Sandra Cisneros Quotes about Community

I realize that it's like spices in the kitchen. I need that turmeric. I'm sorry, but cinnamon isn't going to substitute . I feel that I can teach my listener about a new word they can use too. "Well, what words are part of my own community, even if I'm monolingual, that I'm not allowing myself to use in a public sphere?"

I was raised in Chicago, so always used Latina. It's what my Father and brothers called ourselves, when we meant the entire Spanish-speaking community of Chicago.

It's what's available to the poor communities. They do buy healthy stuff, you know, but the lettuce is usually iceberg lettuce and to get any taste, they have to use all that ranch dressing.

There's a lot of things that haven't been communicated to our communities. I didn't know these things myself. I didn't know that if you ate cheap food, it was like buying cheap gasoline, and there was a reason why after an hour you get headaches, or youhypoglycemic.

Those of us who are writers and have to perform to communities that aren't used to coming to book events, I would recommend taking some theater.

I don't close myself to the possibility of someplace outside the United States, but it would have to be someplace with an indigenous community, because that's where I feel at home.

Post 9/11, we've seen such disastrous policies on the border. I live two and a half hours away from the border, and I've seen changes for the communities there. I feel like it's an occupied zone. We're losing our rights, and both sides of the border are terrified. The Mexican population and the U.S. population are united in fear.

By community I mean that community you have a special vision for, that only you see, that no one else in a room sees. That special community in pain, that through a pain you've suffered, you're able to have that vision, that super-ray vision.

One way to get very humble is to dedicate the work you're going to do to your community.

The Mexico - United States border was always porous. People have been going and coming back since before the Spaniards arrived. Now we're seeing communities who have family members on the other side very frightened. I feel saddened for those families divided by violence. The whole border area is under siege.

Marshall Rosenberg talks about how we can create peace in the communities we work with. He's been traveling to warring nations to create peace within those countries.

Perhaps the community you mentioned might not come to the story. Sometimes you have to take the story to them, and perform it, and that's another way that I get an alternate point of view that isn't the official version of history out to a community. I feel that's what I've been doing since Caramelo.

I think that we need to measure how we give dollars to libraries by need. And the communities that are poor, in my opinion, should get more because you have to do more outreach.

I think my family and closest friends are learning about my need to withdraw, and I am learning how to restore and store my energy to both serve the community to the best of my ability and to serve my writer's heart.