Ana Castillo Quotes

The feminista also wanted a bicultural and bilingual child care that would validate their children's culture and perhaps ward off an inferiority complex before they had a chance to start public school; traditionally, monolingual and anglocentric schools had alienated children, causing them great psychological damage.

(In one of your essays in the book, from 2012, you write about Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez and say they are "[d]oing no more than supporting and promoting patriarchal and capitalist goals." Do you still feel this way about them, even as they—Beyoncé especially—are often held up as feminist icons?) AC: I do, but I know that I would have a lot of women of color of younger generations argue with me about that. I come from a generation of radical feminism; we believed in not using your body for financial gain and that sexualization fed into violence against women. I know that dates me. The performances that both Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé give are highly sexually charged, and they've made a lot of money off of a lot of men by sexualizing themselves as exotic beauties. Both of them have dyed their hair blonde, straightened it, weaved it, which feeds into a fantasy about women and women of color. I come from a very different perspective, and I don't believe that anything in terms of personal gain or materialism is really helping the rest of the world. If you make that much money, instead of buying a humongous mansion, go back to your community and start community projects and talk to your legislators about changing some of the laws [that mean] young men of color who have felonies because [they dealt] drugs as teenagers can no longer integrate into society. Moving away from Beyoncé and J-Lo—I'm sure they do a lot of good deeds—I'm very lucky I have a roof over my head. I can eat healthy food, my children have coats in cold weather, they have an education. I don't think a human being needs much more beyond that.

I take every risk in writing that I can, because I don't write just to entertain people or make money.

The issue of mass incarceration, the multi-billion-dollar industry that prisons have become in this country, is important to talk about. The fact is that young people of color are being harassed as much as my generation was 30 years ago despite the civil rights movement and all the other ways that we've brought up race issues in this country.

I made a commitment a half century ago to make my writing my own tool and weapon to fight injustices as I recognized them, and this continues. I am grateful to the gods for it.

according to las feministas, feminism was "a very dynamic aspect of the Chicana's heritage and not at all foreign to her nature."" Contrary to ethnographic data that portrays Chicanas as submissive followers who are solely designated to preserve the culture, the feminists did not see herself or other women of her culture as such. While the feminist dialogue remained among the activists in el Movimiento, one sees in Encuentro Femenil that there indeed existed a solid initiative toward Chicana feminist thought, that is, recognition of sexism as a primary early on as the late 1960s. Clarifying the differences between the needs of the Anglo feminist and the feministas was part of the early feminista's tasks.

Anyone who says the artists and writers they study don’t influence them, directly or unconsciously, isn’t being honest.

No one is very certain about anything after a while.

We think that language is only an aesthetic choice or a matter of personal expression, but for Mexicans and the people in the U.S. who share that history, suppression of our culture is political. This is the reason I choose the language/s I choose, and when.

In 2008 you don’t necessarily find an overt collective Latin@ consciousness (one for all, all for one) in all the output now seen by Latinos. This is a result of the ground broken by my generation. Now, a Latin@ writer, poet, rapper of Word or hip-hop, ‘chic-lit’ novelist does not necessarily feel it important to write from a collective Latin@ identity...Latin@ literature has moved along with the times. You have Latin@s in the limelight -”American Idol”, “Desperate Housewives”, in the White House, etc.- precisely because of the Latin@ Movement of the 70s. On the other hand, popular culture has become global and there aren’t just Latin@s out there now but other ethnic groups that once would not have been represented in the media and mainstream publishing.

… In terms of Latino communities generally speaking, I don’t think women’s (and gay) sexual identities are more than simply tolerated outside the heterosexual one. But I do believe there is change taking place there, too. These are my observations and most definitely have no empirical basis. I do believe that straight men, regardless of age or background, because times are changing, are becoming more accepting of the variations of binary gender constricts.

paintings
and books conceal more than they ever tell.

A novel begins with a query.

We all participate in patriarchal patterns.

In Lak Ech/tu eres mi otro yo–teaches about the ‘other’ and that we are all each other’s reflection.