I know the books that I need to help me to be wiser than my years and be kinder and more compassionate and more patient than I really am.
Sandra CisnerosIf you have potato chips, that means, "Who's coming over?"Wealthy people - white people who're wealthy - have a bag of potato chips that's folded over with a clip. "What? There's some left over?" In my house, if there was a bag of potato chips, we'd pour it in a bowl and everybody would just dip in till it was gone.
Sandra CisnerosAll of my works are performance pieces, as is true for many writers of color, writers who have indigenous roots - because our basis is spoken word.
Sandra CisnerosI am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.
Sandra CisnerosWe tend to think of orphans as being the protagonist of stories we read when we're kids, and yet here you are: you're an adult, you're supposed to manage, you're supposed to get over it, you're supposed to go on with your life, and you feel like a lost child.
Sandra CisnerosImagine Americans who go to Paris. Why would you want to go where someone's going to disparage you? Why would you go anywhere where they treat you bad? Well, that's how it is for us to go to Mexico. You have to be on your guard, because I think the Mexicans are harder on the Mexicans, the Mexican-Americans. They don't see us as Mexican. I think part of it's a class issue and a color issue. We're more connected to their servants, so what are we doing staying at a nice hotel? There's a kind of shame.
Sandra Cisneros