I got a letter from an angry mother in Austin, Texas, that made me even angrier. However, I believe Thich Nhat Hanh has taught me the greatest lesson, and that is not to speak/write when I’m angry. And so, I waited several days…out of necessity since I was traveling, but her letter traveled with me like a burr in my sock. Finally, after a week, I wrote and rewrote this letter. I imagined I was sending it to my father, and this helped me to be more respectful, especially since my mission was to have her hear me. Friends said I was wasting my time, but I have always naively believed in the power of the word, especially when written with love. In the end, the angry mother wrote back and apologized, and we made peace. I am grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to put my thoughts to paper, and doubly grateful she was willing to listen.
Inn of the Turquoise Bear
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Dear JP,
I’m sorry I was unable to write back to you until today. I’m traveling on a community-read project, and your letter necessitated more than a hasty response.
First and foremost, my apologies for my writing making anyone ill or ill at ease, least of all a child. My first rule in writing is this—“Do no harm.” I always remind my students and readers of this primary rule. To learn my book had caused any disorder was unsettling. It was never my intent.
If you have not yet read the introduction to the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition to The House on Mango Street, will you allow me to send it to you? In it I write how and why I wrote the book twenty-five years ago, and that it was dedicated to my high school students, kids whose lives were greatly in need of healing. I wrote because I was only their teacher and didn’t know what else I could do to save them.
Nine-year-olds are not my target Mango Street audience, though I’m aware fourth graders sometimes read or are read selections from my book. This doesn’t alarm me because the parts they shouldn’t read were intentionally written in a poetic way that should sail over their heads if they’re not mature.
Though I used a middle school narrator to write this book, I wrote about serious topics in a roundabout way only adults would understand. That’s why I was surprised by your letter that stated my book had made a child ill. I wonder if this child was suffering from experiences he couldn’t talk about, experiences the book may have stirred up—a delicate question that you may not have an answer for, and which may be totally off the mark. I don’t know; I’m not a social worker, but I do know this: social workers and counselors often use my book for young people who have been abused, physically, sexually, or otherwise; it allows them to talk about difficult subject matter without having to speak directly about themselves.
Regarding my author bio—“She is nobody’s mother and nobody’s wife.” I meant no disrespect to you or anyone who is a wife and mother. I was stating the personal route I had to take in order to become an author. To be nobody’s mother and nobody’s wife was not a choice for me, but a requirement; I was poor and could hardly raise a child alone on my salary. And being single was a result of another kind of poverty: my poor choice in men, though in retrospect, I’m grateful for these constraints. They allowed me the solitude and single-mindedness necessary to write.
True, I have no biological children, but I have, as it turns out, become a mother nonetheless. I have over one hundred creative writers I mother directly and indirectly through my two foundations, the Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation, along with thousands of readers of all ages I work with through my public engagements in libraries and schools across the country. Even though all this is exhausting and takes me away from my desk, I strongly believe the work of community outreach is part of my task of healing and making nonviolent social change in a time of extreme fear and xenophobia.
In addition to my work as a writer, I shelter several stray animals annually and find them permanent homes. All are my children, and believe me, my work, like yours, is never done.
Now, I must address your objection to my book featuring witches. Your fear is a cultural misinterpretation, I suspect. In Mexican culture we have gifted women who are called brujas or curanderas. They are healers, herbalists, visionaries, midwives, advisers, and spiritual guides. Women have these same intuitive gifts in North American culture too, but here they’re called intuitives, counselors, holistic doctors, therapists, psychics, health workers, social workers, nurses, artists, or nuns.
Brujas are not necessarily the same as an evil sorceress, though they can be if they use people’s fear for their own gain. I have known a lot of politicians, media personalities, and religious folks who use people’s fear for their own gain, and if you ask me, these are the sorcerers we need to be wary of. In my perspective, anyone who works with their positive, feminine spiritual energy is a bruja/o, and we all have the ability to develop this divine gift, just as we all have the potential to turn into public menaces by working from fear.
I believe books are medicine. A library is a medicine cabinet. What can heal one person may not work at all for somebody else. You know when something is healing you, just as you know when something isn’t. And if my book isn’t doing the trick and doesn’t serve you, you’re not required to keep reading. But please allow it to remain on the library shelf for someone else who needs its particular medicine.
Further, if you feel the book is inappropriate for your child, you must do what your heart guides you. That too is your responsibility. My own is to write my truth, and I certainly don’t insist that children read my books. Personally, I don’t think we can make children read anything they don’t want to read, do you? True reading comes from pleasure, not obligation. When obliged to read something that doesn’t speak to you, you’ll ultimately forget it. If, however, it brings the right medicine for whatever ails, you’ll remember it. This is the nature of art.
Finally, I don’t know where in my book you found prostitution since I don’t recall writing about any prostitutes in House on Mango Street. However, a reader must bring her own connotations to the text. My book was written in an epigrammatic way since I wanted to write a new kind of novel fusing poetry and fiction together. The stories are there for you to reflect on, like poetry. They are dense and intentionally enigmatic so the reader has something to discover, to savor, since so much of what happens in my stories isn’t in what is said, but in what is not said.
I agree with you. This book was not written for children, and I often find myself editing my selections when children turn up at my public events. (I read the funny chapters for them.) House was written for adults and for children who have lived experiences beyond their years. But children insist on reading my work for some reason, and who am I to forbid what wasn’t forbidden to me? I often read books beyond my years when I was a child plucking books off the shelves of the Chicago Public Library. I couldn’t take home books beyond the “juvenile” or “young adult” categories, but I could read anything I wanted while I was there. Most adult books bored me back then, to tell you the truth, and I think boredom is censorship enough.
I trust my books will only take flight in the minds of those who need these stories. Those too young or not needing my particular dose of medicine will be bored, and that’s how it works best, in my opinion.
May you find the right books to fall in love with and be transformed by, and may those books that don’t meet your needs be placed gently back on the bookshelf. I wish you well in your journey of self-discovery.
Sincerely,
Sandra Cisneros