The author of A House on Mango Street and Eleven is an inspiration to students.
Photo courtesy of Martha Alvarez
Few have the courage to walk up to a podium and show their naked baby pictures or some of those terrifying elementary school mug shots that many try to forget. Sandra Cisneros did this and much more during her presentation in Denver on April 7th, which proved to be a good icebreaker.
Cisneros boldly walked up to the stage at the Metropolitan State College of Denver’s Tivoli Turnhalle with a smile on her face and happily waving to all the students who applauded her many accomplishments. After admitting to being nervous about presenting to a large crowd and at a school that was recognized in the mid-west for their encouragement of cultures and backgrounds, she began to tell students about her life. “I was surprised at how Cisneros was able to get in front of such a large crowd and talk about things that were hard for her. Just being up there would have made me nervous,” said Joanna Carrillo, one of the TJ students who was able to attend the presentation.
Although she is now the widely recognized author of works like Woman Hollering Creek, Caramelo, The House on Mango Street and a series of poetry books like Loose Woman, Cisneros overcame many obstacles that most of her readers did not know about. “By telling us about her depression and how that changed her work, I was able to understand what was going on in her work better,” said Carrillo. All of her work embodies part of her life, from the dark poetry during times when she was feeling depressed to the small bilingual children’s works that she published during one of her best emotional times. All of her work is based on emotion, something that sets her structure of writing apart from others.
In 1983 Cisneros published the first copy of House on Mango Street and since then she is credited with being one of few Latina writers who has reached commercial success in the American market. “I’m amazed at how she went from living on a couple dollars a day to helping fund an organization and do all this other work for the Latino community. She is a very strong woman and she taught us that following your dreams can pay of in the end,” said Sara Hernandez, a TJ sophomore who was also present at the event.
In addition to writing, Cisneros has taught at the Latino Youth Alternative High School in Chicago and has been a college recruiter at Loyala University in Chicago. She served as literature director for the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas, and was an artist at the Foundation Michael Karolyi in Vence, France. She has been a guest professor for California State University, , Berkeley, Irvine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Cisneros is also a member of PEN (not-for-profit cross-cultural company) and Mujeres por la Paz, a women’s peace group which helps organize. Throughout her career Cisneros has also managed to keep her feminist views in her jobs as well as works, and continues to use that today.
Teachers all over the US are basing lessons and curriculum on the writing done by Cisneros in order to educate their students on overcoming obstacles. Because of TJ’s Distinguished Hispanic Speakers Series, the students from the school were able to meet and talk with the inspiring author. She autographed students’ personal copies of her work as well as offered to take a picture with the students who were able to attend. “Taking a picture with us was very cool! It showed that she is nice, and wants to spend time with students and people who love her work,” said Hernandez.
The presentation was made even more special when Cisneros began to read parts of her unpublished book, a series of essays and poetry that she has been putting together for a couple of years and will be available to the public within the next year. She also showed the crowd many of her personal pictures which will also be part of the unpublished collection. Cisneros said that she was writing this book to clear up all the rumors that people have written about her, everything from her sources of inspiration to being a prostitute in Tijuana before she began to write. “More than an auto-biography,” she called her work.
April 2nd, 2010 will be a day to remember for any Cisneros fan who was present. She shared her experiences with a room of students and humbly accepted praise for her work. After this experience her readers will love her work even more and wait anxiously for another masterpiece.
