As an immigrant, there's a little part of you that always says, "Well, I'm not a hundred percent American." America is some other little boy or some other place I haven't been to yet.

Everything is symbolic. If they'd picked some middle-aged white guy, well, that would have been a symbol, but it wouldn't have been shocking because that's the expected norm, right? I felt I was a good match: here's an accomplished poet, and he's also gay and Latino.

I like the labels because I think they tell my story in a very concise way: gay, Latino. I think the responsibility that comes with accepting labels is that now I get a chance to break stereotypes. It gives me the opportunity to tell the unique stories of what those labels mean.

I was at a stage in my life where I felt sort of comfortable being a dislocated person emotionally, feeling in some ways like a man without any particular country. I had come to a nice space with the imaginary Cuba or the imaginary America that I thought existed.

Good art and a good life answers questions. Great art and a great life asks questions.

Artists are the emotional historians of the world.

We have always been searching for home. It's in our art... our religion... everything.