Our guest, Erika Sánchez, reads from her masterful debut young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Sánchez's writing is unflinching in its reckoning with teenage pain, while also somehow making you laugh out loud. This conversation combines the same qualities, returning bravely to humor between ventures into serious terrain like the stigma attached to mental health struggles in the Latinx community, and the dark places a writer needs to go in her own mind to get despair right on the page. Sánchez reflects on a family dynamic recognizable to most of us who were once adolescents: the desire to be seen for who we are and want to be, alongside the failure to imagine the lives of our parents -- and the alienation and tension this can cause, especially for the children of immigrants. For Sánchez, reading can exacerbate the distance we feel from our kin, carrying us to a million other worlds, but it's also an exercise in revolutionary empathy -- with the potential to reconnect us, and more deeply than before.
Author Bio:
Erika Sánchez is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She's the author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, a New York Times Bestseller, a National Book Awards finalist, and a soon-to-be film adaptation directed by America Ferrera. Her poetry collection, Lessons on Expulsion, was a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award, and her memoir, Crying in the Bathroom, is slated to be published in 2022. She was a 2017-2019 Princeton Arts Fellow, and a recipient of both the 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library Foundation and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. She was appointed the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Chair in the Latin American and Latino Studies Department at DePaul University and is part of the inaugural core faculty of the Randolph College Low Residency MFA Program.
[00:00:00] Reginald Dwayne Betts: There's somebody in, like, you know, Sydney, Australia, right now with a book in their hand that's thinking about the world along the same lines of the conversation that we're having.
[00:00:12] Jason Reynolds: It's literally us manipulating and maneuvering twenty-six letters into different arrangements that might just liberate somebody.
[00:00:21] Miriam Toews: Literacy is, is freedom.
[00:00:25] Betts: And so, so many people was yelling, you know, and it was wild to me. I was like, "This is literature right here." You know what I mean? I was like, I was like, "This is the importance of books."
You're listening to The Freedom Takes, a podcast from Freedom Reads. I'm your host, Reginald Dwayne Betts. I'm a poet, a lawyer, and the director of Freedom Reads. You'll also hear the voice of my guest co-host, Kelly Hernández. She's a law student at Yale who works with me on Freedom Reads.
Today, our guest is Erika Sánchez. Like me, she's a poet, she's also an essayist. Then, unlike me, she's a fiction writer, a phenomenal one at that. We'll be discussing her debut young adult novel: I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Erika, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. We'd love it, and we know our listeners would, too, to have you read a passage from I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, but first, could you, could you set up that passage for those who haven't read it yet?
[00:01:27] Erika Sánchez: This is chapter six of the novel, I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, and in this chapter, I guess all you need to know is that the protagonist's sister has recently died. And for those of you who have read the book already, thank you. I really appreciate it. (Begins reading)
My cousin Victor is turning seven today, and my tío Bigotes - yes, "Uncle Mustache" - is throwing him a big birthday party to celebrate, but I think it's just an excuse for him to get drunk. As Amá is brushing her hair in the bathroom, I tell her, she looks pretty and ask if I can stay home. I want to figure out how to get back inside Olga's room. The key must be in the apartment somewhere, but Amá says no without even bothering to look at me. Maybe she thinks that if she leaves me alone, I'm going to orchestrate a giant orgy or overdose on heroin. I don't know why she doesn't trust me. I keep telling her that I will never get pregnant like my cousin Vanessa, but it doesn't matter to her. Even if I don't find the key, at least I'd be alone. I'm hardly ever by myself in the apartment because Amá is always all up in my business and won't leave me behind. Sometimes when my parents go to bed, I open all the windows--which Amá hates--and let the breeze flap the curtains open. I sit in the living room with a cup of coffee, journal, book, and a reading lamp. I like the late-night sounds of traffic, even when they're disrupted by the pops of gunshots.
I decided to keep begging. "Amá, please. I just want to stay here and read. I hate parties. I'm just going to go sit somewhere by myself. I don't want to talk to anyone."
"What kind of girl hates parties?"
"This kind," I say, pointing to myself. "You know, that. "
Tío's house always smells of old fruit and wet dog, which I don't understand because Chómpiras has been dead for three years. The stereo is blasting Los Bukis, and screaming children are running in and out of the house. Though I really hate kids, the part I hate most about these parties is arriving and departing. If I don't kiss each and every relative on the cheek hello and goodbye, even if I don't know them, Amá calls me a malcriada, a badly raised daughter. "You want to be like those güeros mal educados?" Amá always asks. In that case, yes, I do want to be like an impolite white person, but I just shut my mouth because it's not worth arguing about. I kiss everyone in the house hello, including tío Cayetano, even though I can't stand him. When I was a kid, he used to stick his finger in my mouth when no one was looking. The last time he did it was during Vanessa's communion party when I was twelve. I was in the bathroom while everyone was in the backyard. As I came out, he forced his finger in my mouth, much deeper than the times before, so I bit him. I clamped my mouth and wouldn't let go. I think I wanted to reach bone.
"Hija de tu pinche madre," he yelled. When I finally released his finger, he walked back outside, shaking his hand, letting the blood drip onto the floor. He told everyone the dog had bitten him and left the party with a paper towel wrapped around his finger. I sat in a corner for the rest of the night, drinking cup, after cup of pop to get the salty, metallic taste of his blood out of my mouth. I wonder if he ever did anything like that to Olga. Tío Bagotes's wife, Paloma, rushes to get us some food once we finish greeting every single person at the party. Tía Paloma is a woman so big that her stomach hangs low and everything wiggles when she walks. Every time I see her, I wonder how she and tío have sex. Or maybe they don't even do it now that tío has that new mistress we've heard rumors about. Amá says Paloma has a thyroid problem, and I feel bad for her, but I've seen her eat three tortas in one sitting. Thyroid, my ass.
After I finished eating, I'm so full my pants nearly cut off my circulation. I'm uncomfortable no matter how I sit or shift. I almost want to lie down and let the food spread out. I don't know why I do this. Sometimes it's like I'm eating to drown something yowling inside me, even when I'm not really hungry. I pray that I never get as big as Tía Paloma.
"Buena para comer," tía Milagros says, eyeballing my clean plate. Normally, I wouldn't be offended by a comment like that--Mexicans are always saying that about kids. It's meant as a compliment. "Good eaters" are people who will eat anything put in front of them with no complaints; they'll eat with enthusiasm. It means they aren't picky or entitled brats. But this time I know it isn't meant as praise because tía Milagros is always talking shit. I used to like her when I was little, but she's become a bitter, resentful woman over the years. Her husband left her for a woman half her age a long time ago, and she's been salty ever since. It's hard to take her seriously with her red perm and eighties bangs, but it pisses me off that I become a target of her passive-aggressive cracks. Something about me just makes her angry. She is always sucking her teeth at what I'm wearing or making some comment about my weight, even though she's more floppy and misshapen than a sack of laundry. She loved Olga, though. Everyone did.
I watch my cousin Vanessa feeding her daughter mashed-up beans. Only sixteen and already has a baby. That would be the worst thing that's ever happened to me. But Vanessa seems happy somehow. She's always giving Olivia kisses and telling her how much she loves her. I wonder if she'll ever finish high school. What kind of life can you have when you live with your parents and have a baby to take care of? Olivia is cute and all, but I never know what to do with babies. I walk outside and see my cousin Freddy and his wife, Alicia, arrive as a piñatas is being set up. I've always been fascinated by them. Freddy graduated from the University of Illinois and works as an engineer downtown, and Alicia was a theater major at DePaul and works at Steppenwolf. They're always dressed like they stepped off a runway. Alicia has the most interesting outfits--dresses made of bright, crazy fabrics and earrings that look like they belong in museums. Today two silver hands dangle from her ears. Freddy wears dark jeans and a black blazer. There's no one in my family like them. No one has ever gone to a real college. I always want to ask them a million questions.
"Hey guys. How are you? What's new?" I feel like a frumpy dork when I talk to them because they seem so sophisticated. I get shy.
"We're good," Freddy says solemnly. "I'm so sorry about your sister. We were in Thailand and couldn't make it to the funeral."
Everyone in the house begins to come outside for the piñata. Victor suddenly starts crying because it isn't ready. Jesus, what a baby.
"Yeah. We're so, so sorry," Alicia says, taking my hand. That's what everyone always says about Olga. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I never know what to say. Is thank you the right answer?
"Thailand! How cool. What's that like?" I don't want to talk about my sister.
"It was beautiful." Freddy smiles. I see tía Paloma wiping Victor's face with the end of her blouse. He's hysterical.
"Yeah, we got to ride elephants," Alicia adds. "It was a-maz-ing."
"So, what are you thinking for college?" Freddie looks uncomfortable. He can probably sense that they shouldn't talk about Olga anymore. I think I might visibly recoil every time someone says her name. I don't really know. I want to move away to New York, I think. Somewhere with a good English program. But my grades haven't been great lately, so I'm kind of worried. I really have to get my GPA up or else I'm screwed. When I remember the C I got in my algebra, it feels like snakes hatching and slithering in my stomach.
"Well, listen, if you ever need help with your applications or have questions, please let us know. We need more people like you in college," Freddy says.
"Totally." Alicia nods, her silver hands swinging. "I can probably get you a summer job at my company when you're old enough. It would look really great on a college application."
"Thanks," I say. I don't know what Freddy means by "people like me." What am I like? Why would anyone care if I go to college or not? There's no one else I feel like talking to, so I go to the living room to read The Catcher in the Rye, which I had to smuggle in my bag because Amá always complains when I read at parties. Why do I always have to be so disrespectful? she wants to know. Why can't I just be at peace with my family? I don't feel like talking most of the time, and today everyone is going to be asking about quinceañera. Besides, all of my little cousins are still trying to break the piñata. I doubt anyone will notice that I'm gone. I just hope tío Cayetano doesn't come in here when I'm alone. (finishes reading)
[00:10:28] Betts: Yeah, cool. That was, that was great.
[00:10:29] Sánchez: Thank you.
[00:10:30] Hernández: One of the things that I most appreciate about this book is that you address mental health, and you do it with such care. I know that this is something that people rarely talked about, and just last week, we had a fellow student die by suicide. And there's still so much stigma around mental health in the Latinx community and communities of color more broadly. So it meant a lot to see someone like Julia get the support she needed from a therapist. And I was just wondering why you decided to address mental health so explicitly?
[00:11:04] Sánchez: I mean, the short answer is that I lived it. I was also a teenager who struggled with depression, and it was very severe, and it was untreated for a long time until I ended up hurting myself, and so I wanted, in a sense, well, to write about the experience, but also to de-stigmatize it because it's something that Latina teens experience in incredibly high rates. We have the highest suicide rates of all of our peers, which is horrifying and something that isn't really addressed very much as a public health issue. And so, that was something that I was really trying to bring attention to, and writing about depression is really difficult in that you're, you're trying to make your reader feel what you feel or the, what the narrator is feeling or, or the character is feeling. And to do that, you have to enter that space again, and so I had to like really go into a realm in my mind that was very painful. That I felt was, was important so it could feel true, it could feel accurate.
[00:12:19] Betts: I didn't know If I was going to like this book.
[00:12:20] Sánchez: Okay. (laughs)
[00:12:21] Betts: And, and, and I loved it, though, you know? I found like that I had a deep, emotional connection to, to Julia. You wrote something about how I felt as a 16-year-old.
[00:12:34] Sánchez: Oh, that's great. I love to hear that.
[00:12:36] Betts: First of all, I was like, damn, she, she, she must've interviewed my family. (laughs)
[00:12:41] Sánchez: Well, we have a lot in common if you have a lot in with Julia, I think we, we should share stories. (laughs)
[00:12:47] Betts: The, the one thing that hit me, though, and, and I've been struggling with this on my own, and I wonder how you approach this, so I read it, and I thought, this is the example right here of what I've always meant, and I think what other writers have always meant when he said you get to the universal through the particular. Because, you know, I deeply feel connected to her, and so my, my, my question is, when you write, how much were you thinking about audience?
[00:13:15] Sánchez: You know, I often don't think of audience until later because I don't really want that to tarnish the initial impulse because I feel like there's so much magic in that. And that's why I write, because it's so exciting. I want to write something that is as true as I can write it. And sometimes that's ugly, and sometimes it's uncomfortable. But it's true to me, and it feels authentic. And, and then what happens afterwards is often beyond our control as you know. Like, you write a book, and you have this image of it, and people have other ideas that you never even considered. You know, a lot of the, the feedback that I got initially was that she was abrasive, et cetera. And I was like, but--
[00:14:08] Betts: She wasn't even abrasive! She was like, she was like, she was like conflicted! But also, she was like hormonal, and, and she was really witty and vulnerable. You know, it's, it's really interesting hearing you say this, you know, you've written a novel, and it's a coming-of-age story, and it, and it invites people to say all of the things that they think about teenagers.
[00:14:32] Sánchez: Oh yeah, people hate teenagers.
[00:14:34] Betts: Yeah, that's wild.
[00:14:37] Sánchez: I mean, she's like going through some really terrible shit, and she's doing her best, and she's falling apart. Like, can you have some compassion?
[00:14:44] Betts: Yeah.
[00:14:45] Sánchez: I, I was a shitty fifteen-year-old in many ways, but I was really trying, and I wanted to get to the heart of that age of, you're confused about who you are or your place in the world, you really just want to be seen, and no one really understands you. And I think about, like, what I wanted to read as a kid, of course, you know what every writer says, every writer of color is like, I wanted to see myself. And so I think about, um, writers of--
[00:15:11] Betts: The white people don't never say that shit.
[00:15:13] Sánchez: No, they shouldn't say it either. If they said it, I'd be mad. And you know the people who hate Julia the most are white ladies almost always. And it's amazing because it's just like, she just kind of upsets their, their sensibilities, their sense of propriety, and, you know, decorum, and Julia isn't about that. She doesn't follow those kinds of norms.
[00:15:41] Betts: That response kind of reflects a failure to see what the book was about cause I felt like on some fundamental level-- and this is why I thought it was good. I thought the Julia part was, was really astute and on point, but it was also a given, you know, like if you write about young people, part of their struggles is to be seen, particularly when you write about, like, you know, Mexican-American kid, Black kid, who's coming from a family that didn't have certain things. But what I thought made the book brilliant though, right, is that you astutely showed us how she wasn't being seen, but then you went a step further and showed us how she couldn't see her parents.
[00:16:18] Sánchez: Yes!
[00:16:19] Betts: And I found that to be really powerful because, you know, what was fucking up is that, like, I think I'm righteous and shit, right? But what was fucked up about Julia, like if it was something about her that made me sad, and it didn't, it didn't make me dislike her, but made me sad, it's because she didn't even understand the way in which the world she lived in precluded her from being seen.
[00:16:42] Sánchez: Yeah.
[00:16:43] Betts: But also precluded her from even imagining the lives of her parents, right? And it made me think that all children don't see their parents, and, and that that's just the consequence of youth, right? I thought that was-- what made you do that?
[00:16:58] Sánchez: So, I think for me, it was important to include that because I wanted to show her limitations as well and how, even the people that we love the most, we don't really know. Oftentimes we don't see, we don't understand. And so, her parents are people who have lived these really full but traumatic lives, and she can't really understand that. She can't see that her mother has been traumatized. She, she doesn't understand why her father is so silent. And I think that that happens to a lot of us, uh, immigrant kids is that we don't really understand what our parents have been through and what circumstances they've, they've endured in order to get to this country, to, to stay in this country. And so, I thought that was really important to show that they, they were all missing each other, they could not see each other. And they couldn't see Olga either. And, you know, until Julia started to, to uncover things about her.
[00:18:09] Betts: It was legit like a lot of complicated characters in the space of a quickly-moving, tightly-written, poetic novel that I was, I was surprised that it was just so many points. Like the father has so much depth. He actually silent in the book, though, you know? Like he, but he has so much depth without, without, without taking up a lot of space. I think that was, it was, it was, it was dope. I'm not, I'ma stop singing your praises, but it was dope.
[00:18:33] Sánchez: Go on, please. No (laughs) I love what you said about the dad because I love the dad. And I think he's such an amazing character. I mean, at least for me cause when I created him, I was thinking of my own father and like the fathers that I knew, like just Mexican dads, stoic as fuck, but like really complicated, and they love their family and very hard working, and just, there's a lot there, and a lot of people don't get to see like how beautiful our community is. And a lot of, again, white people were like, well, what's up with the dad? Like what, why is he so silent? And I'm like, oh my God. You totally missed the point.
[00:19:09] Hernández: I do definitely want to say that this is something I personally really appreciated because I think that the mass media generally only portrays one version of the Mexican macho man: hardworking immigrant, et cetera, and doesn't really expand on their life and what they've been through. Right? And that's something that you capture and I appreciate because we all know about how, how important it is for people to have multidimensionality in, in stories like this. But I'll, I'll lead this into another question, which is really more about the relationship between Olga and Julia. Olga, for the listeners who haven't read the book yet, is Julia's sister who dies. This isn't the beginning, so it's not a spoiler, but both Julia and Olga in different ways defy what being a perfect Mexican daughter means. As a daughter of Mexican parents, myself, I also felt the pressure to be a perfect Mexican daughter, to stay at home, cook for your parents, clean, be modest, be submissive.
[00:20:15] Sánchez: How did you do with that expectation?
[00:20:18] Hernández: Oh! That was the question I was going to ask you! (laughs) Yeah, so I--
[00:20:25] Sánchez: I want to know about your experience.
[00:20:27] Hernández: I mean, I won't sugar coat and say that it was easy. I think that that's often something that many first-generation immigrants more broadly experience because you're in both worlds, and there's always a pressure and tension between being Americanized and having the cultures and expectations that my parents grew up with. So, I'm no longer in your pueblo in Oaxaca. It's different here--
[00:20:54] Sánchez: Oh, you're from Oaxaca?
[00:20:55] Hernández: Yes. Um,
[00:20:57] Sánchez: I love Oaxaca
[00:20:57] Hernández: I love Oaxaca, too.
[00:20:59] Betts: I'm about to say some corny-ass tourist shit, like yo, is that close to Cancún? This is why this is why people who, who know Mexico be hating Americans cause they, they be like, yeah, I've been to Mexico before! Where? Well, you know, Cancún. Like, no!,
[00:21:15] Sánchez: No, that doesn't even count.
[00:21:15] Hernández: It doesn't count. I brace myself, though, most times, because there will be an anecdote about Puerto Vallarta or Cancún anytime I mentioned, you know, I'm Mexican. So, I mean, how was it, I'm wondering, also, it sounds like, maybe you had similar experience facing these challenges or expectations. How did you push back on these expectations, and how did you begin to question or challenge the role of women, um, in your life?
[00:21:53] Sánchez: I did it quite early to my mother's chagrin. And I drove her fucking nuts, so it was something that I grew up with, this tension between me and her of like how a woman is supposed to be. You know, when I left the house, I just did whatever the fuck I wanted. Honestly, I was like out, just being wild. And my mom was just always perplexed at, like, my decisions and what I was actually doing with my life, and with good reason. I mean, it's a completely foreign kind of point of view that I have from her. It's, it's something that's caused us a great deal of tension over the years. And now that I'm like a señora myself, which is kind of horrifying to admit--
[00:22:38] Betts: I know what that word means, but I'm not understanding because I feel like you like, like a decade younger than me. Like, is it when you have a kid, you get to be like you're a señora or..?
[00:22:48] Sánchez: When you get married, you're a señora. And now that I'm married and I have a child, like I'm definitely a señora. And then yesterday, I threw a chancla at my husband, and I was like, fuck, that's it. I'm done.
[00:23:02] Hernández: The mark of a señora right there if there's ever been one.
[00:23:05] Sánchez: It was all in jest, but I was like, oh my God, I can't believe I did that. And so, um, now that I am an adult woman, and I have a child, like my mom seems to backed off somewhat, but still, there's moments of tension. Um, but yeah, it was just a constant struggle to, to again, be seen and to, and to live an authentic life because everyone else was like, what the fuck are you doing? You know, like I wanted to be a writer. Everyone was very perplexed by that. I hated working corporate jobs or nine-to-five jobs. I, I, I just have like a really hard time making it in a world that felt like it was not meant for me and wasn't built for me. Now that I'm like established somewhat and I have a job that is, you know, steady and like, I just bought a house and shit, like, I feel like now, like no one could tell me shit. (laughs)
[00:24:06] Betts: Let me ask you this writer question because I think you've just hit me to something about wanting to be a writer. The first sentence, you know, it's a bunch of famous first sentences: "best of times, worst of times," the first joint in A Hundred Years of Solitude--
[00:24:21] Sánchez: Oh, God, so good.
[00:24:22] Betts: "They shot the white lady first," from--
[00:24:24] Sánchez: Oh, yes! Paradise!
[00:24:25] Betts: Yeah! Oh, you got that!
[00:24:27] Sánchez: Also I have a portrait of Toni Morrison in my home. Like, she is like my saint.
[00:24:31] Betts: See, that's legit. That's actually, you know what, that's legit, but let me ask you this joint, alright--
[00:24:37] Sánchez: Now you believe I'm a, I'm a real writer? (laughs)
[00:24:40] Betts: But also, not just a real writer because you know, what's fucked up as writers and as people in America is, as a lot of times, we believe that the only folks we love have to look like us.
[00:24:48] Sánchez: Hmm!
[00:24:49] Betts: And we act that out in, in, in a lot of different ways, and the things that you just said first, it's not that I didn't think you would get the first sentence of Paradise, but that you, that you were excited about it, I was like, oh shit! And then when you was like, "oh, I got, I got a portrait of her in my house," it's just one of those things that, that, that makes me see that, like, as a writer, you seein the ways in which America is trying to be a hodgepodge of what we all bring to it.
[00:25:14] Sánchez: Yeah!
[00:25:15] Betts: But I wanted to ask you, how, how did you go about that first sentence bit? "What surprised me most about seeing my sister did is the lingering smirk on her face." That is a mean first sentence.
[00:25:28] Sánchez: I wanted you to have to keep reading. Honestly, I was like, I'm going to get you. I don't know how, but I'm going to get you. And so, I thought about it so much, and it was just reading so much, you know, like I talk so much the tradition of literature and how it's all a conversation, right? You know, like I couldn't write this without Toni Morrison, I couldn't write it without Marquez, I couldn't write it without Faulkner, I couldn't write it without Sandra Cisneros, like-- it was all of these writers that influenced me, that made me the writer that I am today. That's something that I carry in my teaching, where I, I really want to emphasize the importance of reading deeply if you're going to be a writer, you know, and like, you have to love it because if you don't love it, then what the fuck is the point? You know, like this, this is not, like, a great way to get famous or to make money. Like, it's just not. And if that's your goal--
[00:26:26] Betts: Spoken from somebody who, who, who both bought a house with words, has, has a book becoming a movie, and, and is excelling in two different genres. No, but I think everything you say that's true.
[00:26:38] Sánchez: No, but you know what I mean! I, I did it because I loved it and not because I was like out to get rich. It wasn't like, that's really not the way to do it, I don't think, because there are other ways to get rich that are much easier.
[00:26:50] Betts: Investment banking.
[00:26:52] Sánchez: Yeah, like go do that if you don't really care about writing, like don't, don't try to do this if this is not what you love. And kids have asked me, like, "how do you get famous?" And I'm like, well, that's not the point. (laughs) I'm like, it just happened to be that way, and thank you, but, uh, I love to write, like I deeply, deeply love reading and writing. Words excite me. I am a gigantic nerd. All I want to do for the most part is do my work and be left alone. Honestly.
[00:27:24] Hernández: So I was just wondering, you mention in your author bio that you wanted to be a writer since you were twelve years old in giant bifocals. Your words, not mine--
[00:27:33] Sánchez: True facts! (laughs)
[00:27:34] Hernández: but (laughs) I have mine right here. Tell us a little bit more about that twelve-year-old. Like how did writing come to you?
Yeah, well, you know, I was a pretty lonely kid, just like introverted, weird, artistic, uh, was not cool. I mean, shocking, I know. (laughs) I was not popular. And so, my friends were my books and, um, I realized I loved words, and I loved creating images with words, and that was so exciting, and so, I started with poetry and, um, it was just like this world had opened up to me that I didn't know existed, and it was just so exhilarating for me. And as a kid, who was like lonely and kind of depressed and then really depressed, like that shit helped me. Um, being able to like read books about people who were also sad or also struggling. They were never people of color, unfortunately, but--until I got older--but yeah, just like having an escape. Also, to just go into a different world that wasn't familiar. And because of that, I feel like in many ways, I've lived like a million lives in my brain because I've read so many books, and I, I think about stories all the time and I feel very interconnected with the world, and so, um, that might sound very romantic, but for me, writing is, is a spiritual practice. It's not just, like, my job. It's not a hobby. It's, like, this is who I am. And I don't know how else to be.
[00:29:14] Betts: You spoke about this a little bit, but you've mentioned a lot of novelist. And I wonder, you know, cause you got a lot of range in terms of novelists, right, I wonder who do you think of as your antecedents as a poet?
[00:29:26] Sánchez: Oh yeah. Oh, so many. This question excites me. Emily Dickinson, she was an early poet that, you know, I found, in my evolution. I love Larry Levis.
[00:29:42] Betts: Oh, shit!
[00:29:45] Sánchez: I adore Larry Levis. Um, you know, my homie Eduardo Corral, he's just killing it. He's amazing. He's so good.
[00:29:54] Betts: Guillotine, his new book is Guillotine.
[00:29:57] Sánchez: Guillotine is stunning. And his previous book, also stunning. Uh, so he he's taught me a lot. Phillip B. Williams, Sophia Sinclair, if Hugo Rigoberto González, Sandra Cisneros, like I mentioned before, she, she taught me a lot. I mean, I could go on and on.
[00:30:12] Betts: It's nice to mention the names, almost like a roll call, just because like, you know, like John Marino, Nicole Sealey, Randall Horton, Natalie Diaz--
[00:30:20] Sánchez: Yes! I just taught their books, in fact.
[00:30:23] Betts: Just so like listeners can hear the names cause also, I found, you know, I got introduced to poetry through anthologies, and I was, I was in prison and it just like broke my entire world open and that's how I ended up becoming a poet. But I just wanted to say my favorite Emily Dickinson poem is "Much Madness is Divine Sentence."
[00:30:41] Sánchez: Ooh! I like that one!
[00:30:43] Betts: And it's one of the first things, um, that, like, one of the first poems of hers that I memorized, but what I find, and I could just, I could just say the whole thing now because it's so short: (begins reciting)
"Much Madness is divine Sense- / To a discerning Eye-/ Much Sense - the starkest Madness - / 'Tis the Majority / In this, as all, prevail- / Ascent - and you are sane- / Demure- you're straightway dangerous- / And handled with a Chain.
And I felt like that was, um, the struggle of this, this novel was, was Julia was trying to figure out how to make sense of the world that she lived in, independent of these messages that she was receiving, right? And so, I feel like, you know, what was beautiful about that is, is that's the beautiful struggle that we all go through. Um, people will tell you how you're wrong and not how you have wrong ideas, but how you are wrong, and I appreciate you, you writing that.
[00:31:41] Sánchez: Thank you.
[00:31:42] Hernández: We ask all our guests this question: Frederick Douglass said that "When we read, we become forever free." How do you think about the relationship between reading and freedom?
[00:31:53] Sánchez: Oh God, because of books, I was able to imagine a life that was different from the one that I was living, and I think that that's really important. It's also important that people read in order to feel a sense of, of self and, and to also empathize with other people, because I think that's very revolutionary to have really, really deep empathy. And I don't know, I just, I think reading can change lives. It's changed mine. And like I said, it was, it's a spiritual experience for me.
[00:32:30] Hernández: That's beautiful, and thanks so much for sharing that.
[00:32:34] Betts: Erika Sánchez, a pleasure to have you involved, a pleasure to have you be one of our literary ambassadors. I'm looking forward to the new book, and these young folks, they love your book and we'll be sending you some letters and letting you know just how much they appreciated getting it.
[00:32:47] Sánchez: Aww, I love that. This is great. Thank you.
[00:32:54] Betts: Thanks for joining us for The Freedom Takes, a new podcast from Freedom Reads. We'll be back next time with another contemporary writer. You can find out more about Freedom Reads and subscribe to our newsletter at freedomreads.org. That's F-R-E-E-D-O-M-R-E-A-D-S- dot O-R-G. Our initiative was made possible by generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This podcast was produced by Erin Slomski-Pritz with production assistance by Emily Varga, Elsa Hardy, Kelly Hernández, Tess Wheelwright, and Molly Aunger. Theme music by Reed Turchi.