“I think the possibilities are endless in terms of what the genre would be like. However, in terms of looking for sources of money, I think we have to be very careful not to fall into Hollywood's commodification of Chicano culture. We could look at the example of Piri Thomas, a successful Puerto Rican writer now living in the Bay Area, who has received repeated offers from Hollywood...and he said he's not going to write about his people doing drugs and going to jail.” PeopleThinkingWritingFallCultureTermSuccessfulPossibilityDrugCareful Author:Ana Castillo
“When I devoted myself to poetry - and poetry is a very serious medium - I don't think the people that knew me as an individual with that tongue-in-cheek kind of humor...well, it didn't always lend itself to my poetry. When you're writing poetry, it's like working with gold, you can't waste anything. You have to be very economical with each word you're going to select. But when you're writing fiction, you can just go on and on; you can be more playful. My editor's main task is to cut back, not ask for more.” PeopleThinkingWritingKindIndividualCuttingSeriousGoldPoetry IsSelectWriting Poetry Author:Ana Castillo
“We were doing the same thing. We will never have "a" Chicano English or Spanish because of regional differences. But I think that because of our bilingual history, we'll always be speaking a special kind of English and Spanish. What we do have to do is fight for the right to use those two languages in the way that it serves us. Nuevo-mexicanos have done it very well for hundreds of years, inventing words where they don't have them. I think the future of our language is where we claim our bilingualism for its utility.” ThinkingKindDoneFightingLanguageSpecialUtility Author:Ana Castillo
“As time has gone on and we're at the end of the 20th century and major publishing is a big business, yes, of course we're going to get a lot of plain, mediocre trash. There are a lot of writers who get huge advances for books that don't go anywhere and they have to burn them somewhere or throw them away. I always think about all the poor trees that have been sacrificed.” ThinkingBookPoorTreePublishingMediocre20th CenturyBig Business Author:Ana Castillo
“People like to think of themselves as purists, but there is no such thing as purity, when there exists so much contact.” PeopleThinkingPurity Author:Ana Castillo
“You know you have that zealousness of the young person that feels like you can go out and do it all. You know you save the world, save your gente, save women and before you know it if you try to do that you will burn out very quickly. My feeling is that I always think that and my advice to young people regardless of what times in these decades we've been living in there's always work to be done. The point is what can you do personally that you can live with so that you can get up the next morning and have the strength to start it all over again.” PeopleThinkingWorldTryingDoneFeelingsMorningAdviceLike YouSave The WorldBurn Out Author:Ana Castillo
“I feel that it's very important for young people to have a sense of history and do research and don't re-invent the wheel and don't think that you're the first martyr to discover social injustice but to take advantage of previous generations of activists and find out what they did and how they resolved things.” PeopleThinkingImportantInjusticeActivistMartyr Author:Ana Castillo
“Women Are Not Roses Women have no beginning only continual flows. Though rivers flow women are not rivers. Women are not roses they are not oceans or stars. i would like to tell her this but i think she already knows.” ThinkingKnowsStarsOceanFlowRiversRose Book:Women are Not Roses Source: Women are Not Roses
