Perhaps the greatest challenge has been trying to keep my time to myself and my private life private in order to do my job. Everything that is most mine belongs to everyone now.

People paused to listen to Denise Chávez and she had them - with gum on her shoes, she had them. She said she stepped on gum when she came up to the stage and she couldn't move, so she had to stay in one spot otherwise people would see the Chiclet.

My weapon has always been language, and I've always used it, but it has changed. Instead of shaping the words like knives now, I think they're flowers, or bridges.

When I say what I'm reading, this is what I need. I know the ills that plague me.

I'm learning a lot by reading teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron. They teach me because I feel like I have a responsibility to the communities that I speak to.

The writer Denise Chávez comments on poor food and what you associate with luxury food items. In fact, she wrote a whole book called A Taco Testimony, and though the title sounds light, it's a heavy book. It's about being working class and what kind of food is available to you that's cheap.

People like to blame Mexican food, but look at what's happening globally, look at all the fast foods and products filled with trans fat. Before the Mexican Revolution, a hundred years ago, people were eating what now macrobiotics tells us to eat, corn, black beans, rice. That's what people were eating - and chile peppers. That's a healthy diet. And also they ate a lot of vegetables.