I have often said I come from a family of unreliable narrators. I tend to believe their struggles with racism, identity, nationality do dovetail with my motivation to write.
I'm always fascinated by the disjunct between what's really happening on the ground and the propaganda machine that feeds America alarmist news about immigration.
Masculinity is kind of a toxic curse, isn't it? The expectations of it were hard on me.
Laughter is a virus that infects you with humanity.
When I was a little boy in Tijuana, it was wonderland. We left when I was probably four - I was dying of tuberculosis.
The French-Cajun culture is similar to mine - they're Catholic, they play accordions, and they eat hot chiles.
I've been treated beautifully wherever I've gone, and I really think we all want to love each other.
The situation was kind of complicated in that my mother didn't speak Spanish. My father spoke English, you know, as best he could.
I once made the mistake of writing a story with David Corbett. The man smoked me. He can delineate the character and personality of an accordion in three strokes. I didn't even know accordions had character. This act of generosity and wisdom from a very good writer will help anyone who is staring at a blank page, any day, any time. Highly recommended.
Poetry is how I feed the soul, and it's how I fire the furnace of writing.
The tone of 'Into the Beautiful North' is really the way I write. 'Hummingbird's Daughter' was the anomaly. It was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.
A lot of our family was undocumented. My mom and dad were both super conservative. My dad had a green card; my mom was an Eisenhower Republican who did not approve of all the 'illegal people.'
When 'The Hummingbird's Daughter' came out, there was a certain backlash - 'Well, this isn't 'The Devil's Highway.'' That's just the way it goes.
It's almost easy for me to write about a magnificent tropical village with orchids and dragonflies. That's intoxicating, but the United States is magical, too. We just forget this.
I believe God is a poet; every religion in our history was made of poems and songs, and not a few of them had books attached.
I'm interested in the eternal soul. That's what I write about.
With a name like Luis Alberto Urrea, it's political no matter what I do.
There is beauty in our roots. Sometimes we think our roots are shameful, and people tell you that you're no good or your ancestors are no good or that you come from a neighborhood of no hope and terrible crime. But it's about the beauty of those places, and I carry that with me.
The concept of a literature of witness - of bearing witness - has embedded in it the need for action. One must not simply hide in the shadows and type; one must also stand in the light.
I was torn between the Americanness my mom wanted for me and the Mexicanness my father wanted - they were wrestling for cultural influence over me.
The stupidity of militarized fences between two worlds is a metaphor for all the things that divide us as human beings.
I don't like being angry all the time; it's not good for me. I have to have serenity or else go to war.
I don't like to see people get kicked around. You have to stand up for them.
I've been told not to tour down in Mexico. I am too well-known now. The kidnappers may think that my publisher will pay a ransom.
During grade school, we moved to a white, working-class suburb in San Diego, and there were no Mexicans.
To me, writing is prayer. I pray all the time.
I used to work with a relief group that took care of the people in the dump. We took them food and water and medicine and built homes and took them to church services, whatever was needed.
I love books with titles like, 'How Do You Spank a Porcupine?,' 'Arnie, the Darling Starling,' or 'The Bat in My Pocket.'
I am addicted to poetry, but the truth is I cannot pass up a good hard-boiled mystery.
I'm a theological writer mistaken for a political writer. My theme is grace versus karma.
I saw 'The War Wagon' with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, but it was dubbed into German. And it had Japanese subtitles and then this little strip with some Spanish words, and I've never forgotten that weird image. It was so magical and funky.
Writing went from being a calling to being a job. Business ruined things. It became like making sausages in a sausage factory.
I came to believe the green fuse that drives spring and summer through the world is essentially a literary energy. That the world was more than a place. Life was more than an event. It was all one thing - and that thing was story.
Luis Alberto Urrea is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.
