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Ana Castillo Biography

Ana Castillo (born June 15, 1953) is a Mexican-American Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experimental style as a Latina novelist. Her works offer pungent and passionate socio-political comment that is based on established oral and literary traditions. Castillo's interest in race and gender issues can be traced throughout her writing career. Her novel Sapogonia was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is the editor of La Tolteca, an arts and literary magazine. Castillo held the first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University. She has attained a number of awards including an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for her first novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters, a Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry and in 1998 Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago.

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Ana Castillo Quotes

There’s something insupportable about being pissed with the one person on this planet that sends your adrenaline flowing to remind you that you’re alive. It’s almost like we’re mad because we’ve been shocked out of our usual comatose state of being by feeling something for someone, for ourselves, for just a moment.

Adrenaline, Feelings, Mad, Planet, Shocked, Usual

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.

Back, Cutting, Medium, Thinking, Waste, Writing

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.

20Th, Book, Plain, Thinking, Time, Tree

Poverty has its advantages. When you're that poor what would you have that anyone would want? Except your peace of mind. Your dignity. Your heart. The important things.

Dignity, Heart, Important, Mind, Things

A good lover will do that, see something worthwhile in you that you never knew was there. And when there's something you don't like to see in yourself a good lover won't see it either.

Good Lovers, Like, Lover, Lovers, Worthwhile

Human sexuality has been regulated and shaped by men to serve men's needs.

Human, Men, Needs, Regulated, Serve, Sexuality

It is an absolute impossibility in this society to reversely sexually objectify heterosexual men, just as it is impossible for a poor person of color to be a racist. Such extreme prejudice must be accompanied by the power of society's approval and legislation. While women and poor people of color may become intolerant, personally abusive, even hateful, they do not have enough power to be racist or sexist.

Approval, Color, Men, Objectify, Power

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.

History, Important, People, Think, Thinking

In nature, creatures never ended the lives of others except to survive. To women, abortion was self-defense and preservation of the species. Abortion was not a fancy borne out of the female mind. Abortion was instinct beyond ideas. Abortion was fear (the cat that devours its litter when a predator nears).

Borne, Cat, Ended, Ideas, Nature, Self

I had serious reservations about putting my son in the public schools in my area. I have a tremendous amount of fear for the future of my boy. He's nine-and- a-half and dark-skinned. By the time he's 12 or 13, who knows who he's going to be identifying with in these days when you get shot down for wearing expensive Nikes to school. . . I've heard that if a Latino makes it to 19 years of age, he has a good chance of surviving into adulthood. Up until then, you don't know.

Fear, Nike, Public, Reservations, School, Son

Between the sun and poverty there was us for a little while.

Littles, Poverty, Sun

For things to have value in man's world, they are given the role of commodities. Among man's oldest and most constant commodity is woman.

Given, Men, Roles, Value, World

I was just, like, not at all the office type; I was the artist type.

Artist, Like, Office, Type

I wanted everything. What could you not want when you are brown and Indian-looking in a society in which the white aesthetic is praised as acceptable?

Acceptable, Brown, Everything, Society, Want, White

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.

Done, Fighting, Spanish, Special, Think, Thinking

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.

Morning, People, Personally, Point, Quickly, Thinking

The man you love cooking for you is good for you too.

Cooking, Cooking And Love, Good, Man, Men

The writers who have been serious about recreating American literature have always been far and few between. What we do have at the end of the 20th century that we didn't have at the beginning, at that time of the Lost Generation of rich white boys, is a mixture. We're now getting gay writers of color, let's say, and women of color being published. This is unprecedented.

Boys, Gay, Literature, Serious, White

Our goal should be to achieve joy

Achieve, Goal, Joy

I'm obviously an American citizen. My parents are American citizens. But I'm not looked at as an American.

American, American Citizens, Citizens, Looked, Parent

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