mechanism was cartoons. Like any child, you know, in that same scene right before I see Paola. My, I, I remember. Trying to be Goku or Superman, I wanted to fly outta there. And as a child, that is a very real possibility because you still dunno physics and the people don't actually fly. and when that didn't work, I was still stuck in the dirt somewhere in Oaxaca with men pointing guns at me. Um, the first gun that I ever see in my life. when that didn't work, Paola was there.

Speaker 3 7:40

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 7:40

And that's, I think that's why Paola kept, keeps on coming up. Right before I proposed to, to my wife, I, there was another lizard that reminded me of Paula. And I remember, you know, this is still a conversation that I had with nature. I was like, send me a sign nature. Mm-hmm. And there was, and, and that's how I knew we were hiking. That's when I knew when to propose. And so I think for me, nature, and coping mechanisms are, are very intertwined.

Embracing Indigeneity and Identity

1 8:08

That reminds me too of the, the, is it that you, that you mentioned over and over again in the book, you bring up this, I, I didn't do a count of how many times it comes up. Yeah. But it's probably a lot. A lot. And it's actually just this very, it's almost like this sort of way that inter that you can intertwine the spiritual and the natural, through this, uh, this creature. The spiritual creature

Speaker 3 8:31

or the spirit creature. Well, you know. Growing up, up in, in El Salvador, I think in any

Speaker 2 8:42

Latin American nation we are taught a spirituality that's not necessarily of that place.

Speaker 3 8:50

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 8:51

I remember, you know, going to church, I went to a Catholic, school and eventually if, you know, once you begin to question things. I felt that that wasn't for me. Mm-hmm. And so once you get to that understanding, there's a hole that hasn't been filled. And I think for me, and that's a transition between like unaccompanied and Soto. I think the big thing that I don't really talk about is, you know, there's, there's that my upbringing, but there's also being a survivor of the trauma. And the big question that any survivor has is like, why me? Why did I survive when I was with people that perhaps didn't? And for Mele, I don't know what happened to. Mm-hmm. statistics show that he's probably still in the desert, you know? And then you keep asking this question. And the best answer that I had and that I got is that, you know, us as Latina people. that's just a construction, that's just an idea. And we have to analyze what makes us, who, who we're, and for me is, is, it is getting easier to say, but it has been very difficult and the Catholic church has a lot to do with this, is that to call myself an indigenous person, shouldn't feel like how it has felt for me. Mm-hmm. And once you begin today. there is only 200 to 300 native speakers left. We're at risk of losing our now at B language forever. And so for me it's very important to understand that and to try my best to rescue any little thing. Mm-hmm. That I know. And I remember growing up with this idea, of the. It's this doglike figure. It's not a dog, it's not a coyote. It has hooves, that every single human being has to protect them. And how I view that is not necessarily that there was an actual physical thing protecting me, but this is a vessel for my ancestors and it, and I know for a fact that it was my ancestors mm-hmm. That helped me survive.

Speaker 3 11:19

Mm-hmm.

1 11:20

Had reminded me of when you were talking about this, oh, that's right. Uh, in, so in, you also talk about, uh, I wanna go back to something you had just said about the sort of, uh, embracing indigeneity. Mm-hmm. You notice as you go through, parts of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico in particular, the way that the word iio is, uses an insult. And it's something that's really important. I think as a small, you're, you're a 9-year-old in this book. You're registering this conscience this way that racism is working, the way that colonialism is being sort of internalized and I, I found it a really interesting sub narrative in here. Mm-hmm. You're thinking about indigeneity as a sort of like child learning these things. So could you talk a little bit more about this and you can tie it back to, you don't have to, but Yeah.

Speaker 2 12:01

I mean, a child isn't born racist. Mm-hmm. You know, no child is born racist. These are things, ideas. Are imposed on us. Same with patriarchy, sexism, you know, all these isms. When a child is born, who do they have even before they go to school? Mm-hmm. It's the parents. Mm-hmm. And so I wanted to, because this has been something that I've fought with my family, you know, this term, to call somebody else in you or, or, you know, negative. Or we don't, you know, in Latin America, at least in, we don't say Asian, we say Chino, which is like, even like Chino, you know? Mm-hmm. There are levels, some of them, very obvious, racism and others that are more subtle. Mm-hmm. and I'm like, where does that come from? Mm-hmm. And why don't we say anything, and analyzing things. You know, I love my grandpa, I love my mom. I love my dad, but they still say things like these even after I tell them not to. And a short story. my mom, you know, we fought about how she uses that term and then even before I did, she wanted to take A-A-D-N-A test because in her mind there was gonna be a lot of Spain there. Mm-hmm. Because this is what we're taught.

Speaker 3 13:20

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 13:20

And she wasn't expecting that she's 12% black.

Speaker 3 13:24

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 13:24

That was a big shock for my mom. And so in a way I'm not, this is not an advertisement for 23 and me, but for my pseudo racist mom to view that she's actually 65% native, 12% black, and the rest very slim, part white, was a shock. And I have seen a change in how she thinks of this term and how she thinks of who she is. Which actually helped me, not only like I know like my great grandma, it's like, almost like a's novel. I grew up with my great great grandma. Mm-hmm. My grandma's grandma.

Speaker 3 14:06

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 14:07

And it was me who found her dad in her, bedroom. And she used to speak some language that I didn't know. Nobody named it, nobody knew what it was. And now I know is that it was not what. So all, all these things happening at the same time when I'm beginning to have therapy and, and beginning to really look at this hole that I had inside it. Mm-hmm.

1 14:32

Yeah. Thank you. Uh, it, it was just a very, I thought, I thought it was a very interesting, noble part of the book.

Speaker 2 14:37

Yeah. But I, I, I didn't answer the question of like, how, you know, a child learns all these things, and also it's a critique, right? Mm-hmm. There was this. Indigenous woman in southern Mexico that, I don't know where, where she was from, but it was her. And I've always, you know, try to ask why did she turn us in? Mm-hmm. To these authorities who were questioning her citizenship, they didn't believe that she was Mexican.

Speaker 3 15:10

Mm-hmm.

Music and Cultural Connections

Speaker 2 15:10

And so what is Mexicanness? What is Salvador ness? What is Americanness? These are all constructs. These are all ideas. And so that woman, because of capitalism, because of racism, all the isms that a child is not born with, she knew that in order to make herself feel like a Mexican, that she had to, uh, turn away the non-Mexican. Mm-hmm. And that, I just see her, being part of this, fallacy, this bullshit narrative that she, all these central Mexicans who have the power, the lighter skinned Mexicans. Have the power who had, she has been raised hearing this over and over, that she's not a complete citizen. And so the only way that she knows to make herself feel better, perhaps for that brief moment is to show those people who tell her that she's not part of who they're that. In fact, I am. And here I'm turning these people over. Forgive her because she didn't know what she was doing. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

1 16:15

The, the, one of the things that you said earlier too, just a couple, maybe a minute ago, it was a perfect segue to my next question, which is about music. Another thing that's really interesting in Soto in particular is the way that you note that you listen to the same music, uh, in each country you're in. If the same bands are coming up, the same people are being referenced. They're the same cassettes that you're the people, the six you all are listening to. You also note that in the radio there are these musicians, so there's a way in which you're sort of building this tapestry of connection through the hemisphere. Maybe, you know, as a way, maybe this is my interpretation, as a way against the way we separate ourselves in sort of, uh, imaginary ways or through nationalistic ways. Somehow there's still this shared, uh, pop culture, this shared music. I just found it really notable how often the music that you're listening to came up in the different bands.

Speaker 2 17:07

How I viewed it. Yes. I saw it as a contrast of American pop culture and Latin American pop culture. Mm-hmm. at least in Central America.

Speaker 3 17:16

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 17:16

You know, we're very, the biggest industry for music and television was, Mexican based de mm-hmm. And like all the, the records, all the studios that were coming up. And so that was. A fear that we all understood, but as a child, I also wanted to come to the full house. House. Mm-hmm. Or I wanted to go to the Baywatch Beach. Mm-hmm. You know? and so, yes, music I think is the easiest form to understand what generation you're from. I found myself even as a undocumented, undocumented immigrant in this country. As feeling like I didn't belong for all the reasons, but also for the popular music, uh mm-hmm. aspect of it. And it wasn't until college that I found other people that liked the same music that I mm-hmm. Who, like even before I, after I immigrated, who, like, whose mom always played Camila when she was cleaning, you know, or who knew who so, was, or controlled majete or even saw that stereo. Who knew who Marco was and then you find, you know, these are just key terms. They're like, oh, you know that I what I know. And you know that that song was a theme of this novella mm-hmm. That my parents and my grandma watched. Mm-hmm. And then it's like these conversations that tell us that we belong and that we're not alone. And that we're not, I dunno, loners.

1 18:51

There's, there's a moment in Salito when you and Patricia actually starts singing a song together. Mm-hmm. You're watching tv I think it's in, right. And that you all are bonding, but that's a moment that it seems like suddenly it clicks something, clicks. you can be the familia almost.

Speaker 3 19:04

yeah. And I think

Speaker 2 19:05

there's a way to look at moments like that as. Community building because we're already, we're already immigrants. Mm-hmm. We are no longer in El Salvador. Mm-hmm. Um, we're in Mexico. Mm-hmm. And even there had, we just stayed there and never made it here. We already understood what it's, what it means to not be home. Mm-hmm. And to not have the comfort of. All those things are just taken for granted. Mm-hmm. When you're just part of it. Mm-hmm. And I think that immigrants understand what it's like to not have those things taken for granted. And that's the beginning. Mm-hmm. It was like, oh, she knows the tune that I know. Mm-hmm. That was the tune that I went to sleep with. Mm-hmm. You know, and we're all part of a generation in El Salvador when, you know, I've had people like. I know that too. Mm-hmm. Or like topo, like I grew up with Topo, you know? Mm-hmm.

1 20:10

Yeah. Another moment of that, uh, community building too, is when you all are in the, I don't remember the term for it, but the, the Catholic sanctuary in Nogales meet the many you call because he's from San Miguel, sorry. And, uh, Chino, Patricia. They're arguing about who's actually being played over the sound system. Mm-hmm. And he gently corrects them and he says, uh, it was El, it's Buki. Featuring, featuring. And Elise. but it's a really sweet moment actually of a brief connection, but intimate connection through this music again, through pop culture.

Speaker 2 20:44

Yeah. And I dunno, outside of literature, I, when I got to this country, it was 1999. Mm-hmm. Some of the first movies, either good or bad.'cause I should have watched this movie so young. you know, it was like the heyday of Mexican film.

Speaker 3 21:05

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 21:05

And you know, there's mm-hmm. There's like, and, and like then it was like the crime of Padma, all, you know, it was less so the last one, but just those two films. Mm-hmm. For me. That music was important because in those two, and, and there are other films, as well, that when they released the film, they created new songs with bands like na. So, and it was not only the film that was important, but the soundtrack. Mm-hmm. And I loved those soundtracks. Nice. And even before I wanted to be a writer. I knew, or that those releases of those two movies in particular showed me that popular culture. And that music was very, very, very important because I've watched my, my parents, they love those songs. Mm-hmm. And I was like, I don't know why, but I also gravitate towards this from, um, so yeah.

1 22:08

Well, I, I like that a lot. Uh, especially because I think it does tie, um. Building connection, but also one of the things that you talked about briefly that I wanted to return to was the, the sort of, super church influence that Mexican pop culture has on Latin America. I think it's one of the things that, um, perhaps a lot of people don't realize or don't think about, especially from the us but the enormous influence that, especially the Mexican dialect, Mexican pop music, Mexican TV has on a lot of the world, not just Latin America at this point. and you all talked about in the book, learning the accent. To Right. Tap. Tap. That's right. somebody who's not from kco, I don't know. Right. Like what's, and or the words like, right. Uh, the specific words that are needed, that you, so the question is here, the idea of mexicanness is something to embody, inhabit as a dialect, as well, but also as a pop culture is something that I found super interesting here, uh, in. Do you feel like it's something that you were explaining to a certain degree, um, to a specific audience? because I think, again, I, for a lot of people it might be surprising to hear about this enormous influence that Mexico has.

Central American Studies and Representation

Speaker 2 23:18

Well, you know, we can all use this as metaphor too. Mm-hmm. Right. To what it means to not be the leading immigrant group. Mm-hmm. In the West Coast, you know, is very Mexican centric. In Florida, it's very Cuban centric, and the East coast is either Puerto Rican or Dominican. And if you're not that mm-hmm. It's very difficult. You know, I've had family members who came older than I was, they were in their twenties, but they came in the eighties in la in which now they have forgotten their Salvador accent. Mm-hmm. Because they needed to lose it in order to get a. again, immigration as the formation of what it means to be an immigrant. Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of, non Mexicans who immigrate through Mexico mm-hmm. Would definitely understand what it's like to put a mask on in order to survive. Mm-hmm. And some of us keep that mask on in the United States. Survive. Mm-hmm. You know, right now, uh, in September of 2024, we're seeing, well already, we've seen a lot of Venezuelans, you know, Venezuelans were, weren't as a big part anywhere in the United States. Now they're surpassing, you know, I think they're gonna surpass us or already have, you know, Salvador and surpassed Puerto Ricans in 2017. That's the second biggest immigrant group, and Venezuelans are on their way. Haitians as well. You know, there's a lot of Haitians coming in. Mm-hmm. Um, and their story is different, but I can guarantee you that their story as the non-leading immigrant group looks similar. You, you don't, you don't only have to put a mask on to survive against or alongside the white world. But you, us who are not the leaders, have also to put a second mask on in order to survive within the already established immigrant community. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

1 25:30

One of the things that you just, uh, made reference to that I wanted to circle back to as well is, um, the bigger visibility, especially within academia, journalism and elsewhere of Central American studies, you didn't say that explicitly, but one of the things that I think is really interesting is that there's this really powerful rise. Awareness of talking about writers from Central America and you feature as one of these writers often within the conversation. So for you, what does it mean that there's a greater awareness of, and way more discussion of the nuances, the particularities of Central America?

Speaker 2 26:04

it's great. Mm-hmm. a waste that I had that as a student. Mm-hmm. when I was an undergrad, I think only CSUN Northridge had a Central American studies department, which is the first

Speaker 3 26:13

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 26:14

And I would also caution for us,'cause in a lot of these, programs, it's very Salvadorian centric because we have been here and now we run a risk of replicating what was done to us by Chicano studies departments. so let's not do that. Let's genuinely open the discussion and possibilities. For example, for example, to use as a metaphor, you know, memoirs studies, this is not the first memoir written by an immigrant, you know, re grandes. I, I wouldn't be here without re grand. She was very important. She's Mexican. That was bound to happen. My story written by El Salvador was bound to happen. there's, Uzman who is Racho mm-hmm. You know, already has a poetry. Mm-hmm. where, if it's not his memoir, there's a memoir coming. That's very example from, from, uh, Racho. There's another one. But n there's a, there's soon to be one by Venezuela.

Speaker 3 27:22

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 27:22

It is not here, but it will be. Mm-hmm. So in these departments, let's. Have a symbolic chair there for if they don't already exist or if these works don't exist. Yes, they'll, mm-hmm. And let's make that happen. Instead of being like, oh, this is where Salvador, and this is like the example for everything. I, I took Latin American history, that's like my undergrad. And what I hated, uh, that they always did is like, well, Latin America is this big thing, but. We can use three examples and we can use those examples to explain all the other countries around. Mm-hmm. Let's take Mexico, let's take, Chile, Argentina, and, Colombia and Cuba. And if you understand those, you can understand everything. It doesn't work like that. Mm-hmm. You know? so I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. Yeah, it's great, but. It's, let's have some caution. Yeah.

1 28:17

And actually, uh, the, the founder of the, uh, is n right. So thinking about, uh, he often thinks about his own heritage through Rio. thinking through, uh, the long history, the ancestry, um, that is so important to him, but also, it's so particular but also can speak to a universal story. Yeah. I often think that people often think that things that aren't, uh, large enough, aren't universal. But, I often tell my students. Especially Tony Morrison made this observation years ago that a, a story can be universal. It doesn't have to be the majority. Uh, yeah. It just takes the reader to empathize or takes the reader to understand or, or see.

Speaker 2 28:57

Yeah. I think a story can be universally specific.

1 28:59

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 29:00

and to go back to the conversation about Central American studies mm-hmm. again, and, and departments are doing this. You know, just a reminder that let's do away with this idea of countries mm-hmm. And nations. Mm-hmm. Because it's just another idea mm-hmm. That we were born into that gets replicated and let's open it up to the discussion of the first peoples that where in what we now call the Central American. You know, that's where the discussion, in my opinion, should.

1 29:38

So with the time we have left, I'm gonna ask a couple of, uh, questions that are a very different tack. So, one of the questions I wanna ask, I, I, I suppose I'll ask them for you now, to you now, but then let you sort of work through them at your own pace. Mm-hmm. one of the questions is about mentors. Not just specific writing mentors that you had, say, an MFA program as an undergraduate. Yes. Those, and would like to talk about them, but also people who you consider important to your writing, who mentored your writing in a big sense, in a cosmic sense. Uh, that's the first question. And the second one is actually about how you moved from unaccompanied to Alito. And a very specific question about that is, do you consider Alito translation of unaccompanied across genres? Or do you think it's actually something else? A very different relationship. So those are the two questions I wanted to ask you. I I can ask them again if you want, uh, at any point.

Speaker 2 30:30

let's start with the first one, the mentors. I mean, the last one. Well, okay. The trans, and then I'll probably forget the other two. Excellent. Yeah. Um, I wouldn't call it a translation. Mm-hmm. I'll call it an expansion. Mm-hmm. moving from poetry to prose, it really felt. Freeing because I had spent 10 years trying to do away, or like to cut and edit, in order for it to cohere. Mm-hmm. So I think the process is different of how the brain works. I was trying to condense this huge story into like little pearls.

Speaker 3 31:10

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 31:11

and showing the pearls to strangers. Like, let's chisel it here. Let's chisel it there. Or you know what? That pearl sucks. Throw it away, find a new one. which after 10 years of doing that with, and like the way that I write and I didn't understand it at the time, I'm writing about writing something very traumatic.

Speaker 3 31:35

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 31:36

And hearing that over and over and over again, it got me and it actually made me very unhappy. The mistake that I did was that after a decade of going from, I'm just writing for, because I love this into, I'm writing to, to get published and once it gets published and really thinking that this book, this first book is really me. And seeing that it's not being, you know, you can't help the ego. And like, oh, it's not getting mentioned here. It's, I'm not getting invitations by MFA program, uh, which have been the least to invite me to places I'm not getting invitations by English departments, which also have been the least to invite me to places. So there's like all these little voices in, in your head that by the time that, you know, I, I was trying to write a second book of poems and I was just unhappy. I had gotten to a place where. Poetry had become a job. Poetry had become something that I didn't love doing anymore. Mm-hmm. and in that I was like, well, fuck it. I'm gonna try to just do this in prose. And the moment that I decided to do that, I was retraumatizing myself, but it seemed. Well, because I, by that point, I already had a therapist who was kind of like guiding me and could, kind of like protect other people from my anger and from my re re, that it felt free and it felt purposeful, which is how poetry used to feel. But then he had stopped doing that for me. and so because of that. I see it as an expansion, not a translation. Mm-hmm. An expansion of places in my trauma that I desperately needed to uncover and to process. because the constraints of trying to publish a book of poems, which by definition you have to, to be short and concise, wasn't allowing my trauma to. Expand. Expand and to go places that it needed to go. And this, that's just for me. Mm-hmm. And now I forgot the other two questions.

1 33:59

Oh, the other question was about mentors. so specific mentors and undergraduate and graduate, programs, but also people who may be, in a more cosmic sense for mentors for your writing aid.

Speaker 2 34:09

Well, immediately, you know, I wouldn't

Speaker 3 34:12

be a poet without having. A

Advocacy and Activism in Academia

Speaker 2 34:17

poet guide me and provide literal books for me, and that happened in high school. her name is, Becky Faust. and, you know, she's white. She had the means to just give me books, which for me, you know, being undocumented and not having the best relationships with libraries. Mm-hmm. Uh, I'm not a writer who like loves gonna libraries. You know, we didn't have one nearby of my community where I grew up. Now there is. and so just having access to books that I would never spend$30 on mm-hmm. Uh, 20 on, because that's$20 I could eat or like, use to do something else. Mm-hmm. that, was the beginning of my falling in love with books, which happened late. You know, I hated books up until 1718. Which, you know, it's important for me to say. And after that, in college, you know, I took poetry for the people, a mentor who I didn't meet, but meant the world to me was June Jordan. June Jordan's Life, you know, she is the daughter of immigrants and she wrote a memoir. that is a wonderful. Open memoir that reading it in undergrad was like, wow, you, you can be this like open, you can tell your secrets, like you can question your parents. Mm-hmm. I needed her memoir and her work. You can support Palestine. Mm-hmm. You know, and you can be very upfront about it. We need more people like Jim Jordan. You can like fight against an administration by chaining yourself to wheel or hall at uc, Berkeley, because the administration doesn't wanna give your students, you know, a raise. Mm-hmm. that's what teachers should be doing. Mm-hmm. And, and so just, I'm trying to lead my life in a way, that June Jordan would be proud of. Another spiritual, mentor would be Alta, you know, like saying Dante or Shakespeare. Um, Gabriel in, in my country, you can't, write without acknowledging. and again, his most famous for saying the pen could only take you so far. You also need the sword in the bullet. to get real change done, and meaning that these two individuals never thought or about the people that were their bosses or never thought about the literary world. Mm-hmm. They thought of the people and what do the people need? And to me, being a writer, that's what it should be. What do we need right now, you know, as. Perpetuity me, just me wearing this. A lot of people have gotten, have given me, Hey, I have had things canceled because I'm pro-Palestine. And, and so, and a lot of writers, in my opinion, haven't done enough to just say, you know what? This is a genocide that we're going through. Well, the Palestinian people are going through, and so let's say something about that. Let's do something about that. I used go back to, I always was mad, when I was a history major, learning that not a lot of people knew or cared about what was happening in El Salvador. And so us taxpayers were paying$3 million a day to fund the killing of my people, of my family, and nobody did anything. And so I don't wanna do that. The Palestinians. I don't wanna do that to, you know, the people in the Congo, I don't wanna do that to what's happening in Sudan. I don't wanna do that to all these people that need somebody that has the privilege of a voice to say something. And I wouldn't know that or be in that position if June Jordan and Ro weren't my mentors. Now the final layer to that, would be Eduardo. I dunno how the fuck he found out that I got into NYU. but he gave me a call. I don't know how he got my number. I think, I think I gave it to him through Facebook. Um, now that he was, he's not a creep. He's a great, person. And again, when I was got to New York and he, like he has. He led me and taught me how to write a cover letter, how to apply to this things, who to read. I remember gonna St. Mark's bookstore that no longer exists and we were just browsing. He was like, oh, you should read this, you should do that. And I was like, fuck, I'm not gonna be able to afford these. And then he just bought me like 12 books. Mm-hmm. and that is very literal, um, and very direct mentorship. and IU.

1 39:31

Yeah. One of the things, uh, I wanna end on then is your own advocacy. and one of the, what you're saying now about everyone, you mentioned the mentors, there's a component of mentoring that isn't just giving you sort of spiritual or formal guidance and poetry, but also offering structural material support to enable you to pursue things. And one of the things that drove you to be one of the co-founders of Undocu poets. You, I think, uh, reading the letter that you all wrote, I remember to begin with, sort of announced your presence in the world as an organization, was it too many poetry prizes are restrictive according to citizenship. They do not enable people access that they need. They are purposely stopping certain people from becoming poets in like very material ways. So could you speak a little bit about that, how that, early advocacy within your career. Also led to you speaking very forcefully about Palestine, for example. Um, I see them as connected. I see the, the same way that you see the mentors and the writing and the examples they provided as, things that prompted you to move in this direction as well. I, I do see actually your, your activism, uh, your political organizing too, as being part of this bigger picture, connecting a sort of world through solidarity.

Speaker 3 40:49

I guess I'll offer. Mm-hmm. A side note that will connect to this, I think for me,

Speaker 2 40:59

going, getting this very privileged position at the Radcliffe, Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard. That's mouthful. Mm-hmm. it's a fellowship that I think at that time I was one of the youngest, I was 27, 28. to, to get, so I was there with heads of departments at a lot of elite institutions. I was there with, you know, the heads of the economics department at like, UPenn. Uh, I was there with the heads of like the, the, black studies department, the women's studies, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can like go through all of them and being the youngest and seeing. How this so-called experts in the fields have gotten so comfortable in their positions, in their unique field in the world that in fact they don't know a lot of what's happening outside of nuclear physics. Or, you know, when I was there they found a nebula that's like around the solar system that now it's called the Radcliffe Cloud. Mm-hmm. So I, people doing cool shit. That are there, but those same people that know a lot of important work actually don't know anything about race. They don't know much about how to talk to another human being. And just seeing the blinders, I was like, huh, these experts actually aren't that expert at being human. They're just the one thing that they've dedicated their lives for, which we need them to great. But they're not, you know, they dunno what inequality is. They dunno what racism is. They don't know that how you're talking to me is like a fucking microaggression. Mm-hmm. And so I, along with they, at that time, it was the most diverse cohort. I think there were, there was 30 people, no, there was 50 people, there were eight of us. Most diverse cohort ever. I remember for my presentation, poetry, not the ones who did show up, because they have to, I was just like, what's going on? Like, why, why isn't, why are you talking to some of us like that? Blah, blah, blah, blah. and so what I learned is that people need reminders to not to get comfortable. Academia, just talking about academia. Remember why you entered academia. Remember that academia is not only for you, but it's to have other people eventually be let in the same room that you're at. Let's, and stop just thinking about how rich you're gonna get and how big your 401k is getting. Remember who you were. and especially for, for people who don't come from money, it is difficult to remember that, because then you're like, oh, I, I need to take care of my family first, et cetera. But what I'm saying is that I knew. From Undocu poets and like speaking out that a lot of these experts, a lot of the people didn't even know that that was a sentence that they had in their, requirements. And they felt really bad that that sentence was there. and they quickly moved it. There. Other people, like the Wal Whitman, prize, and the Academy of American poets at that time, who were very. You know, they stuck their ways into it. It's the American poetry, and we're like, what does American mean? Mm-hmm. They define American like Jose Antonio Vargos. Mm-hmm. You know, another activist who, who taught this and they couldn't.

Speaker 3 44:58

Mm-hmm.

Concluding Thoughts and Final Reflections

Speaker 2 44:59

And then eventually Alberto Rios comes out with this, statement of, oh no. Now people in four have. I, I don't know. They stuck in their heels, I dunno, the expression, uh, they were, and so, you know, keeping receipts, keeping people accountable, it is something that we need to do. I, I'm a free agent. I'm not part of academia and I'm holding out as long as I can. because I know I have friends who are in academia whose academic grants come from, funding the Israeli state. And so they can't say anything because they will get fired. and that is the state of the situation in the United States. And I can wear this kafi, I can say the things that I can because I am a free agent. Somehow I have rigged the system. I don't know if I would be as vocal, if I knew that I wouldn't, I would be fired the next day. I dunno. so don't, I'm not that cool.

Speaker 3 46:02

Yeah,

Speaker 2 46:03

for

1 46:03

sure. But yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for making the time to do this. this is the end of the interview with the Oral History Project, uh, by, thank you Javier, Sam. Thank you. And yeah,

Speaker 2 46:16

thank you.