Maybe all pain in the world requires poetry.

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.

Write about what makes you different.

I think people should read fairy tales, because were hungry for a mythology that will speak to our fears.

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.

'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.

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.