Sandra Cisneros, probably the most celebrated Hispanic writer in the Southwest for the past several decades, attracts enormous crowds of particularly young admirers any time she speaks. She is a rock star.
She often tells would-be writers not to write what they can remember, but to write “what they cannot forget.” She knows. She has written herself out of melancholic states several times in her life by focusing on what she can’t forget.
For instance, when she moved from Chicago to Texas at the age of 30 to take a position as the literature director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, she rather quickly found herself in a state of depression. She could not dismiss it or forget it. She had to write her way out of it.
It’s hard to imagine that she would have been depressed considering that she had just published a best-selling book, “The House on Mango Street,” to enthusiastic critical acclaim. Perhaps she found in Texas what Bernard Malamud once encountered in Oregon: friendliness, but not friends – at least not immediately.
Cisneros recalled later that walking along the San Antonio River, in the wild, undeveloped part, she found her depression lifting. The river was welcoming her and healing her. She said she had expected to be welcomed by people, but the river welcomed her instead, with its peaceful, inviting waters.
It was in Texas, a place where both her cultures blended in a unique and complex way, that Cisneros eventually found a new literary footing. But it took a while. In fact, she was about to give up on Texas entirely when she was awarded a J. Frank Dobie Paisano Fellowship.
Dobie to the rescue of Texas Letters once again!
Cisneros lived for a few months on Dobie’s Paisano ranch, thinking and reading and writing. She told Texas Highways the experience changed her “attitude about Texas.”
She said, “I just kind of remember sitting out there in these Adirondack chairs and looking at this huge sky and thinking, ‘what a beautiful place.’ So it was very healing. It kept me in Texas. It shifted me and made me realize that Texas was not a bad place.”
Once she was comfortable here, Sandra Cisneros was able to rediscover and redefine her literary voice that was both personal and universal.
Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street,” published in 1984, became the cornerstone of that voice. It wasn’t just a book; it was an anthem for countless Hispanic readers who saw themselves in the coming-of-age stories of Esperanza Cordero, the young girl at the heart of the novel.
The book was like a photograph of an American neighborhood, taken through the lens of a child whose world was shaped by both the poetry and the struggles of growing up Latino in an urban setting.
And Texas embraced it. From the Rio Grande to Dalhart and El Paso to Beaumont, readers saw in Esperanza’s life the echoes of their own — aspiring for something greater, striving to break through the limitations imposed by poverty, gender, and ethnicity.
The book told of the lives and dreams of those who felt caught between two worlds, living in a place where identity is constantly in flux. Texas, a place that was often steeped in the conflicts of borderland politics, race and cultural negotiation, became a willing host to a voice that spoke to these very themes.
In Texas, Cisneros’ rock star status was cemented. Not because of the recognition she received in literary circles — though that was certainly part of it — but because she became something else entirely: a symbol. For Texas’ Chicano community, her work was revolutionary, a shining testament to the power of authentic voices.
Cisneros’ influence wasn’t just literary — it was cultural. As the book found its way into classrooms, community centers and living rooms across Texas, it gave a voice to those who had been, for too long, silent in the larger cultural conversation. And, like any rock star, Cisneros’ rise to prominence was not just about her words, but about what those words did for others.
After her mother died, Cisneros found depression settling over her again, but she didn’t want to take pills. She wrote in “Have You Seen Marie?,” “I needed to feel things deeply, good or bad, and wade through an emotion to the other shore, toward my rebirth.”
The San Antonio River helped her heal once again.
She describes it this way:
Behind my house the river is more creek than river. It still has its natural sandy bottom. It hasn’t been covered over with concrete yet. Wild animals live in the tall grass and in the waters. My dogs and I can wade across and watch tadpoles and turtles and fish darting about. There are hawks and cranes and owls and other splendid, winged creatures in the trees. It is calming and beautiful, especially when you are sad and in need of big doses of beauty.”
Texas is a state where culture is defined by blending, by merging, by navigating the space between two worlds, and in this, Cisneros’ stories fit perfectly.
She came to Texas not just to tell her story, but to help shape the stories of countless others. And in doing so, she became, undeniably, one of the state’s most important literary voices — a true rock star in the world of Texas lit.
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