Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa Quotes

"Nightmares are for people who refuse to listen to their hearts. People who have lost their way, who are hollow. Fear slips into those hollow places. It is the very emptiness that draws the fear." (p164)

Remember to open your heart. Learn to recognize gifts offered on your journey. (chapter 25 p325)

(How did Daughters of the Stone come to being?) It evolved over a long period of time for many reasons. One important reason was the absence of authentic stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans in American literature. I wanted to tell our stories, our way. When I started, I thought I was going to write memoir. Very soon it became evident that I would need the freedom of fiction to include the many stories that had not been told. It wasn't about me. It was about a whole group of people who had been erased from our national dialogue.

(What advice do you have to give to budding writers?) Read, read, read. Read everything and pay attention. What works for you? What doesn't? Decide which writers you love and learn from what they put on paper. Equally important, find those you don't love and learn what not to do.

When physical reality becomes unbearable, then an alternative is needed. My characters don't escape from objective reality, they simply exist in a more complex worldview than is the norm in the world they are forced to inhabit. Their perception of the world goes beyond that of the Western imaginary. Whether you call it magic or mysticism or religion or spirituality, it is that which binds the characters and allows for their survival in spite of the violence of their lives.

If you aren't willing to fight for your work, no one else will either. If you feel you have an important story to tell, you have to be willing to go to the wall for it. That said, no one is perfect or infallible. All writers, no matter how successful, have much to learn. The day we believe we have nothing more to learn is the day we start stagnating. It's important to find people who understand your universe and support your vision. It's important to keep honing your craft, keep growing with the changing times. It is as important to listen as it is to raise your voice.

My writing begins with dreaming, journaling and meditation.

Remember the time before the hurting, for that's where the healing lives. Find the joy of the before and know you can find it again. You have a big heart and there are many paths to healing.

She knows for certain that the poisonous barb of humiliation has done much more damage than the lash ever did. (p277)

My characters’ strength, whether in private or public spaces, comes from community and from the overriding faith and inner fortitude that comes from African religion and traditions. This belief system informs their daily lives and is the core of the endurance that has helped them survive through the brutality of enslavement. For instance, the presence and guidance of the ancestors is integral to their faith. This system of belief supersedes their daily reality of violence and limited agency. They share their belief with their black communities, and in this way, the private belief system becomes public. But beyond that, white characters begin to gravitate towards that system when their own fails them.

“What you’ll be left with in the end will sustain you much more than any illusion you may have brought with you. Because here in addition to all the problems of poverty, political intrigue, corruption, jealousy, and sociological and historical denial, you’ll also find familia, respeto, dignidad, amor, trabajo, cariño. And yes, you will find racism, alive and well, just like you left it up north.” (p297)

In my experience, Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets was the first novel that addressed the existence of the Afro-Boricua in the U.S., and it was an incredible achievement at that time. But even with all its merits, that novel represented one version of our reality. The totality of the Afro-Puerto Rican life experience and community, like any other cultural group, went much further and was a much more complicated construct than could be addressed in one novel. I found that, in general, the black characters created by the media were treated as addendum rather than central figures. Theirs was a world of supplementary existence rather than one of primary agency or universal humanity. The media images of Latinos were olive-skinned, stereotypical, and absent of any of the dignity and humanity of the world I saw around me. I wanted to break that stereotype and start from the beginning, in Africa, because I wanted to write about the entire journey of my people from West Africa to colonial Puerto Rico to urban America.

Coming from a traditional Puerto Rican family, I wasn't allowed to express my displeasure at or disagreement with my parents' point of view in any meaningful way. Since I couldn't 'talk back', I started writing.

Your body is only a vessel. Your essence is inviolate. It is only when you give up your soul that you are lost.

Pola closed her eyes. She thought about all that had already been taken from her; her lovely fingers, her teeth, her body, her untouched womanhood, her laughter. But they hadn't taken everything. She clung to her faith, her soul, and her secret-the seed she knew was growing deep within her.