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"There was a Man, There was a Woman" is one of the short stories found in the book "Woman Hollering Creek" written by Cisneros.  Along with illusion and repetition, Cisneros uses diction when alluding to being a woman in an abusive relationship.   A quote found in the short story is, "He had thrown a book. Hers. From across the room. A hot welt across the cheek."  Her is repeated in the following lines to capitalize on the female position in this toxic dynamic.  Additionally "arroyo" and "telenovelas" are repeated throughout the story.  When her romantic partner, who is also her abuser, throws the book across the room and creates a hot welt across her face, it is especially painful to main character Clefilas.  Her feelings are hurt not because of the injury to her face but because the book was the closest thing she possessed to a telenovela. His beating is forgiven, drawing attention to the dominion he has over her, and the normalization of violence in a partnership.  Clefila fantasizes about having a life like she sees in telenovelas although she finds herself living a life of terror.  Her experience is convoluted because she feels trapped.  The same man who she loves is the man who brings her harm.  The book serves as an allegory for the fantasy life that is out of reach.  Her abuser uses violence to quite literally hurl that dream and in the process continue his abuse toward her.

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https://www.npr.org/2021/07/28/1021731573/moonlight-writer-tarell-alvin-mccraney-on-his-tv-series-david-makes-man#:~:text=The%20movie%20%22Moonlight%2C%22%20which,Oscar%20for%20best%20adapted%20screenplay.
Barry Jenkins, director of Moonlight won an Oscar in 2017, along with the screenplay writer Tarell Alvin Mcraney, for best adapted screenplay.  Moonlight is based on a story by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney called "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue," and was prompted by a drama school assignment that McCraney had.
“McCraney's script was adapted into the Oscar-winning film. David Makes Man, now in season 2, begins with a Miami boy whose mother struggles with addiction, and has echoes of McCraney's own childhood”(NPR).  The themes of addiction, poverty, and the experience of growing up in Miami are all represented in McCraney’s storytelling.  When comparing and contrasting Moonlight with David Makes a Man, there are many crossover similarities as well as differences. One can observe that the through-line holds true for both.

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TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The movie "Moonlight," which won the Oscar for best picture in 2017, was adapted from a script by my guest, Tarell Alvin McCraney. He and the film's director, Barry Jenkins, won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. McCraney is now the creator of the series "David Makes Man," where he's also an executive producer and writer. It's in its second season on OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network. Like "Moonlight," it begins with a boy growing up in the projects in a Miami neighborhood who's neglected by his crack-addicted mother, which echoes McCraney's childhood. But in "David Makes Man," the mother is able to get clean and stay sober. David is very smart and is one of two Black students in the gifted and talented class at his magnet school. He manages to get into prep school, where he's again one of the few Black students, and he's surrounded by students from families with money. The code-switching required, going back-and-forth from the projects to school, is confusing and complicated.

In Season 2, we fast-forward to David as an adult. He's become a successful businessman and is doing the marketing for a developer with political aspirations who's trying to revitalize the neighborhood where David grew up. But some people see David as just the Black face for a development company trying to get zoning permission to tear down the projects, build a shopping mall and gentrify the neighborhood with no concerns about displacing the people who live there. Meanwhile, David is still haunted by the shame and trauma of his childhood.

Tarell Alvin McCraney is a graduate of what is now called the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, where he now chairs the playwriting program. When he was a student at the Yale School of Drama, he became August Wilson's assistant. In 2013, McCraney won a MacArthur Fellowship, aka the Genius Award.

Tarell Alvin McCraney, welcome back to FRESH AIR. It's a pleasure to have you back on our show. The last time we spoke, "Moonlight" had just been released. The film since won three Oscars, including yours for best adapted screenplay. How has your life changed since then?

TARELL ALVIN MCCRANEY: First of all, thanks for having me back. And it was lovely speaking to you then, and I've since become a fan, so thanks so much.

GROSS: Oh. Oh, thank you.

MCCRANEY: You know, it's really interesting. After the Academy Awards, you know, a lot of opportunities sort of showed up at my doorstep, and I kind of, you know, didn't take a lot of them.

GROSS: Why not?

MCCRANEY: To this moment, I don't fully know. I do know some of it had to do with just growing up waiting for the other shoe to drop, growing up anticipating, you know, the bear around the corner, as some specialists will say, you know? You grew up with a lot of trauma, you grew up with a lot of disappointment and not feeling protected, you kind of think, oh, well, when this good thing happens, it's only in - you know, it's in service of this really bad thing that's about to come. And so I wasn't really spending a lot of time just feeling great about the accomplishment.

My best friend will tell you - my best friend, Glenn Davis, who actually was just named artistic director at Steppenwolf recently, is - you know, was with me the night at the Academy Awards. And, of course, you know, we've been best friends for 20 years, so I wanted him with me everywhere. And we get to the, you know, the Governors Ball and the Vanity Fair party. And I'm like - I must have been there for 15 to 20 minutes before I just was like, I got to go home. And I left. I left the (laughter) Vanity Fair party with all these, you know, amazing things happening and stories to tell. But I couldn't - there was just nothing - I wasn't feeling excited. I was feeling scared and nervous and out of place and - yeah.

GROSS: It - this reminds me so much of David in "David Makes Man" in the sense that - I mean, he's very different from you, but he, like you, seems haunted by the trauma of the past and is having, like, difficulty getting past that.

MCCRANEY: Yeah. No, the - I mean, the - it's interesting that, you know, as a young person, when you grow up in neighborhoods like that in Homestead or in Miami or in New York, everybody's like, oh, you got to get out of this life. You got to get out of where you grow up from. And they - that's so instilled in your mind that by the time you turn around, you don't even realize that all of your aspirations are to get away from the place that made you or helped guide you into the person you are. And if you're running on that autopilot, you turn around and you don't even know that you're part of, you know, decimating an entire culture and experience that was there. And so that, to me, was so important to engage that because that's exactly how I felt. I felt like, oh, you know, right after we made "Moonlight," the projects that we shot it in, that Barry and I grew up in and around are no longer there.

GROSS: Oh, so they've been torn down to create a more gentrified neighborhood?

MCCRANEY: They are what they call a multiuse facility now. So they have, you know, mixed housing with some affordable housing, some market price, some - but all of the - and that is - that was one of the oldest projects in the country. It was built in 1926 and - certainly the largest. And, you know, we shot - we filmed this movie here, and then, all of a sudden, you know, it became really important for the county and everybody to redevelop that neighborhood. And it felt like, wait, whoa. Did we - like, by shining a light on this, did we do something? And of course we didn't. At the same time, like, the intentional - you know, my next thought was, well, I need to make sure I preserve all the culture around here as much as possible, all the life that was here and is still here as much as possible.

GROSS: I was reading that there's something now called climate gentrification in Liberty City, where you grew up and where "David Makes Man" was shot and also where "Moonlight" was shot. That's in an elevated area. And with all the storms and the flooding in South Florida, an elevated area is, like, safer from climate change and that that's one of the reasons why Liberty City has been gentrified.

MCCRANEY: Well, realtors will deny it. They'll say, no, these areas just have good zoning laws or rights. And I was like, well, they've had those same zoning permits and strictures for years. You know, they've - my grandparents have been there since 1954. So, you know, my father's lived there all his life. You know, I lived there for 20 years of my life. There certainly - those zoning laws haven't changed. And the ways in which you can build a house there hasn't shifted. What has?

And it absolutely is the - what we call king tide flooding, you know, where there's a full moon and the sea comes up through the street in places like South Beach and is just there, even without the rain. And then compound that with the rain and a full moon, right? That kind of flooding is almost impossible for those neighborhoods that are close to the ocean and to the bay to keep out, to combat. So, yeah, this slow, quote-unquote, "creep" towards the elevated areas that are 6 feet, 7 feet, 8 feet above sea level, people have been talking about it for years, and people have been talking about it in Liberty City for years. But, you know, it's only now starting to make national headlines.

GROSS: One of the similarities between you and your character David is, like we said, the trauma. You know, David's mother was crack addicted. She gets sober in the series and is really a kind of changed person. But for you, like, your mother never made it to that, and she died of complications from AIDS. And how old were you when she died?

MCCRANEY: Twenty-two. There's actually two differences. I mean, you know, my mother had a crack addiction, but also suffered from severe depression and undiagnosed and was rarely offered any access or resources to that. And I think David isn't addicted to a substance but has a kind of addiction to this chaos because that's all he knows. And so when he's triggered - right? - he goes into this kind of fugue state where he's just really - he uses all of his passion, all of his imagination to make these really big, dangerous decisions. And that was really important to me because I do that more than - I've not been - you know, I don't think I have a substance abuse. I don't really drink. But I sometimes will throw myself into these really scary situations and powerfully chaotic situations in order to make my life feel like it's normal.

GROSS: Wait. Can I stop you there?

MCCRANEY: Sure.

GROSS: Can you give us an example of what you're talking about?

MCCRANEY: Yeah. Like, all of a sudden, I need to run a playwriting program and write, you know, a television show. And, you know, for example, I remember one time I was flying back and forth from Miami to New York to LA, you know, every two days in order to work. And that might sound great, right? People are like, oh, that's amazing. That's an amazing life to lead. But I was getting sick all the time. I was - my anxiety was really high. I wasn't eating very well. I wasn't taking care of myself. I was just throwing myself at the work. And so in a capitalist society, we think, oh, that's normal. That's what you do - until you realize that I'm not enjoying anything. People are like, well, what do you do for fun? I was like, what do you mean?

GROSS: (Laughter).

MCCRANEY: What are you talking about? Like, why are you skipping out on the Vanity Fair party with Halle Berry and, like - you know, there are people there that I've just loved my entire life. And then you compound that with, like, just, you know - not just, but American racism. So I've got to deal with the microaggressions and the sort of surveillance society we live in consistently, constantly, while I'm also combating my own frustrations about not being - you know, this flight's delayed. So now I'm frustrated. And I can't act frustrated because if I act frustrated, I'm probably going to get shot five times in the back - right? - or put on the no-fly list. So I got to be calm about that. And so I'm stuffing down all of who I am - not enjoying anything, not sustaining relationships, not contacting friends, not anything - in order to do these amazing things that make me feel like my life is normal.

GROSS: Was it also about giving you a sense of, like, a positive identity? Like, I have achieved this. I'm not just my past. I'm not just, like, the trauma-stricken child. I have these achievements. I have these awards.

MCCRANEY: Yes and no. I mean, I think the part that's absolutely right that I will underline is it gives me a sense of worth, right? I am - because often, I am - I was told that I'm not worth much, right? I'm Black. I'm queer. I'm in this world. My body has been attacked. My person has been attacked. All the things that come natural to me - the way I walk, the way I speak - have been told that they were worthless or less than. And that comes from, you know, societal femmephobia, anti-Blackness, you name it, right? And so because I was told that for so long, I have to do these things that are beautiful. I have to make these things that are amazing. I have to make these things that are compelling and touching and - you know, and the rewards are great and good. But they - but, you know, you start to learn that those are never enough, right?

People telling you that you're great and good, they're never enough. You still keep chasing. I got to make another thing. I got to make something more beautiful, more touching, more human. There was a time that my - I started with a therapist. And she was like, look; I can't technically make you do anything. But if you keep doing this, I do have the ability to write to your employers and say, like, hey, I don't think this person should be working right now. And I just think you should know that. And I was like, oh, yeah. That's - if she's willing to go that far, I need to take stock because I'm clearly not looking at how ragged I'm running myself.

GROSS: Did you just stop? Or did you just, like, cut back a little bit?

MCCRANEY: I just stopped a couple of times. I just stopped. I kind of just, like - and - but that...

GROSS: But did that mean telling people, like, sorry, I'm not going to meet the deadline, sorry, you're not going to have the play that I promised I was going to write?

MCCRANEY: Yeah, lots of that. But - or I would just finish everything and go, nope, don't ask me for anything else.

GROSS: Yeah.

MCCRANEY: Or I can't do this anymore or setting deadlines of, like, yo, I'm not - that's - you know, this is it. I'm not interested in anything further than this, or, you know, my engagement is thus. And, you know, I was trying - I was running a community program here in Miami and trying to do that and run the program at Yale and do an outreach program in LA. And, you know, it was just - it got to a point where I said, you know, I really want to take stock in the - you know, the intimate and how to make that epic. And there's a part of me that knows that this is - that, you know, I was given a strength, right? However, I arrived here, there is a - I do have an ability to do a thing and do it well for myself, right? And I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to create and make work.

GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Tarell Alvin McCraney. He created the series "David Makes Man," which is now on Season 2 on the Oprah Winfrey Network. We'll be right back after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF EASY LIFE'S "NIGHTMARES")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Tarell Alvin McCraney. He won an Oscar, along with Barry Jenkins, for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie "Moonlight," which also won the 2017 Oscar for Best Picture. McCraney is the creator and executive producer of the series "David Makes Man," which is now in its second season on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

David, in your series, and the main character, Chiron, in "Moonlight" - they were exposed to violence, growing up in the projects. And it sounds like violence is something you were exposed to, too. There was a person in your life, kind of like in "Moonlight," who was both a drug dealer and your mother's boyfriend and a kind of father figure to you, who was shot and killed. This might be too personal to ask, but in addition to witnessing violence, were you the victim of it?

MCCRANEY: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's not personal. It's in - it's in everything. I mean, in "Moonlight," the - you know, it's so funny because I remember Barry called me a couple of times and wrote to me or maybe texted me a couple of times asking me about certain scenes, you know, certain moments and going, wait, did this really happen? Or do you remember writing this? And most of the time I would say, no, I don't remember writing it. I remember feeling it. I remember going through it. I remember when it happened.

And oftentimes, folks, you know, talk about the film or even the television show and will think about the fantastic parts and go - or the parts that they feel are the most naturalistic and think, oh, well, this really happened, and that didn't. And I have to correct them sometimes. Like, the thing that they don't - that feels so amazing, that couldn't possibly have happened - that actually happened. So...

GROSS: Like what?

MCCRANEY: For example...

GROSS: Yeah.

MCCRANEY: Well, because everyone is like, well, did Kevin really befriend you one day and then walk into the spill-out area and, you know, play a game called Knock Down, Stay Down, where he punched you over and over again and asked you to stay down? I was like, yeah, absolutely, that happened.

GROSS: This was in "Moonlight."

MCCRANEY: Yeah, that absolutely happened. That absolutely - that's - like, as far as I know, kids still play that game, right? And yeah, he even apologized and even said to stay - he's like, stay - look, just stay down. If I hit - like, if I hit you, just stay down, and then they'll stop, right? And to me that - you know, that was really - it was a betrayal 'cause I was like, well, why must I, like, allow myself to be humiliated and harmed in this way in order for, you know, you all to have a great time or feel better about yourself? Like, what about that is necessary for me?

MCCRANEY: It must have been a very confusing world to grow up in, code-switching between living in the projects and going to a magnet school and going to a prep school. And, like, in "David Makes Man," what you need to do to get respect in the projects is if somebody pushes you, you'd better either push back or punch him because otherwise you're going to lose respect. But in school, if somebody pushes you and you push back or punch him, you're going to get suspended. That's, like, not acceptable behavior. And that - did you go through that kind of confusion growing up, like, having to completely change the rules, depending on where you were, in order to succeed or to just, like, get enough respect so that you can survive?

MCCRANEY: I don't know if it was confusing as much as it was exhausting. And I say that, and I really mean that. And it's still exhausting, the social kind of interactions of all - I mean, everybody code-switches in some ways and I think - and even going to - you know, even going from living in Homestead, which is, you know, outside of Miami and living in Liberty City and then going to school in the suburbs and then going to a magnet school or going to school in the inner city - like, every single place had its own, you know, code of conduct or its rules - right? - for respect and respectability.

Even now, there's a respectability politic that - you know, sometimes, you know, when people are like, well, when you deal with the cops, you should deal with them in this way or don't stand up for your rights or you should stand up for your rights - like, it's so exhausting the amount of, like, you should do X in order to, you know, survive, but it becomes such a part of you. It becomes such a habit, this switching to survive that you don't remember to turn it off, and you start doing it everywhere. You start doing it at the doctor's office. You start doing it with your intimate partners. And at some point, you forget to just be. You forget to allow your most intimate self to come forward because you're trying to figure out how to survive a moment that isn't about life or death.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here, because it's time for us to take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Tarell Alvin McCraney. He created the series "David Makes Man," which is now in Season 2 on the Oprah Winfrey Network. And he won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for the movie "Moonlight." We'll talk more after we take a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Tarell Alvin McCraney. The 2016 film "Moonlight" was adapted from his script. He and Barry Jenkins won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film "Moonlight" won for Best Picture. McCraney created the series "David Makes Man" and serves as an executive producer and writer. It's now in its second season on OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network.

You know, we've been talking about, like, childhood trauma and kind of carrying that and the chaos of childhood into adult life and what you've been doing to try to work your way out of that. Your character in "David Makes Man" really lives in his head, and he actually sees people who aren't there. He sees his dead father figure who sometimes gives him good advice and sometimes bad advice. But he literally sees him and talks with him. And it's disturbing to him that this happens because he knows he's dead and yet he's appearing to him. And it happens with - he sees his younger brother when his younger brother isn't there. And I'm wondering - I imagine you've lived very much in your head for most of your life. And I'm wondering if your imagination ever went that far as literally seeing people as if they were there?

MCCRANEY: I don't know. I don't think so. I do - what I do is something very similar, though. I imagine people passing away because I was - when I was growing up, I was used to, you know, coming - I came home and, you know, Blue had passed away. And I - you know, my - I had lost a great aunt. And even this - through COVID, we lost two - I lost my mother's sister and my grandfather's sister in - within a week's time of each other. And so death was so prevalent in my life that I just built this really strange habit of going, oh, I got a call that this person really close to me is now not with us anymore. And I would just imagine what that scenario was like. And I would go through the whole entire process of feeling it, knowing it, trying to take it in, trying to figure out what I would do next and imagining it.

GROSS: Was the purpose, like, a test for yourself, like, can I survive this? Like, say this person I love dies. Can I survive this? What would I need to do to survive?

MCCRANEY: It would - it's stay ready. Stay ready. Chaos is all around us. This is what happens. Stay ready. And it was a test to figure out, like, how much - I knew I loved you or I cared about you if I had - if you'd gone through that process in my mind.

GROSS: You know, you mentioned earlier that your mother suffered from undiagnosed depression. How old were you when you realized that? And did it help you understand and forgive her, knowing that she had an untreated mental health issue?

MCCRANEY: Oh, I had to be 13. And the therapist at the magnet school that I was at, at Mays Middle in Goulds, said, you know, I think you might be depressed. And I said, oh, maybe. And then they started telling me - I will never forget Dr. Sands (ph). Mrs. Sands said, I think you might be depressed. Here are some things that you're doing that, you know - that happens when we're depressed or sad. What's going on at home? And I thought, oh, no, my mom is just like that. I can't be depressed. My mom is exactly like this - withdrawn sometimes, sometimes really forward, sometimes really outwardly affectionate, and then sometimes just, you know, inconsolable, moody, sad, distant.

And so I realized - I was like, oh, well, we both have it, whatever it is. And it just became easier. I - and it also happened that that year she was 31 and I was 13, and I just thought that was really cool. So I just felt like - it just made it easier for me to always identify like, oh, no, we are connected in this way. And forgive her - just - it wasn't even a matter of forgive her. I understood her. And at that point, it just became easier to just be there and be a part of it. Now, there were things that were still hurtful, of course. But, you know, it just made it simpler for me to - it made it - there was no gulf between where I couldn't recognize who she was.

GROSS: Did you talk with her about that and say, look, I think you're suffering from depression, you should get...

MCCRANEY: Oh, yeah.

GROSS: ...Help for that? What was her reaction?

MCCRANEY: I mean, you know, she sort - there were two things. One, she was very receptive to say, you know, sometimes I don't feel great. But then the other part was, well, I'm not an addict, so this doesn't matter, right? And so she was in that part of denial that she couldn't quite, you know, come to terms with at that moment. I mean, later, she did go into rehab a few times. And - but at that moment, she just - you know, there was a 13-year-old telling - diagnosing her with depression and telling her that she was a drug addict.

GROSS: Did you have to keep things like that a secret, if not in the projects, when you were in school?

MCCRANEY: Well, I didn't. And I - and there are parts of me that wished that I had because we almost ended up in the foster system because of it. And we were - you know, when people started realizing that - because people would say, well, why don't you ever have, like, clean clothes? You wear similar - you wear, like, the same thing every day. And I would go, well, we're not - we don't have a - you know, we can't go to the washing machine. We can't use a washing machine. We don't have any money. The lights are off or we don't - you know, can I call your mother? The phone's off. You know, well, what did you eat today? Well, we don't have a lot of food, so I ate when I got to school today.

And so when those - and so I wish more so that I had some ability to - and again, this is wishful thinking in hindsight. So it doesn't - it's just - it's like magic thinking. I wish I had some ability to take better care of us at the time, but I didn't. Because once - you know, once the school did find out, once the projects did find out, we - you know, they took us away from our mother. And some of that was great because, again, she had to go to - she went to rehab and had to focus on herself. But when we were taken away, we almost - you know, there are four of us, and we almost ended up in the foster care system. And, you know, that could have been worse. We - I thank God that we had some family members step up and take care of us at that time.

GROSS: Did you move in with them or did they move in with you?

MCCRANEY: No, we moved in with them. So my sister - my younger brother and sister moved in with my aunt, and I moved - my brother and I moved in with my dad and my grandparents.

GROSS: Did you become close with your father?

MCCRANEY: I wouldn't say close. I would say - I mean, we are closer now. But at that time, not really, because, again, you had this kid who was, again, 13, 14, used to surviving on their own, now being asked to follow new rules. And I did what I did - I do all the time, which is I just go, oh, what do I have to do to maintain peace in this place? Great. I'll do that, and then I'll still do what I want to do when I go to school. For instance, I signed myself up for the magnet school that I - the performance art school that I went to unbeknownst to him.

GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Tarell Alvin McCraney. He created the series "David Makes Man," which is now on Season 2 on the Oprah Winfrey Network. We'll be right back after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "OUT OF THIS WORLD")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. My guest is Tarell Alvin McCraney. He created the series "David Makes Man," which is now on Season 2 on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Was there any less code switching that you had to do in the performing arts school because you were dealing with people aspiring to be artists, and a lot of artists feel like they're different from other people? And I don't mean that like I'm better than, but just like they're on their own wavelength. And they understand other people who are on their own wavelength. And a lot of artists suffer from depression and understand what that is intuitively, even if they don't have the language.

MCCRANEY: Oh, well, it took me - I mean, no. There was still code switching. I mean, I still...

GROSS: (Laughter) OK. Yeah. Yeah.

MCCRANEY: I mean, I went to - I was in school with, you know, the student - you know, with students who lived on Star Island. So there was still...

GROSS: Is that a wealthy community?

MCCRANEY: Yes. Sorry. Star Island is where Puff Daddy lives...

GROSS: Oh, OK (laughter). Say no more.

MCCRANEY: ...And Will Smith.

GROSS: Yeah.

MCCRANEY: And - yeah. And so it was not Liberty City. And so I was being bused into - you know, I was taking the train from Liberty City to this school that was small and intimate, but also filled with students who had been practicing their art all their lives but with tutors and had drivers show up at school to take them home. And I still, you know, would have to take a Jitney or a bus home.

GROSS: Did you have the kind of pressure that your character does of thinking, like, only one Black person is going to be allowed to succeed here, and it's got to be me?

MCCRANEY: Yes, not at my art school, but in an undergrad, for sure, and even in grad school. The more the elite the institution, the more that that's true. There was - there only graduated two Black men in my acting class in undergrad. And we started as a class of 50. We graduated a class of 20. And there were two Black men. I was one of them. And in the playwriting program at Yale, now known as the David Geffen School of Drama, I was the only Black person out of nine playwrights.

GROSS: That certainly increases the pressure, right?

MCCRANEY: Well, it just increases the - you know, it increases a whole bunch of things. It increases the ability to feel like you're in it for the actual art, right? Or rather, are you there to represent who you are as a person? I mean, there's a reason why I was August Wilson's assistant, because there was no other Black playwright in the program at the time.

GROSS: Well, talk a little bit about being August Wilson's assistant - at what point in his career? Was he - had he written "Fences," "The Piano Lesson," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"? Where was he?

MCCRANEY: Oh, yeah. He had - actually, he was working on his last play in the cycle of plays, "Radio Golf." And that was to premiere at Yale, which a number of his other plays had done previous - before they went onto success on Broadway or in other places. And I was his assistant. And I was a terrible assistant.

GROSS: Well, what were you expected to do? And why do you say you were terrible?

MCCRANEY: Well, I'm bad at keeping my own schedule, let alone, you know, keeping August Wilson's. And so I was sent to sort of help him maintain and manage his schedule with both Yale and the production. And I just was, you know, terrible at it. I was very bad at it. Narda Alcorn, who was the stage manager, you know, would help me out tremendously. But Mr. Wilson would need a haircut. And I would go, oh, OK, great. And it was like, no, yeah...

GROSS: (Laughter) You're not doing anything about it.

MCCRANEY: Yeah. You have to go find - you know? And then I would go, oh, yeah. OK. Cool. Great. Got it. And I would just go do it. And then, once, he sent me off to buy - and I think I - I don't know if I've ever told you this. But he sent me off - he would send me on these very strange errands. So he - the last one he sent me on was to go and buy an iPod for his daughter's birthday. And he gave me an envelope full of $500 worth of 20s and sent me to buy an iPod. And this is, like, you know, 2004 or '5. And so it's - you know, iPods aren't everywhere. And there's no Apple store. So I had to go all the way to Orange to get it. I get it. I come back. I go, here's your iPod. I got to go to class. I go to class. He calls me again. And he's like, hey, I need to talk to you about this iPod. It's not working.

And so I go to - and he's sitting outside smoking a cigarette. And it's, like, you know, 40 degrees outside. And I go, sir, I don't know much about iPods. I don't even have one. He goes, well, I saw your play. And, you know, you did some amazing things in it. You blew up things at the end, but that's just a young playwright thing. But you have music in it, and you always need music. So here's your iPod. And he bought - basically, he bought me my - he made me go buy my own iPod and gave it to me. And I kept that iPod for a long time, until I went to Sundance and it finally died. And I buried it there under a rock that has his name on it. But he - you know, he was just really generous with his time and his space, especially for early career artists and for his collaborators.

GROSS: That's a lovely story. What did you put on the iPod?

MCCRANEY: I put these spirituals, these Gullah Island spirituals on it. And I would listen to them all the time. And that actually inspired "Choir Boy."

GROSS: Good, I want to talk about "Choir Boy." And why don't you give us a brief description of the play.

MCCRANEY: "Choir Boy" centers around a young man named Pharus, who's the lead of Charles R. Drew Prep's prestigious glee club, which has won national acclaim for this high school. And Pharus, who is an effeminate young man, is trying to make sure that his voice and his way of making music is seen as not only prominent, but the way in which it needs to be done for the legacy of the school. And he's met with some challenges to his person through his classmates and the institution. And we - and even though he clearly is one of the brightest stars in the school, he - his light may get diminished because he's trying to do it his own way.

GROSS: Your grandfather was the minister of a Baptist church. Did you spend a lot of time in his church when you were growing up? Did you sing in a choir?

MCCRANEY: I did sing in the choir. I didn't sing in the choir at his church, but I did sing in the choir. I don't - I can't sing. I don't know why anybody would let me in their choir, but I did spend a lot of time in the choir. And I spent a lot of time in my grandfather's study. So when he would do - you know, study for his sermons and do research and read the Bible and scan, I would - spent a lot of time with him there.

GROSS: Did you read the Bible, too? Did you find beauty in the Bible?

MCCRANEY: Yes, still do.

GROSS: Do spirituals speak to you? I don't know if you're religious and if so, how much a part of your life that is. But I think spirituals and hymns, gospel music, that they have a universal message whether or not you are a believer in a God. There's songs about endurance. There's songs about resilience. There's songs about living in a world with something larger than yourself.

MCCRANEY: That's what all great art should do, is remind us that there's something larger than ourselves and that there is resilience and that there are different ways in which we engage it, but that we are more alike in our engagement than different.

GROSS: Oh, and let me just say, there's songs about death. I mean, so many hymns and spirituals are really about death.

MCCRANEY: And change.

GROSS: And change, yeah. And these are all themes that we've been talking about, you know, in the interview. So I want to play an excerpt of "Motherless Child" as sung in your play "Choir Boy." And the version we're going to use - 'cause there - it's not like there's a cast recording. The version we're going to use comes from The New York Times, which...

MCCRANEY: (Laughter, unintelligible).

GROSS: ...Had the wisdom to do a video of this.

MCCRANEY: Yeah.

GROSS: And so you can see the whole performance of this song on the New York Times' website at nytimes.com. So here's "Motherless Child," as performed in Tarell Alvin McCraney's play "Choir Boy."

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WALLACE SMITH: (Singing) Sometimes...

KYLE BELTRAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel.

SMITH: (Singing) ...I feel...

BELTRAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like...

SMITH: (Singing) ...Like a motherless child.

KYLE BELTRAN, JEREMY POPE, NICHOLAS L ASHE, GRANTHAM COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

SMITH: (Singing) Sometimes...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel...

SMITH: (Singing) ...I feel...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like...

SMITH: (Singing) ...Like a motherless child.

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

SMITH: (Singing) Sometimes...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel...

SMITH: (Singing) ...I feel...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like...

SMITH: (Singing) ...Like a motherless child...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like a motherless child...

SMITH: (Singing) ...A long...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) ...A long way from...

SMITH: (Singing) ...Long way from...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) ...A long way from...

SMITH: (Singing) ...Home.

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like I'm a long way from home.

SMITH: (Singing) Sometimes...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) ...I feel like...

SMITH: (Singing) ...I feel...

BELTRAN, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) Sometimes I feel like...

SMITH: (Singing) ...Like a motherless child.

NICHOLAS L ASHE: (Singing) But I can hear my mother calling me. She's calling me.

KYLE BELTRAN, JEREMY POPE, WALLACE SMITH, GRANTHAM COLEMAN: (Singing) I can hear her calling me.

ASHE: (Singing) I can hear my mother's voice.

BELTRAN, POPE, SMITH, COLEMAN: (Singing) I can hear her calling me.

ASHE: (Singing) I can hear my mother's voice.

BELTRAN, POPE, SMITH, COLEMAN: (Singing) I can hear her call...

ASHE: (Singing) She's calling me.

BELTRAN, POPE, SMITH, COLEMAN: (Singing) ...But I'm a long way from home.

ASHE: (Singing) But I...

BELTRAN, POPE, SMITH, COLEMAN: (Singing) I can hear her calling me.

ASHE: (Singing) Won't you come on home, child...

BELTRAN, POPE, SMITH, COLEMAN: (Singing) I can hear her calling me.

ASHE: (Singing) ...Cross the water.

BELTRAN, POPE, SMITH, COLEMAN: (Singing) I can hear her call...

KYLE BELTRAN, WALLACE SMITH, JEREMY POPE, NICHOLAS L ASHE, GRANTHAM COLEMAN: (Singing) ...But I'm a long way from home.

JEREMY POPE: (Singing) True believer...

KYLE BELTRAN, WALLACE SMITH, NICHOLAS L ASHE, GRANTHAM COLEMAN: (Singing) True believer...

POPE: (Singing) True believer - yeah, yeah.

BELTRAN, SMITH, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) True believer...

POPE: (Singing) True believer...

BELTRAN, SMITH, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) True believer...

POPE: (Singing) Yes.

BELTRAN, SMITH, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) I'm a long way from home.

POPE: (Singing) I...

BELTRAN, SMITH, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) True believer...

POPE: (Singing) Yeah.

BELTRAN, SMITH, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) True believer...

POPE: (Singing) True believer...

BELTRAN, SMITH, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) True believer...

BELTRAN, SMITH, POPE, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) I'm a long way...

BELTRAN, SMITH, ASHE, COLEMAN: (Singing) ...From home.

POPE: (Singing) I'm a long way from home.

GROSS: That was "Motherless Child" as performed in my guest Tarell Alvin McCraney's play "Choir Boy." And again, if you want to see the whole song, go to the New York Times' website.

MCCRANEY: What I love is that you brought up that we don't have a cast recording because so many people are upset that we don't (laughter) have a cast recording.

GROSS: It's frustrating. You know, I'd love to have more that I could listen to at home.

MCCRANEY: Yeah.

GROSS: Some of it was performed on the Tonys, and that was great.

MCCRANEY: That was. And I think it would be great if they did a cast recording.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Tarell Alvin McCraney. He created the series "David Makes Man," which is now in Season 2 on the Oprah Winfrey Network. We'll talk more after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MILES DAVIS' "BYE BYE BLACKBIRD")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Tarell Alvin McCraney. He won an Oscar along with Barry Jenkins for best adapted screenplay for the movie "Moonlight," which also won the 2017 Oscar for best picture. McCraney is the creator and executive producer of the series "David Makes Man," which is now in its second season on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

You also wrote a play called "Wig Out!", which is set in...

MCCRANEY: It's set in drag houses, yeah.

GROSS: And I read that you dated someone. Dated sounds like such an old-fashioned word, like you're going to the malt shop together and having an ice cream soda. But...

MCCRANEY: Well, some of it was that (laughter).

GROSS: Oh, OK (laughter). But that you dated somebody who lived in a drag house. And I wonder if that required, like, another form of code switching for you.

MCCRANEY: Listen. At this point, we should just assume everything does. You know what I mean? For me, and that's one of the things like I have to work on, is that I'm always doing it - and even in that moment, I absolutely had to because there were so many rules, you know, coming into a chosen family and dating someone in that chosen family, there was a fiercer protection. There were so many things that they would say right in front of me, like, oh, are you all [expletive]? Sorry. I know we're not supposed to say that online. But that's what they would ask me. And I'd like, I don't know, not yet, you know? And they'd be like, well, you need to do this, and you do do that. And that's my sister. And if she - and I'd be like, OK.

But ultimately, it was really important to me to write about the way in which, you know, I thought I understood and knew everything there was about, you know, queer life and didn't and was introduced to this to this this world via a person who was unbeknownst to me in the beginning of their transition. And that was just an incredible moment for me. And I just wanted to honor them. But, yeah, we don't do that play that often because it's - the world has changed so much since then. And like, you know, we - I would have to...

GROSS: And the language has changed so much since then.

MCCRANEY: Absolutely. We've got - we've made great strides that we - and we need to do more. And we need to protect Black trans women particularly, but trans women in general, way more than we do. And I think the - I love the fact that, like, it sounds crazy, but I love the fact that that play is outdated.

GROSS: Oh, no, I understand what you mean, because things have progressed. Things are - yeah.

MCCRANEY: We have language now. Like, now there are young people who are my age at the time who are dating, you know, people who are trans and non binary with the language to discuss it and understand it. And at the time, I didn't know - I didn't know and didn't have the language to discuss. And so I, you know, I love that. I love the fact that there's just - there may be less need to code switch - right? - because there's more transparency.

GROSS: When you were growing up - getting back to your childhood - did you have somebody like a younger brother who you had to protect, who you felt the responsibility for protecting?

MCCRANEY: Yeah, for sure. I have two younger brothers and a younger sister. I'm the oldest of four. And not just them. I mean, so, for example, I remember when I had - when I did get friends, I would not want to walk with my friends because I knew that if people, you know, we're going to target me for being queer, for being gay, I didn't want my friends to have to endure that too. So I would like, you know, just say, oh, meet me at this place - so that if I had to endure it, I'd have to endure it by myself.

And even as I got grown - I always remember I was walking with Andre Holland, who played Kevin in "Moonlight," we were in Harlem one time. And we were walking through a part of, you know, just the block boys. You know, Harlem is beautiful, but this one block was like the block boys are on it. And this was really early on in our relationship. We had to both be in our late 20s. And we were walking by. And I was like, oh, man, I don't want Dre to get heckled because I'm about to be, right? Like, I don't want him to have to have that. So I made some excuses, like, oh, I'll catch up with you. I'll walk this way. And I walked, you know, I walked through. And, you know, some people, you know, a couple of dudes said something, but nothing really egregious.

But I just realized I had gone through all of that to protect him, to make sure that he - his feelings weren't hurt or for him to be looped in with me. And I did that with my brothers and sisters all the time. I always was trying to stop them from getting the brunt of whatever it was.

GROSS: Well, this has just been so good to talk with you. I really appreciate it so much. And I wish you good health. And I wish you all good things.

MCCRANEY: Oh, same to you and yours. Thank you so much again. I appreciate the invitation.

GROSS: Tarell Alvin McCraney won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for the film "Moonlight." He's the creator of the TV series "David Makes Man," which is now in its second season on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, spyware. We'll talk about how a private Israeli spyware company leased military-grade spyware to governments that were supposed to use it for tracking terrorists and criminals, but it was used to hack the phones of journalists, human rights activists, business executives and others. My guest will be Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg. I hope you'll join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Kayla Lattimore. Our producer of digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross.

Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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'Moonlight' Writer Tarell Alvin McCraney On His TV Series 'David Makes Man'

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TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The movie "Moonlight," which won the Oscar for best picture in 2017, was adapted from a script by my guest, Tarell Alvin McCraney. He and the film's director, Barry Jenkins, won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

# data[].attributes.body
Purity
Figment of the imagination?
Requiring great determination
Suppression of desire
Sexuality retired
A Catholic understanding
Quite demanding
Gardenia girl
White petals of pearl
Jane Villanueva
Steril and cold
Yet sit pretty and stay bold
But not too much
Clean and untouched

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18 january 2017 by pia cortez, posted in book reviews, fil/lit 

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Art Cover Page from Filipinos for Export and Their Stories, with Mia Alvar

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Art Cover Page from Filipinos for Export and Their Stories, with Mia Alvar

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"In the 80’s, the term 'Overseas Filipino Worker' or OFW became a real thing. They were touted as the modern heroes of the country, as they raked in dollars or euros or riyals all bolstering up the country’s GDP. Remittances became a huge boon"(Cortez).  Depicted in this painting is a woman who resembles Alvar.  A floral design surrounds the most prominent aspect of the painting; the face, which is centered and pronounced.  Her eyes are glossy; rather than full of tears they look to belong to someone who has known struggle.  This shows how Alvar writes short stories with strong characters that live through challenging things.  As has been explored across times and cultures, flowers can represent fragility, growth, femininity, and beauty.  The subject of the painting has a contrasting hardness but in her skin are faint tracings of the same flowers that surround her.  This serves as adornment for the subject, communicating that flowers faintly persist through struggle.

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Cisneros, S. (1991). Woman Hollering Creek. New York: Random House.

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Cisnero's work is at a higher reading level than The House on Mango Street and contains more diverse subject matter. Since it is full of short stories and is not one continuous narrative, there is more complexity and interwoven narrative.  This is structurally similar to Tommy Orange's novel There There.  The breadth of characters in her book of short stories and poems allows readers to glimpse into what it is like to be a child, adolescent, and adult in the Chicano culture.  This mural is painted on the side of a building in the Mission District of San Francisco and encapsulates many features of Cisneros' Chicana-Feminist-Literature in Woman Hollering Creek. We see people of all ages and origins united with the blue paint. This color ties all their backgrounds together, making them a part of a single wall, representing the Chicanx experience.

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“Moonlight”, directed by Barry Jenkins and released in September of 2016 in the United States, deals with several concepts within a single story spanning over three chapters of the main character, Chiron’s life.  The film raises questions throughout its unraveling and leaves the viewer sitting with even more.  “Why are boys forced to become hard?”  “What does masculinity mean?”  Much of the subject matter centers around a conversation on identity.  How identity changes and how it is influenced by one’s life circumstances.  For Chiron, growing up gay in the impoverished Liberty City area of Miami with a mother suffering from severe drug addiction, he was not given the love or the space to get to know himself.  The only adults that truly looked out for him, although it was complicated, were Juan and his girlfriend Teresa.  Interestingly enough, Chiron molded into a version of Juan after he passed away and as Chiron grew up.  The film is structured in three chapters. The final chapter depicts Chiron as a grown adult man. We see how he has taken on many of the traits that Juan had. Chiron drives the same light blue Chevrolet, trains his body to bulk with muscles like Juan had, dresses in the same style of clothing, and deals drugs, all just like Juan.  This exemplifies how Chiron’s identity was formed by mirroring the only thing he knew. There was a complexity to their relationship. Chiron didn't have a father present in his life, in fact, he is never mentioned in the film. Chiron's mother was absent for the most part, as she was actively using drugs. Ironically, Juan, who took on a father figure role and showed Chiron love when no other adult did, was also dealing with his mom the drugs that were part of what prevented her from caring for him properly. It's difficult to understand why people get to where they are and know what leads people to adopt roles, such as drug dealing, but Moonlight humanizes the characters and creates a holistically created story that provides clarity. There is little judgment. The storytellers remind the viewer that in most cases if anything is at fault it is a system, not a person. Chiron's physical and mental outcome that he realizes in adulthood can be seen as a coping mechanism.  In order to survive in such a brutal environment surrounded by drug abuse, extreme bullying, and poverty, Chiron changed himself.

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Jane, starring in show “Jane the Virgin” and starring Gina Rodriguez is a series that challenges cultural norms and raises questions pertaining to the modern experience of womanhood, sexuality, religion, family, and so much more.  The story hones in on Jane’s experience being raised Catholic by her grandmother and single mother.  Her mother had a young pregrancy out of wedlock, which was not celebrated within an intensely relgious climate.  Jane, being a product of such a circumstance has grown up with the expectation to remain "pure" and to suppress any of her sexual desires.  Her grandmother instills in her a fear of bringing shame to her family and to the relgious standard set out for her to remain a virgin.  Ironically, Jane is impregnated accidentally during a doctors appointment gone wrong.  This highlights the fragility of Catholic beliefs.  Morally, Jane did not do anything "sinful".  Yet, she is punished by a situation caused by external forces, affecting her life in nearly every aspect.

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The Burning of Paper Instead of Children

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The Burning of Paper Instead of Children

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“I was in danger of verbalizing my moral impulses out of existence.”
— Daniel Berrigan, on trial in Baltimore

Language has power.  Oftentimes, people overlook the hold language has over us.  With great power, comes great influence.  Language can be the very force that liberates, while it can also be the very force that oppresses.  We see the potential to oppress with language in Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children”.

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner would agree when he states in the preface to a reprinting of “Angels in America”, “I’m writing this introduction the day before America goes to the polls … This is the place from which it seems to me I’ve always written, perched on the knife’s edge of terror and hope.”  It was philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who said, " The limits of my language means the limits of my world."

In her poem, Rich responds to histories of systemic oppression as she acknowledges how this connects to her relationship with language.  She weaves in the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, and the terrors of nationalism in the United States.

The poem is organized in 5 sections.  Among many of her powerful lines is when she writes in section 2, “…knowledge of the oppressor this is the oppressor’s language yet I need it to talk to you…”  This highlights the complexity of language and the politics involved, that are both personal and broad; influencing one’s identity and cultural community.  Language is commonly associated with simply being a means of communication, but language goes beyond this definition. Language is what defines, binds and separates cultures.

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The Interview That Adrienne Rich Never Wanted Published by Patrice Vecchione on Talking with Rich About Spirituality

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The Interview That Adrienne Rich Never Wanted Published by Patrice Vecchione on Talking with Rich About Spirituality

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Rich has driven to the small city of Pacific Grove from her home in Santa Cruz for an interview.  It is October of 1998.  Her interviewer shares, “As one who stood wholly in support of the voiceless claiming their voices, she was supportive of my teaching poetry to children”(Vecchione).  Rich was bold in her poetry, never afraid to withhold her views or message for empowerment and equity. She speaks about prevalent issues pertaining to repression and maltreatment, language, and even love and sexuality. The two spoke about Midnight Salvage, a book of her newest poems, which was later said to be, “An impressive new volume. . . . Rich's admirers will recognize the complex symbiosis between the activist and the maker of new language, each propelling, describing, provoking the other's words."—Publishers Weekly

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We were together in the sound-proofed radio booth with the door shut, Adrienne Rich and me. Outside the room, above the door, lit in neon, were the bright red words "ON AIR." It was a Sunday evening in October in 1998 when then-independent public radio station KAZU's live poetry show, Ars Poetica, aired. Adrienne and I were the only ones at the station, adding to the intimacy of being in a small room together. I was guest host for the show and Rich had driven an hour south from her Santa Cruz home to the small city of Pacific Grove.

We were there to publicize both her new book of poems, Midnight Salvage, and an upcoming poetry reading that she and I were helping to coordinate, sponsored by the local branch of the National Writers Union, titled "Claiming Our Voices in This Land of Immigrants." Jimmy Santiago Baca, Marilyn Chin, and Quincey Troupe were coming from out of town and local writers were participating too. Before we began the interview, I slipped a cassette into the tape deck to record it.

By then, Rich and I had known each other for about 15 years and, though not friends, there was a warmth between us whenever we met socially or to work together on literary projects. She often participated in a benefit reading series that I co-coordinated for many years, "In Celebration of the Women: Women Writers Reading." When I wanted to include one of her poems in a young adult anthology I was editing, she contacted W.W. Norton to ask her publisher to reduce the fee for my low-budget book. As one who stood wholly in support of the voiceless claiming their voices, she was supportive of my teaching poetry to children. Rich brought me in to help with the gala when she was named Santa Cruz County Artist of the Year in 1995. Still, she was Adrienne Rich, so on that October 1998 evening I was nervous, particularly because there were a few questions I wanted to ask her that I feared she might not welcome.

During the many years she lived in Santa Cruz, when we'd meet, it was both sweet-how she'd take me in her arms for a quick, close hug-and sad-Rich was impaired by rheumatoid arthritis, the disease that later took her life, her hands becoming more claw-like and her movements more difficult and limited as time went by. The older she got and the more her condition worsened, even her smile had a pained look to it, but never did I hear her complain.

One day at an oceanside restaurant for lunch, in the mid-90s, when she took me out to celebrate my recovery from surgery, Rich expressed curiosity about how excited I was for the day when I could get back to distance bicycling. She was curious about the counting strategy I used when energy flagged and wanted to know what bonking was like (when a rider hasn't eaten enough and experiences abnormally low glucose levels and can't think clearly). Really, I think it was just how active I was that captivated her-she was in her mid-sixties and I was in my late thirties. (Not surprisingly, the memory of the vigor of my life then captivates me now too.)
is my spiritual self," with a little chuckle.
Over the years that I knew her, her physical pain was accompanied by emotional pain; not so much for herself, but Rich's acute awareness of the world's injustices mixed with abundant empathy caused her to be deeply burdened. She felt an undeniable obligation to give her attention to the disenfranchised in her writing. Rich seemed to be someone for whom there was no separation between self, work, and politics.

In 1997 Rich refused to accept the National Medal of Arts when President Clinton offered it to her because of the administration's "cynical policies," saying, "The radical disparities of wealth and power in America are widening at a devastating rate. A president cannot meaningfully honor certain token artists while the people at large are so dishonored." Imagine what she'd say today.

Rich saw art as a vehicle to help bring about societal change. I admired her conviction, even if I saw (and see) art's purpose a little differently. How often my students-kids and adults-sit before a piece of blank paper, unsure of what they'll say, until the words (sometimes accompanied by tears) come, and at the end of the poem there isn't only a period and a sigh of recognition but a smile that's the result of having said the unplanned thing. Societal change can begin one person at a time.

Especially during the first years that I knew Rich, I thought that my own poems were far too personal, addressing the small stories of what it means to be alive, for her taste. Spending time with her only reinforced my long-held belief that I wasn't up to snuff. (I'm sure she never intended for me to feel that way.) But those feelings didn't stop me from revering both her being and her writing; nor did they stop me from writing and making art.

Years before Rich and I knew each other, I admired her poetry and resonated with and felt gratitude for her feminism. And during the worst period in my life, Rich's work helped me to find my way.

It was when I was in high school that I'd begun writing poetry-mostly outside of class-leaning against a classroom building or huddled in my bedroom late at night. It was the one liberating thing in my life. Writing poems, no matter how lousy they were, helped me begin to gain independence from a difficult home life, to see myself and my life with some degree of clarity.

In those days-the early 1980s-I couldn't afford to buy hardback books, but in the case of Rich's book The Will to Change, I made an expensive exception. It was my need of poetry and my feelings for Adrienne Rich as a poet that made me want the book but, more than that, it was the title. A will to change was exactly what I needed. I hoped the poems might lead me to find such willpower of my own. I turned to the title poem once I got home, maybe before that. And though the poem was hard for me to make sense of in its entirety, there were two lines that made my breath stop, lines that have resonated with many and been quoted often: "We're living through a time / that needs to be lived through us." Rich may have meant "time" in a large way but I applied it to my own life. Perhaps, I reasoned, I would live through this time and get to something better; I didn't think it could get much worse.

And later in that long poem, a single line from its fourth part, "from the Feast of San Gennaro," also hit home but in an entirely different way. I knew the Feast of San Gennaro as I knew other Italian feast days from growing up in a strong, culturally identified New York City Italian family. Perhaps I could bring my past along with me, and honor parts of it by drawing on my experiences, and by using my will to change I could create a sustainable and creative, poetry-infused future for myself, one that didn't include the parts that were holding me back.

In 1984, shortly after Rich moved to Santa Cruz, I had my first chance to introduce her to an audience. I told the large group gathered for "In Celebration of the Muse" how important The Will to Change had been to me, how it had been my catalyst for change. The woman poet pictured on the back jacket had found her will and, with the help of her poems, I had found mine. That evening, Rich signed the book for me, "in sisterhood," in this small but consequential way bringing me into the fold with her and other will-bearing, determined women.

And there was something else when Rich and I met that reinforced her importance to me. I was then in a relationship-wholly in love-with another woman. Rich was a role model for me, which was especially valuable since my mother had disowned me for my choice of partner. Rich was an older, sober, successful, feminist woman who had found her way in life with poetry. Could I?

*

Back at the radio station, after we told the radio listeners about our upcoming benefit, we began to chat about poetry and creativity. At the time of the interview I was working on a book proposal for what became Writing and the Spiritual Life: Finding Your Voice by Looking Within. That book was very much on my mind and I hoped Rich might talk with me about writing and spirituality. I knew that because she self-identified as secular, she might not wish to respond, but I sensed spirituality in many of her poems.

I asked Rich what it was she found in poetry and, before giving her a chance to answer, suggested that it was soul. "If I had to find one word," she responded, "that's what I would choose." Her answer encouraged me to go further.

Previously, in our private conversations, if I directed us toward talking about spirituality, she immediately changed the subject. Rich hadn't been responsive to my anthologies that addressed spirituality. My sense was that Rich would not address it directly.

In a 1987 talk that Rich gave at the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, she had said, "I think there are some of us who are drawing a deep sustenance from Jewish secular progressive tradition, who are trying to fuse the material with the spiritual rather than leave them in the old dichotomous opposition. . . . Maybe we don't know exactly what we are trying to do nor yet have a language for it."

That night at the radio station, Rich was in the guest's chair while I sat behind the soundboard, monitoring levels, reading public service announcements, and talking with her. She was radiant that evening, appearing at ease and happy to be chatting together. Listening to the interview again today, that's what comes through in her voice.

After agreeing with me that soul is what's found in poetry, Rich went on to say, "But it's also I think courage, it's a recognition of beauty in the midst of recognizing perhaps the worst, facing the true terrible stories of our time, of our lives, and finding that in the very expression of them, in the very representation of them, there is an extraordinary beauty and power. And that as we speak out of the terrible truths that we all know, we are touching a kind of power that is not very much . . . it's not very much credited in the public sphere; but it's there, it's there for us to find."

It was midway through the interview, after we'd spoken at length about her new book, that I took a deep breath and hesitantly asked the question that I most feared would be unwelcome, "I guess, my question really is, what is the connection for you between writing and your spiritual self?"

Rich replied, "Well, I think writing is my spiritual self," with a little chuckle. "I think that the creative act and also the receiving of the creative acts of others, the receiving of poems, of works of art in any medium by others that speak to us, that's a spiritual life. I don't see myself seek any other. I once described myself as a secular Jew and someone said, 'Oh, reading your poetry I don't see how you can call yourself secular.' But, um, I was using the term secular in contrary distinction to religious in the institutional organized sense. But, yes, poetry is a spiritual life."
I wish she'd just called; that's all it would have taken for me to honor her request, but maybe she would have found that to be too difficult.
About a week later, a letter addressed to me in Rich's distinctive hand arrived. I was surprised to hear from her so soon. The typed letter was curt and to the point. She said, in no uncertain terms, that I was not to publish anything she'd said nor to publicly reference details of the interview or I would hear from her attorney.

Reading the letter, I felt sick. Not so much because I couldn't use the material but because she had written such a formal letter. I wish she'd just called; that's all it would have taken for me to honor her request, but maybe she would have found that to be too difficult.

When Writing and the Spiritual Life came out in 1999, Rich went out of her way to praise my work. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle she called me "one of those steady, vibrant, serious and passionate temperaments who continually replenish our sense of communal creativity. In my country of possibility, she and people like her would be nationally honored figures," which surprised me greatly.

Now, nearly ten years after her death, I see no reason to keep the contents of the interview private any longer. I think what she told me that October evening during our radio interview was true and adds a kind of welcome complexity to her better-known secularity and political militancy-without taking anything away from them. After receiving that letter, though we maintained a professional relationship and though she gave me that beautiful quote for my book when it came out, I kept myself at a remove from Rich and didn't attend her readings that previously I'd have rushed to.

If such a letter were to arrive in my mailbox today, at sixty-two years of age, I know better what I'd need to do. I'd call her up right away, and the ensuing conversation would be healing for us both. But twenty years ago, Rich's uncourteous words simply shut me up, just as she'd intended them to. Though that letter distanced me from her, not for a moment did it take her poetry away.

__________________________________

My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice by Patrice Vecchione is available via Seven Stories Press.

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The Interview That Adrienne Rich Never Wanted Published

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We were together in the sound-proofed radio booth with the door shut, Adrienne Rich and me. Outside the room, above the door, lit in neon, were the bright red words "ON AIR." It was a Sunday evening in October in 1998 when then-independent public radio station KAZU's live poetry show, Ars Poetica, aired.

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For I will Consider the Rain by Rosy Urbano

After Chen Chen’s For I will Consider my boyfriend Jeffery and from Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart For I will Consider my cat Jeoffery

For I will consider the rain.

For she is of no religion but every faith.

For I will have faith that she will fall.

For I will trust that she lingers in the heavens during the driest of Aprils and the desert of May.  The parched sunbaked drought of a golden wizened state.

For in my dreams.

When under the covers of closed lids; heavy with sleep, my eyes move rapidly.  She appears.  Bringing greenery to lushness in a tranquil downpour.  When I wake I feel she has left me relinquished.  Thirsty.

I will daydream of the soothing drizzle.

The violent comedown.

For I will remember the north.  The glaciers and the arctic.  The free flowing water fountain of Icelandic community pools.  Of Icelandic bikepaths.  Of Iceland.  Of her existence.  Rain.

For she is abundant.

But also.  I will consider the rainforest.

Southern as the lands bordering the equator.

Of monsoon downpours.  A wet season that follows a dry one.  Coupled binate twofold; she distinguishes herself in this seasonal dichotomy.  For she is alive in such wetness.  A dripping night.  A well showered morning.

The elements and planetary life cycles of earth call out to thank the skies when she drops from them.

Pouring onto the lips of parched smiles.

For I will consider the rain.

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Essayist and poet, Chen Chen was born in China and grew up in Massachusetts.  He writes about many topics, among them his Asian, queer, and immigrant identities.  His poetry is filled with thoughtful ideas and wit.  In “I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party”, Chen Chen has descriptively transported the reader to a dynamic situation; having your parents over for dinner when you have a boyfriend and you yourself are male.  The reader can feel that they are trying but the unfamiliar is difficult, and their lack of pride or acceptance for their son is painful to witness.  “I’m like the kid in Home Alone, pulling
on the string that makes my cardboard mother more motherly, except she is not cardboard, she is already, exceedingly my mother. Waiting for my answer”(Chen Chen).  Metaphors, similes,  imagery, oxymoron, and more are all interwoven into the lines of Chen Chen’s work.  What distinguishes his work is his ability to synthesize.  He writes about queerness and also about family.  He writes about the love he has for his boyfriend Jeffery but also the things that bother him.  Through his body of work, Chen Chen makes space where there previously was no space.  He opens up the box and in comes complexity; where multiple experiences and stories can coexist.  Through this, Chen Chen humanizes himself and his readers who like him have limited representation.  Throughout the poem, Chen often italicizes important phrases, such as "No security blankets," that can be interpreted as an emphasis on the stress he is enduring during the dinner party. Furthermore, Chen uses very simple diction and short sentences which helps the reader remain engaged and provides more access to the visuals of the dinner party. Lastly, Chen also uses repetition throughout the poem, frequently mentioning Home Alone and smiling.

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https://www.legendsofamerica.com/gh-lallorona/

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The legend of La Llorona (pronounced "LAH yoh ROH nah"), Spanish for the Weeping Woman, has been a part of the Southwest's Hispanic culture since the conquistadores' days. The tall, thin spirit is said to be blessed with natural beauty and long flowing black hair. She wears a white gown and roams the rivers and creeks, wailing into the night and searching for children to drag, screaming to a watery grave.

No one knows when the legend of La Llorona began or where it originated. Though the tales vary from source to source, the common thread is that she is the spirit of a doomed mother who drowned her children and spends eternity searching for them in rivers and lakes.

La Llorona, christened "Maria," was born to a peasant family in a humble village. Her startling beauty captured the attention of the area's rich and poor men. She was said to have spent her days in her humble peasant surroundings, but she would don her best white gown in the evenings and thrill the men who admired her in the local fandangos.

The young men anxiously waited for her arrival, and she reveled in the attention that she received. However, La Llorona had two small sons who made it difficult for her to spend her evenings out, and she often left them alone while she cavorted with the gentlemen during the evenings. One day the two small boys were found drowned in the river. Some say they drowned through her neglect, but others say they may have died by her own hand.

Another legend says that La Llorona was a caring woman full of life and love who married a wealthy man who lavished her with gifts and attention. However, after she bore him two sons, he changed, returning to a life of womanizing and alcohol, often leaving her for months at a time. He seemingly no longer cared for the beautiful Maria, even talking about leaving her to marry a woman of his own wealthy class. When he did return home, it was only to visit his children, and the devastated Maria began to feel resentment toward the boys.

One evening, as Maria was strolling with her two children on a shady pathway near the river, her husband came by in a carriage with an elegant lady beside him. He stopped and spoke to his children but ignored Maria and then drove the carriage down the road without looking back.

After seeing this, Maria went into a terrible rage, and turning against her children, she seized them and threw them into the river. As they disappeared downstream, she realized what she had done and ran down the bank to save them, but it was too late. Maria broke down into inconsolable grief, running down the streets screaming and wailing.

The beautiful La Llorona mourned them day and night. During this time, she would not eat and walked along the river in her white gown, searching for her boys - hoping they would return to her. She cried endlessly as she roamed the riverbanks and her gown became soiled and torn. When she refused to eat, she grew thinner and appeared taller until she looked like a walking skeleton. Still a young woman, she finally died on the river banks.

Not long after her death, her restless spirit began to appear, walking the banks of the Santa Fe River when darkness fell. Her weeping and wailing became a curse of the night, and people began to be afraid to go out after dark. She was said to have been seen drifting between the trees along the shoreline or floating on the current with her long white gown spread out upon the waters. On many a dark night, people would see her walking along the riverbank and crying for her children. And so, they no longer spoke of her as Maria but as La Llorona, the weeping woman. Children are warned not to go out in the dark, for La Llorona might snatch them, throwing them to their deaths in the flowing waters.

Though the legends vary, the apparition is said to act without hesitation or mercy. The tales of her cruelty depend on the version of the legend you hear. Some say that she kills indiscriminately, taking men, women, and children - whoever is foolish enough to get close enough to her. Others say she is very barbaric and kills only children, dragging them screaming to a watery grave.

When Patricio Lugan was a boy, he and his family saw her on a creek between Mora and Guadalupita, New Mexico. As the family was sitting outside talking, they saw a tall, thin woman walking along the creek. She then seemed to float over the water, started up the hill, and vanished. However, moments later, she reappeared much closer to them and disappeared again. The family looked for footprints and, finding none, did not doubt that the woman they had seen was La Llorona.

She has been seen along many rivers across the Southwest, and the legend has become part of Hispanic culture everywhere. Part of the legend is that those who do not treat their families well will see her, and she will teach them a lesson.

Another story involved a man by the name of Epifanio Garcia, who was an outspoken boy who often argued with his mother and his father. After a heated argument, Epifanio and his brothers, Carlos and Augustine, decided to leave their ranch in Ojo de La Vaca to head toward the Villa Real de Santa Fe. However, when they were along their way, they were visited by a tall woman wearing a black tapelo and a black net over her face. Two of the boys were riding in the front of the wagon when the spirit appeared on the seat between them. She was silent and continued to sit there until Epifanio finally turned the horses around and headed back home, at which time she said, "I will visit you again someday when you argue with your mother."
During my travels to New Mexico, I visited with a very friendly Hispanic gentleman, who I asked if he believed in La Llorona. He whole-heartedly confessed that he did and was very open about his cultural beliefs. However, when I asked him if he believed in ghosts, he said he did not. Interesting. - Kathy Alexander
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, the tall wailing spirit has been repeatedly seen in the PERA Building (Public Employees Retirement Association), built on land that was once an old Spanish-Indian graveyard near the Santa Fe River. Many people who have been employed there tell of hearing cries resounding through the halls and feeling unseen hands pushing them while on the stairways.

La Llorona has been heard at night wailing next to rivers by many, and her wanderings have grown wider, following Hispanic people wherever they go. Her movements have been traced throughout the Southwest and as far north as Montana on the banks of the Yellowstone River.

The Hispanic people believe that the Weeping Woman will always be with them, following the many rivers looking for her children. For this reason, many of them fear the dark and pass the legend from generation to generation.

© Kathy Alexander/ Legends of America, updated December 2022.
Readers Stories:
La Llorona woke me up once when I was camping at Indian Falls rapids on the Yampa River in Colorado when I was fifteen. I walked with her to a cabin, and there was a man in the bed. All I saw was his foot, but when she yelled at me to run, I did. If I didn't smash my toe on a rock, I would have run off the cliff into the Indian Falls rapids. I saw an article in this month's Mountain Gazzette about her and looked her up on the internet. My experience was 21 years ago.- Bryan, Colorado, October 2008
A Kansas Tale
While working as a copy editor for a newspaper recently, I discovered a wire story about La Llorona. That brought back memories of what happened to me while I was a student at Kansas State University in the early 1980s in Manhattan, Kansas, and led me to your website, where I read more about the legend.

One evening I went to a mobile home that I seem to remember being near a creek or river to visit a couple of my friends who also were attending K-State. As I entered the door, I found them sitting on the sofa, somewhat freaked out. They explained that one of the bar stools had been spinning and hopping around just moments earlier. As they were Mexican-Americans, they wondered whether the La Llorona had anything to do with that incident. They explained the legend to me as I had never heard about it before.

They would invite me to stay the night in a spare bedroom, which I did. Later in the night, a woman appeared to me, lying beside me in bed, and asked if I would know where her children were. While I may have been dreaming, it seemed that I was half awake. Then I fully awoke and looked up toward the doorway just in time to see a dark figure seemingly looking at me and then quickly ducking back out the doorway. Right then, that left me too scared to go check and see if that was one of my friends checking in on me, perhaps to see why I was talking in my sleep or something. I went back to sleep and waited until the morning to ask them if either one of them had looked into my room during the night. Neither one did.

So to this day, I do not know whether I really did experience a supernatural visit or if my dream and mind played tricks on me.

Submitted By: Name and city withheld, August 2006
A Bizarre Coincidence of La Llorona
When I was in the seventh grade, I had a frightening dream. I saw myself standing on a dark road with the only illumination coming from a dim streetlight. The ground was wet, and in the distance, I could hear the sound of rain falling and the tap, tap, tapping of footsteps coming toward me. Peering into the darkness, I could see a woman dressed all in black with a dark lacy veil covering her face, moving toward me. Strangely, as the mysterious woman grew closer, so did the rain.

When the woman was about 15 feet in front of me, she looked over my shoulder. When I turned around to see what she was looking at, I saw a young child dressed in a white nightgown playing with a doll in the middle of a puddle of water. When I turned back to her, she was right in front of me. The veil was lifted, her eyes were abnormally wide, and her face was no more than three inches away from mine. Her terrifying eyes stared into mine dead on until I awoke in a panic. I looked toward the window - it was raining. As you can imagine, I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

The next day, I shook off the dream and thought nothing more about it until a year later. I spent the night with my friend Veronica, who had also invited another friend named Sarah. During the evening, Sarah, who is Hispanic, began to tell us some of Mexican culture's legends and ghost stories. When she began to tell the tale of La Llorona, I didn't think anything of it at first. Then she began to tell how the legendary spirit travels by water, dressed all in black or white, and is almost always seen wearing a veil. Sarah continued by telling us that La Llorona lifts her veil only to her "victims" and that in their afterlife, she has chosen to help her find the bones of her lost children.

Now, I constantly wonder if, in my afterlife, I will be forced to help her find the bones of her lost children.

Submitted By: Tonia Apelar of Eureka, California, November 2005
La Llorona in Texas
As we noted above, La Llorona doesn't limit her travels to New Mexico. Seemingly, she follows Hispanic people wherever they go, as evidenced by Pete Sanchez's story about crossing the San Bernard River Bridge in East Bernard, Texas. East Bernard is southwest of Houston in Wharton County. This old community built its first residence around 1850 on the east side of the San Bernard River. Today the San Bernard Bridge spans the river.

Several years ago, Mr. Sanchez was driving along in East Bernard with the radio blaring. As he was crossing the river bridge, he was startled as he looked to the right to see a semi-transparent woman sitting in his passenger seat.

Dressed all in black, a lacy black veil covered the spirit's face. Obviously frightened, Sanchez hit the gas hard, speeding past the bridge and not looking back into the passenger seat. It wasn't until he passed the bridge that he found the courage to look again. The spirit had vanished. Mr. Sanchez readily admits that he is still freaked out today by that ghostly image. When Mr. Sanchez read the story above about the Garcia brothers encountering a tall woman wearing a black tapelo and a black net over her face, who appeared on the wagon seat between them, he obviously saw similarities. We agree!
La Llorona in Mexico
My story of La Llorona takes place in Mexico. When I was eight years old when my abuelita (grandma) told me to go to the store to buy soda, this was during the evening as we were getting ready to eat supper. My brother and I left for the store, and along the way, we heard wailing, but we didn't pay much attention to it. However, as we continued on, we saw a young woman walking toward us. Suddenly,n my little brother started to cry, and the woman ran toward him, acting as if she was going to get him. When we saw that she was floating instead of walking, we began to run back to our house and told our grandmother and mom what had happened. We locked the door and started praying to God to help us and make La Llorona go away.

Submitted by Daisy Calderon. Daisy is now 12 years old and truly believes that La Llorona is real.
An Attack by the Weeping Woman
When I was about eight years old, I had just started becoming interested in all things paranormal. I was researching La Llorona when I suddenly heard a noise, so I decided to check it out. Then I heard it again. It sounded like it was coming from the bathroom, so I walked in and stopped at the sink. Then suddenly, my head was pushed into the sink, and the water started to run. The sink finally filled all the way, and I was trying to breathe. Then I couldn't breathe anymore. I thought I was going to die of a lack of oxygen. So I screamed, and my mom came in. She pulled my head out after a struggle and hugged me tightly. She knew I wouldn't drown myself, so she started thinking. Then she froze, and her face turned white. She screamed and almost fainted. I asked her what was wrong, and she said with a stutter, "La-La-La Llorona." - Emily Ortiz
My Story of La Llorona
At the age of seven, I attended the new Pajarito School in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I loved attending the Pajarito School, especially when it was time to play outside in the schoolyard. Surrounding the playground was a high fence to keep the children from wandering off. Behind the fence was an irrigation ditch that fed an alfalfa field on the other side of the trench. In the high, arid lands surrounding Albuquerque, it seemed like ditches were everywhere, watering the fields beyond the city.

Soon, we met a little boy who was not yet old enough to attend school. He would often come and play by the fence and watch as the older children frolicked in the schoolyard. But, one day, our play was interrupted by a big commotion near the schoolyard fence. We soon discovered that the little boy had fallen into the irrigation ditch as we ran toward the fence. Though one of our teachers pulled the boy from the muddy water and began resuscitation efforts, it was too late. That was the first time I had ever experienced the loss of a friend.

The next day at school, one of the children told me La Llorona had gotten the boy. I could only stand there speechless, having never heard of La Llorona. They explained that she was the "ditch lady" that wandered up and down the ditches looking for little kids to "steal" because her own children had drowned in a terrible accident. That frightened me because two of these muddy trenches were outside my back door. On cloudy days we could imagine her ascending from the heavens to take her place along the irrigation ditches.

Submitted By: By Reverend Elizabeth Kirkwood

About the Author: Reverend Elizabeth Kirkwood lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico as a child. Today she is a practicing Methodist Minister in Oklahoma and Kansas. She and her husband Cody have been married for 14 years and love to tell their girls stories that help them embrace their Hispanic heritage. Elizabeth is currently attending the University of Northwestern Oklahoma in Alva, majoring in Social Work. Enrolled in a Mythology class at the moment, she was assigned to write a paper and has chosen La Llorona.
My Mom's Bedroom Window
My mom lived in the same house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for almost 50 years. When she was about 12 or so, she and her cousin were sitting in her bedroom (which was later to be mine) at night in the middle of winter. It had been snowing. At one point, they heard a noise outside the window. When they looked, a woman was standing there, dressed all in white, and crying.

My mom and her cousin were obviously a little freaked out, and they ran out of the room to tell her mom. Her parents went outside to investigate but found no footprints in the freshly fallen snow. They came back inside and told her what they found, or rather, what they didn't find. That scared my mom even more; she was afraid to return to her room.

When I was about eleven, I was sitting in my bedroom (in the same house my mom grew up in) by myself, at night, in the middle of winter, and it had been snowing. I heard a noise outside my window. I'm afraid of the dark, so I didn't check to see what it was; I just left the room and did something else for a while. When I told my mom about it, she told me this story. She said it was La Llorona outside the window on both of those nights.

Submitted by Brandi, June 2005. Brandi has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and loves ghost stories and the paranormal. She is also afraid of the dark.
Cries in the Night
When I was 12 years old (1991), my parents separated, and my mother moved me and my brother to Monterrey, Mexico. In the winter, all three of us would sleep in the same room because there was no central heating - only electric heaters. There were two beds for my mother and brother. I slept on the floor in a sleeping bag next to my mother's bed. One night around 2:30 in the morning, I woke up because I had been dreaming about my great-grandma. She kept calling my name - three times to be exact. Just a few minutes later, I heard the scariest screams coming from down the street. It was horrible!!! The cries continued, each time coming closer. I was so horrified that I could not even wake my mother, who was lying beside me! I was so scared; I did not even blink. It was the most evil cry I have ever heard! Finally, it passed my house and slowly faded away! The next day I told my mother. I didn't believe in stuff like this, especially not La Llorona. After that night, I do.

Submitted by: Adriana of Houston, Texas
Did I Really See La Llorona? - A California Version
I don't think anybody has ever heard of the city I live in - in the suburbs of a small valley town called Lompoc, California.

Well, the story of La Llorona that I know was that she was a prostitute, and every time she would have a child, she would take it to a creek and drown it. Before long, she was murdered by one of her customers and sentenced by God to wander the rivers and streets of the world looking for her children.

La Llorona became so upset that she cried and cried, eventually drying her eyes out - leaving two black holes where her eyes once were. And her mouth grew incredibly large, resembling that of a horse. The legend continues - that if she heard a child crying, she would come for them thinking it was one of her own.

When I was a child of eight children, my family would warn us that was outside waiting. During the day, we might cry when we heard this, but as the sun started to die, we were too scared to even walk alone through the house, thinking she might have heard us and was waiting in a dark corner.

One night when I was about 8 years old, I was terribly angry at my mom, and she made me sleep with her that night. However, I was so upset that I couldn't sleep, and La Llorona was the last thing on my mind. However, as I tossed and turned, I looked to the foot of the bed, and there stood a lady in a black dress with purple trim. She had two black holes where her eyes should have been and an enormous grin on her face. She had long, straight black hair that looked like it was blowing in the wind.

The weird part was that I wasn't scared; I just sat up in bed staring at her for a good five minutes. I finally got tired and fell asleep when she wouldn't go away. It wasn't until the next morning that I got scared and strange things seemed to happen to me in that house ever since.

This house is said to be buried over an old Indian/Spanish cemetery.

Submitted by: Nisi of Lompoc, California
Readers Comments:
I just read your interesting articles about the Weeping Woman, aka La Llorona. Many of these stories I read on your site appear to coincide with the many "events" our town experienced back in the early to mid-80s in Manor, Texas, a once small quiet town of 840 population, before the big population explosion. My family and many others in the area heard what appeared to be the wailing of this mean spirit. My father has claimed to have seen her, and I have seen what appeared to be remnants of a gown floating near the old Forest Creek by our house. At present, due to the heavy growth in the Manor area, she has not been seen or heard from since. Thank you for your information about this spirit, I truly believe this is a real spirit, and for the record - yes, I believe in ghosts. - Carlos, Austin, Texas, June 2010.
Also see: Folklore & Superstition Ghosts, Legends, Myths & Mysteries Ghost Stories Native American Legends & Tales

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La Llorona - Weeping Woman of the Southwest

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The legend of La Llorona (pronounced "LAH yoh ROH nah"), Spanish for the Weeping Woman, has been a part of the Southwest's Hispanic culture since the conquistadores' days. The tall, thin spirit is said to be blessed with natural beauty and long flowing black hair.

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Rich opens her poem Planetarium Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750—1848) astronomer, sister of William; and others, with

“A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them…”
The fifth stanza is, “Galaxies of women, there
doing penance for impetuousness
ribs chilled
in those spaces     of the mind” …
In these stanzas Rich is referencing “women” as an entity of beings.  She is digging into the female experience of being a woman in science.  There are myths of celestial bodies.  These celestial bodies are often gendered.  She unpacks this from what comes across as a feminist perspective, recording as the poet.

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Ester Hernandez, hailing from the California San Francisco Bay Area, creates visual art to focus on culture, feminist issues, farmworker rights, and politics.  She has a large body of work ranging through these various issues and using different bold colors and symbolism. With pastels and printed visuals, Hernandez creates her piece, “La Ofrenda”. On the center of the subject’s bare back is Our Lady of Guadalupe. The colors of Our Lady and the angels flying above her and meeting in a point of yellow, mirror the colors streaking through the dark hair of the subject. This is representative of the way in which Our Lady has acted as an integral part of Mexican culture, and her elements live on the body and in the hair of the subject. Many people choose to tattoo Our Lady for different reasons, but often it is to pay homage to their culture. Additionally, Our Lady is a cultural symbol for religion (originally Roman Catholic), Mexican history, purity culture, beauty, virginity, and more. Notably, Hernandez has chosen to depict a woman that is nonconformist to many of the ideals that are tied to Our Lady. She has short hair in a fo-hawk sort of style, with dye, short blue sides, and earrings. The earrings from a single perspective, represent the more traditional femininity that remains. The hand reaching in the frame of the image is the same skin tone as the subject and almost looks to be a third arm. This could be interpreted as being the subject’s self, giving adorning her back, or giving her a beautiful addition to the historic symbol. This rose is a commentary of cultural change. The rose is new and vibrant, vibrant like the tattoo, although it is from another source. All of these elements coming together in one image is representative of the modernity of Our Lady and Hispanic culture.

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La Llorona, or the weeping woman is seen through many lenses.  She is a Legend of American Hispanic culture, traced back to 1550 Mexico City.  La Llorona symbolizes a, "tempting spirit", a beauty, a Latin siren, a ghost of a woman who had a tragic fate.  La Llorona drowns herself and falls to her fate.  "... walking the banks of the Santa Fe River when darkness fell. Her weeping and wailing became a curse of the night, and people began to be afraid to go out after dark."  With this brief background we can see how culturally, although the legends varied, the general message was to act with, "...hesitation or mercy."  Because the legend has become a part of Hispanic culture everywhere, people have started to claim the story and provide their own interpretations.  Her legend is connected to Aztec mythology, among them the founding of the city Tenochtitlan.  From this we can analyze her story as an ancient powerful being living on–her power for evil lessened, but still present in modern times and Hispanic culture.

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Carla Trujillo explores the intersections between queerness, specifically Lesbian desire, and Chicana culture.  In religious spaces, heterosexuality and women that upheld the binary gender expectations received praise and were accepted.  Trujillo reconstructs the narrative, speaking on the topic of Chicana culture and Chicana culture.  In Queer Like La Virgen: Catholicism and Lesbian Sexuality in Carla Trujillo’s What Night Brings, Trujillo features a young lesbian protagonist who realizes that her erotic leanings are in someway different from those embraced by her family and her culture at large, and it is this difference, she realizes, that equips others with power, and relegates her to a relative state of disempowerment.

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La Llorona is vastly influential and has attracted the focus of many creative people over the years, thus we see her in paintings, films, sculptures, and other stories. This image of a sculpture particularly stands for the details of the dress and the overall tone of the piece. She is a black charcoal color. This projects the element of darkness and death.

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"The Virgin of Monte Ramon" is a short story authored by a Filipino-American writer Mia Alvar.  To open the short story Alvar writes, "Although I am dead, Daniel told my mother, I shall live through my grandson." This line stood out to me for the reason that it is bold and sets the tone for the entire piece.  This short story is about family and the integral role that it plays for the protagonist Danny Wilson.  As a child who experiences the pain of bullying, Danny Wilson finds solace and strength from his family.  The character Annaliese symbolizes the realization that Danny can also have friendship and a sense of strong camaraderie with those outside of his circle of family.  Danny lives with a disability that compromises his quality of life.  Annaliese lives with a serious illness.  Her presence provides a sense of familiarity and mutual empathizing.  For most of his life, Danny has lived with the narrative that he was different than those around him because of his differently-abled body.  He lived with the narrative that this made him inferior to his peers.  Further into the short story Alvar writes, from Danny's perspective, "But for one brief moment, in the rain and mud, I saw a world where everyone was struggling in the body he or she'd been given. That world and struggle seemed bearable to me, and even beautiful."  This line in the text furthers the thematic element throughout.  How do we see ourselves and our fellow family members, friends, and community members?  What is the true meaning of acceptance when we are different?  Reading this line I could see the character growth Danny shows and the shift that occurs in his perspective on his disability.  The beauty and joy he found in family now extends to a loving attitude toward himself and others around him in the world.  A world that has shown him cruelty as he struggled in the body he had been given has become beautiful in his eyes.

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Interview Response:  Art and Uplifting the Trans Community 

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Interview Response:  Art and Uplifting the Trans Community 

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The New York Times subheading to the article titled True Romance: Janet Mock on the Final Season of ‘Pose’ states, "As Mock says goodbye to the groundbreaking drama that changed her life, she is planning to make more television that shows people that they are not alone."  This is precisely what Mock has done throughout her career advocating for the trans community.  In an interview with Piers Morgan Live, Mock speaks her truth as she eloquently responds to questions many may view as difficult or complex.  She is confident in who she is, so when the interview topic is being a trans woman, her ethos and passion delivers.  Identity is tied to gender, although it is also tied to how we show up in the world.  How we present ourselves, the message we carry, the things we create.  Janet Mock is an activist, author, and producer of the groundbreaking show "Pose", and she has done all of this as she checked off her goals.  She shares in the interview, "I had three dreams.  Number one was to become a writer, to live my life as myself, and three was to move to New York City."  She doesn't tell Piers Morgan that her goal was to transition, but that her goal was to live her life as herself.  This phrasing is incredibly impactful and is just one reason why Janet's message resonates with so many.  This can be seen in her work such as in her show Prose, which represents the underground New York City ballroom scene in the late 1980s.  This was a time when the queer community was being hit hard with the AIDS crisis.   The show depicts many thematic elements of racism, homophobia, self discovery, and an urban environment experiencing the heightened AIDS epidemic. Pose is an emblem for queer voices and stories being  appreciated.  In the interview, Mock promotes her 2014 published book Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, and So Much More.  "So much more." From the cinematic techniques used in Pose such as low angles and illuminating lighting to the honest, inclusive, and strong writing she has produced...Mock uses her identity and voice to uplift others.

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Via Twitter and @sadie_art: Janet Mock fan art. 90's highschool Janet Mock fan art. Because I'm a huge dork and she's my hero.

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Found on Twitter is a piece of fan art created by the account @sadie_art. Janet Mock is a hero for many young allies and people who identify with the trans and queer community. According to Mock, she underwent her gender-affirming surgery at the age of 18, although, she expressed her truth from an even younger age. Mock shared in an interview that she was told by her mom that they had to take her to the emergency room when she was a toddler because of a failed attempt to push her mother's earring through her un-pierced earlobe in their Honolulu, Hawaii home. Mock was lucky to be raised by supportive parents, which is dismally not the case for the majority of trans folks growing up. As a teenager she lived her life vibrantly; there is photographic evidence of her smiling as she walked through Honolulu with the gender presentation of her choice. "90s Teen Janet Mock" is written beside the fan art. This drawing uses energetic highlighter shades of purple, green, and pink. Janet is made of lively color. She is the brightness amongst an otherwise blank background. This artistic choice demonstrates the role she fills for the younger trans community.