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Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

by

1️⃣ Sentence Synopsis

This book explores the underlying fears—about oneself, and about others—that keep artists of all types from producing their best work (or, indeed, any work at all).

🖼️ Contexts

I picked this book up at Black Cat Books in Corpus Christi on a family road trip earlier this year. Since I don’t technically need any more books, I usually enter independent shops with the belief that the exact right book will find its way into my hands and it’s my “duty” to support the bookstore by buying it. I picked up and put this book down three times. Then, with my kids pulling on my sleeves to leave the shop, I finally bought it. It’s quite abstract in its tone, peppered with blunt wisdom about the travails of making art, but does offer an incisive discussion on the core fears in any creative expression.

🔑 Key Takeaways

  • Becoming an artist requires self-acceptance (and this is what makes art personal), and in following your voice, you create a style (this is what makes your art distinct).
  • “Artist” – a person who creates as a means of self-expression alone rather than creating “useful” objects that are also beautiful – is a relatively new concept in the world.
  • Fears about artmaking fall into two categories: fears about yourself (which prevent you from doing your best work), and fears about your reception by others (which prevent you from doing your own work).
  • The real underlying fear is annihilation. Like Scheherazade, there is a need to make art as a means of staving off non-existence.
  • Ideas can be reused for “a thousand variations” – one of the best secrets of artmaking is iteration which can supply “the framework for a whole body of work” rather than just a single piece of it.
  • Stick to routines that work for you. If you find yourself stuck, it may mean you unnecessarily altered some part of your process that was already working well.

💯 Strong Lines

  • On vision vs. reality: “Often the work we have not done seems more real in our minds than the pieces we have completed. And so questions arise: how does art get done? Why, often, does it not get done? And what is the nature of the difficulties that stop so many who start?”
  • On the dangers of making art: “Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art is dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be.”
  • On the constraints of time and place: “The art you can experience may have originated 1000 miles away, or 1000 years ago, but the art you can make is irrevocably bound to the times and places of your life.”
  • On routines: “A piece of art is the surface expression of a life lived within productive patterns.”
  • On the ingredients for generative energy: “In healthy times you’ve only paused to distinguish between internal drive, sense of craft, the pressure of a deadline or the charm of a new idea – they all serve as sources of energy in the pieces you make.”
  • On the difference between art and craft: “The accomplishments of Antonio Stradivari and his fellow craftsman points up one real difference between art and craft: with craft, perfection is possible. In that sense, the Western definition of craft closely matches the eastern definition of art. In eastern cultures, art that faithfully carries forward the tradition of an elder master is honored; in the west it is put down as derivative.”
  • On the great work of your life: “Your growth as the artist is a growth toward fully realizable works – works that become real in full illumination of all that you know. Including all you know about yourself.”
  • On the continuous line of human expression: “The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of art and ourselves, but the similarities. Today the similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity – audience, critics, economics, trivia – in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art.”

🧠 Brain Tickles

  • How artists embolden one another across space and time: “what we really gain from artmaking of others is courage-by-association.” And:
  • The duty of the art teacher is to model an artistic life; not only to instruct on content but to give a glimpse of how an artful life is lived.
  • Avoidance of the word “Creativity” (which does not appear in the book at all).
  • This quote, by Pablo Picasso: “Computers are useless – all they can give you are answers.”

🍎 Ideas & Excerpts for Teaching and Learning

Bayles and Orland caution against the pitfalls of balancing a life of teaching with a life of art, writing that it is, “hard to imagine placing a full-time teaching career a top a full-time art making career without something going awry in the process….The danger is real (and the examples many) that an artist who teaches will eventually dwindle away to something much less: a teacher who formerly made art.”

There is one beautiful passage in this book that I believe relates to learning as much as it does to art:

Artistically and otherwise, the world will come into has already been observed and defined by others – thoroughly, redundantly, comprehensively, and usually quite appropriately. Human race has spent several millennia developing a huge and robust set of observations about the world, informed as varied as language, art and religion. Those observations and turn it with stood many – enormously many –tests. We stand heir to and unstatably large set of meanings. Most of what we inherit is so clearly correct it goes unseen. It fits the world seamlessly. It is the world. But despite its richness and variability, the well defined world we inherit doesn’t quite fit each one of us, individually. Most of us spend most of our time in other people’s worlds – working at predetermined jobs, relaxing to pre-packaged entertainment – and no matter how benign this ready-made world may be, there will always be times when something is missing or doesn’t quite ring true. And so you make your place in the world by making part of it – by contributing some new part to the set.

Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind

by

1️⃣ Sentence Synopsis

Jacobs argues that engaging meaningfully with the writings of the past – the strange, the uncomfortable, the profound – can help ease the anxieties of modern life.

🖼️ Contexts

I picked this up on an Barnes and Noble summer run a couple years ago, looking for books to freshen up some lectures on introducing literary analysis. I ended up sitting in the aisle, reading the first 20 pages of this book, and knew I should probably buy it (even though it wasn’t particularly suited for the task at hand). It’s a good read, and a solid argument, for reading widely in the face of uncertain times. There are also an inordinate amount of research-breadcrumbs and intriguing anecdotes that are woven into the crisp, engaging prose (see “Brain Tickles” below for a selection).

🔑 Key Takeaways

  • It is important to see the past for its “treasures more than its threats” – and that these “treasures” can guide us in an age of information overload, social acceleration, and algorithmic marketing.
  • “Informational triage” is a modern necessity – the ability to quickly filter through massive amounts of information so we can be “ruthless” in how we “deploy our attention.” And part of our strategy should be to read the “classics.”
  • The key to a tranquil mind is increasing “personal density” – a term coined by Thomas Pynchon – that is “directly proportional to temporal bandwidth”. Our connectedness to the ancient, and the perspective in lends, are vital to increasing density so we can transcend the moments of our newsfeeds to ground ourselves in a “bigger time.”
  • Young people and children should be exposed to older art and that for which they are not the intended audience so that they can “find value and pleasure in something that wasn’t necessarily made for them.”
  • Encountering texts from the past is a relatively non-threatening way to engage with difference, especially that which runs counter to our current sensibilities.
  • The great figures of the past provide models for both those who want an active life and a contemplative one.

💯 Strong Lines

  • On using the classics to future-cast: “To read old books is to get an education in possibility for next to nothing.”
  • John Dewey (in Democracy and Education, 1916), on navigating information overload: “A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability. Otherwise, they will be overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose significance or connections they do not perceive. The result will be a confusion in which a few will appropriate to themselves the results of the blind and externally directed activities of others.”
  • On the past: “The past the ties us to people in ways that hurt also ties us to people in ways that make healing possible. Sometimes we wish that the past could be over; sometimes we are grateful that it is not.”
  • On judging historic figures with modern understandings: “…We are all inconstant and changeable, we all shy away from the full implications of our best and strongest ideas. Why should Washington and Jefferson and Milton have been any different? We should not be surprised that they failed to live up their ideals; we should, I think, be surprised that in their time and place they upheld such ideals at all.”
  • On religious texts and their presumed timelessness: “…the ability to transcend temporal and cultural distance is one of the primary traits that makes a sacred text sacred.”
  • On reading and identification: “…power arises in some cases from likeness—from the sense that that could be me speaking—and from difference—that is someone very different from me speaking. For mental and moral health we need both.”
  • On the relative comprehension of old texts and their authors: “These complications of perception are essential to the value of reading the past – they are the chief means, I think, by which, increasing or temporal bandwidth, increases our personal density. Yes, there is a cost of this, and we have to fight or triage instincts to get to the point of experiencing, along with the people of the past, the choices that shaped their lives. We see their moral frames, continually coming in and out of focus: at one moment, we feel that we know them intimately, and at the next, scarcely at all.”
  • On our instinctive responses to what we read: “This testing of our responses against those of our ancestors is an exciting endeavor – a potentially endless table conversation, though, again, one we can suspend at any time….As Leslie Jamison says, that tension crackles and sparks. And the sparks produce both light and warmth.”

🧠 Brain Tickles

  • Climate change, as a theme, is relatively rare in contemporary fiction (Amitav Ghosh’s observation from The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable); while “cli-fi” does exist, it usually looks dystopically to the future rather than dealing with the here and now.
  • German Sociologist Gerd-Günter Voss’s three ways to “conduct life”: 1) traditional – your life takes the form of the lives of those who came before, in alignment with your culture, class and context 2) strategic – your life is based on goals and strategic plans to get them 3) situational – less likely to “plan out” anything (a particular career, having children, settling in one place) as there is accelerated change and this is one way of coping with that reality. From Rosa’s Social Acceleration, pp. 236-237.
  • Alyssa Vance’s distinction between “positive” and “negative” selection – when you’re in the selection business, you can focus on what candidates are able to do or unable to do—and, academia in particular is built upon “negative” selection (in admissions, tenure, promotion).
  • Julian Baggini’s argument to read the past – and controversial thinkers such as Kant and Hume – with an understanding that “none of these figures had the good fortune to be confronted with eloquent proponents of opposing views.” And, this in turn, should make us all the more admiring of other thinkers – Wollstonecraft and Douglass, for example – who were able to cut their way through thickets of convention that “so reliably trap ordinary folks—and sometimes even great geniuses.”
  • Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s Generous Thinking, a book that argues for “generosity as an enduring habit of mind, a conversational practice.” I think it might connect nicely to Kline’s Time to Think.
  • Brian Eno’s “Big Here and Long Now” thinking – “big here” is spatial bandwidth (learning languages, reading books in translation, seeking to understand other cultures), and “here now” is in recognition that every moment is grown from the past and a seed for the future.
  • Donna Zuckerberg’s journal Eidolon, and her research into the resurgence of Stoic philosophy in the manosphere.
  • Loving the aside on futurists (pg. 144) in the discussion of Wendell Barry’s “Standing by Words” (1980) where he compares them to the “projectors” of Gulliver’s Travels: “… men who appear to be meaningfully related to the future, but are in fact wholly self-absorbed….Their imagined world is devoid of actual persons and much of the rest of creation as well.” The key distinction is between projecting and promising: “The ‘projecting’ of ‘futurologists’ uses the future as the safest possible context for whatever is desired; it binds one to selfish interest. But making a promise binds one to someone else’s future.”
  • Paul Connerton’s How Modernity Forgets.

🍎 Ideas and Excerpts for Teaching and Learning

There are a lot of anecdotes and excerpts that feel relevant to teaching; here are a sampling:

  • Italo Calvino’s concept of “your classics” – books that take on a particular status for a particular reader…Jacobs defines it further, “…a book becomes a classic for you in part because of its power to compel you to hear something that you not only hadn’t thought but might not believe, or might not want to belief. In this sense a book can become very much like a friend.”
  • The discussion of Plutarch’s comparative studies model (in his case, of Roman and Greek military figures) that provided an educational framework for the whole of Western Europe for centuries.
  • Niccolò Machiavelli on the solace of ancient texts: “When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and, decently reclothed, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was born for. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I feel no boredom, I forget every pain, I do not fear poverty, death does not frighten me.”
  • Patrocinio Schweickart’s “Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading” and the recommendation of looking for a “utopian moment” or “authentic kernel” where something deeply beautiful and human emerges even in the midst of patriarchal muck.
  • A resurfacing of Kipling’s famous poem, “The Gods of Copybook Headings,” and in particular, this stanza: With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch / They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch, / They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings, / So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
  • The extended discussion of Seamus Heaney’s “Sandstone Keepsake” at the beginning of chapter 9. would make a lovely mini-lesson on poetic allusions.
  • The discussion (pp. 154-155) of Paul Kingsnorth’s describing his visit to the Salon Noir, and asking questions that might be asked of any text, artifact or work of art: Why did these people, some fifteen thousand years ago, paint animals, and paint them with such (apparently) loving attention? What was the world, to them, and what spirits haunted it? What stories did they tell about their place here, about the past and the present? Who, what, did they think they were?

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

by

1️⃣ Sentence Synopsis

Cal Newport discusses the importance of regular sessions of “deep work” (distraction-free concentration), arguing that this way of working produces neurological, psychological and philosophical benefits and is needed for the jobs of the future.

🖼️ Contexts

This book is consistently recommended in productivity circles but I wasn’t compelled to read it until I heard Newport discuss his career in an interview last year. I found his style of writing—combining dense research and storytelling—compelling and breezy. One of the aspects I like most about this book are the many “breadcrumbs” of interesting research and literature he cites throughout that are a joy to follow up on (see “brain tickles” below).

🔑 Key Takeaways

  • “Deep work” is defined as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive abilities to their limit” producing value and skill acquisition that is hard to replicate in other ways. “Shallow work” is non-cognitively demanding in nature, consisting of tasks that can be done while distracted (emails, etc.)
  • Uninterrupted, carefully curated distraction-free “deep work” can be done up to four hours per day (but rarely more). While learning or applying new skills, only 1-2 hours of “deep work” can usually be accomplished per day.
  • Routines, ritual and location play a big role in enacting “deep work.” Banning internet use during sessions, or instituting a metric (like words per day), or even changing locations—having a special place where deep work is done—can provide useful constraints. “Start up” and “wind down” rituals (like, a cup of coffee and a walk) are also beneficial for signaling the shift for your mind and body.
  • It is important to aim for a small number of “wildly important goals.”

💯 Strong Lines

  • Why deep work matters: “The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.
  • On the challenge of deep work in our tech-driven society: “Deep work is at a severe disadvantage in a technopoly because it builds on values like quality, craftsmanship, and mastery that are decidedly old-fashioned and nontechnological.”
  • On the pitfalls of modern work culture**:** “On our worst days, it can seem that all knowledge work boils down to the same exhausting roil of e-mails and PowerPoint, with only the charts used in the slides differentiating one career from another.
  • On the importance of ending a workday: “At the end of the workday, shut down your consideration of work issues until the next morning—no after-dinner e-mail check, no mental replays of conversations, and no scheming about how you’ll handle an upcoming challenge; shut down work thinking completely.”

🧠 Brain Tickles

  • The Intellectual Life by Antonin-Dalmace Sertillanges, who wrote “Let your mind become a lens, thanks to the converging rays of attention; let your soul be all intent on whatever it is that is established in your mind as a dominant, wholly absorbing idea.”
  • “Attention residue” as defined by Sophie Leroy in “Why is it so hard to do my work?”
  • Dreyfus and Kelly’s All Things Shining which cites the Enlightenment as a turning point in how we see ourselves in relation to work and the world: “The Enlightenment’s metaphysical embrace of the autonomous individual leads not just to a boring life…it leads almost inevitably to a nearly unlivable one.”
  • The practice of giving of your time and attention, without expectation of reward or anything in return, as explored in Adam Grant’s Give and Take.
  • Kaplan’s Attention restoration theory (ART) —the importance of being in nature as a natural remedy for chronic concentration loss.

🍎 Ideas and Excerpts for Teaching and Learning

There are no explicit sections for teaching and learning (though Newport himself is a professor and has authored another book aimed directly at a student audience), but a lot of the cited studies have implications for how we teach:

  • For example, we should think about just how much students can learn of an unfamiliar concept or discipline: “…for a novice, somewhere around an hour a day of intense concentration seems to be a limit.”
  • On the importance of building “boredom stamina”: “Once your brain has become accustomed to on-demand distraction…it’s hard to shake the addition even when you want to concentrate.”
  • Incorporation of “productive meditation” into learning—spaces where students are occupied physically but not mentally (walking, jogging, building, etc.) so that periods of focused concentration are more productive.
  • Not from the book but from his blog: “The Advice I gave my Students” (a low-key approach to digital minimalism during exams).

Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind

by

1️⃣ Sentence Synopsis

Kline explores the benefits of effective listening—for organizations, systems, and families—arguing that the simple of act of “generative attention” can lead to better thinking, decision-making and a more compassionate world.

🖼️ Contexts

This book was recommended during a virtual session with Motoki Tonn (via the Building a Second Brain facilitator’s training). He touched upon Kline’s work but, more effectively, actively modeled it in the session. Motoki is very skilled at building connection with an audience virtually (always a struggle!) so picked up this book and…yes, it’s that good.

🔑 Key Takeaways

The 10 components of an optimal thinking environment: How to be a Good Thought-Partner
  1. Attention. Listening with respect, interest and fascination.
  2. Equality. Treating each other as thinking peers, giving equal time to think.
  3. Ease. Discard internal urgency.
  4. Appreciation. Notice what is good and say it.
  5. Encouragement. Moving beyond competition as thinkers. Honoring thought partnership.
  6. Feelings. Welcome the release of emotion.
  7. Information. Absorb relevant facts without judgement or input.
  8. Difference. Seek to understand divergent perspectives knowing that diversity raises the intelligence of groups.
  9. Incisive Questions. Free the human mind of untrue assumptions lived as true.
  10. Place. Create an environment—through physical space, body language and deep listening—that says “you matter.”
How to be a good thought partner (protocol for a “Thinking Session”):
  1. Part I. Begin by asking your partner, “what do you want to think about?” Let them talk, without interruption. If they pause or run out of steam, follow up with: “is there anything more?” Continue to prompt every time they are silent for a while until they have expressed, definitively, that they are done. Even then, you might ask, “Are you sure?”
  2. Part II. Then, ask: “what do you want to achieve?” Here they state a goal. Try to get them to distill to a concise statement (you as you will need this in Part 4).
  3. Part III. Then, ask what are you assuming? or, what might you be assuming that is stopping you from achieving your goal? Then, wait. Continue to prompt, revealing underlying assumptions, until you work your way through all of them. Prompt the speaker to choose the one that is most in the way. As an aside, there are three assumptions: 1) facts (my boss controls my schedule) 2 possible facts (my boss might laugh at my idea) and 3) bedrock assumptions (I am stupid). Unlocking the “bedrock assumption” will help the speaker not only during this session but in future thinking sessions.
  4. Part IV. Incisive Questions. The limiting assumption needs to be removed. A good place to start is to ask what the opposite of the bedrock assumption is (i.e., what is the opposite of “stupid” for you? It might be intelligent, or creative, or wise, or learned…whatever it is, use that word to craft the question.) Here is a way to formulate it: “If you knew…” + freeing assumption (in present tense) + goal. Example: “If you knew that you are intelligent, how would you approach this conversation with your boss?” Keep asking – in exactly the same wording – every time the speaker gets stuck. The question will seem repetitive to you but not to the speaker.
  5. Part V. The speaker should write down the exact wording of the question.
  6. Part VI. End with appreciation.
  • Two key questions to guide all work meetings: what have you noticed that needs attention or change in this organization that I might not have noticed? What do you think should be done about it?
  • Questions managers/supervisors should ask direct reports: What do you think you have accomplished in this period? What has gone particularly well? What are you proud of? What have you discovered about yourself? What is the key thing that you want to improve? What might you be assuming that could stop you? If you assumed something more freeing, what would your first step be? What sort of support do you need from me in order to do it? What other issues do you want to raise with me?

💯 Strong Lines

  • On schools: “People learn best in a large context of genuine praise.”
  • On generative attention: “…the quality of a person’s attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking.”
  • On the conditions for good thinking**:** “The best conditions for thinking…are not tense. They are gentle. They are quiet. They are unrushed. They are stimulating but not competitive. They are encouraging. They are paradoxically both rigorous and nimble.”
  • *On insecurity and infantilizing: “*You infantilize when you want the well-being of another person intensely but you also want to be seen as expert, indispensable and brilliant. Infantilizing others is actually an act of profound insecurity.”
  • *On ease: “*Ease creates. Urgency destroys….ease is being systematically bred out of our lives. Ease is seen to be the enemy of profit, the keep-ahead drive, the you-are-what-you-have-and-whom-you-control society…..Ease is a deceptively gentle catalyst.”
  • On over-talking someone: “interruption is an assault on the thinking process.”
  • On criticism in schools: “Receiving a cargo of criticism does not build character and discipline. It builds a core of self-doubt and in some people it builds a determination to retaliate…”
  • On love: ****“When someone wants to know what you really think, love can begin. When someone wants to know all of what you think, all of what you feel, when they are respectful of it, fascinated by it, not needing to control it, love grows. On the other hand, the minute someone tries to shape your thoughts for you, love recedes. When someone looks at you, wants you, in order to bend you to fill their fantasy or make them proud or to adorn their ambitions with you, love is doomed.
  • On raising “thinking children”: “…give [them] attention as if they were works of art. They are. Tell them countless times a day that you love them and respect them. Let them cry. And as soon as possible, ask them what they really think, every day. Then listen like mad….not infantilizing our children means asking what dreams reside in their soul…”

🧠 Brain Tickles

  • An alternative to brainstorming: go around first so everyone can contribute one idea, they open up for random contributions, go around again systematically so you can hear from each person one more time. Then, pair people off to talk, uninterrupted, for 10 minutes (five minutes per person). Bring everyone back, and each person shares one idea.
  • Zoom meetings may actually be better for thinking than in-person ones because its stilted nature makes interruption difficult.
  • The citation of Pauline Sandell’s work with Diversity and Greatness Circle.
  • During presentations, the audience should provide a “thinking environment” for the speaker (though, too often, they are “salivating for attack, often just to dazzle their colleagues”). Two good questions to positively affirm speakers at the conclusion of a presentation: what do you think has been good in this presentation, and what in particular do you respect about the presenting team?
  • Paraphrasing is not always an effective coaching move as it may express “that we think they should use our wording.”

🍎 Ideas & Excerpts for Teaching and Learning

There is an entire chapter devoted to creating a thinking environment in schools. Kline was the founding director of Thornton Friends school and has worked in higher education in recent decades as well. Her advice is grounded in “respect…for the student as thinker, the student as full human being, the student as responsible, loving, intellectually adroit, academically grounded young adult, committed to making a positive difference in the world.”

Some advice she gives on enacting these principles in the classroom:

  • Ask your students what they think five times more than telling them what you think.
  • In the last 10 minutes of class, divide students into thinking pairs and give them each five minutes to talk without interruption. They can talk about what they learned, what is still confusing, etc.
  • Begin class with a quick round of positive comments: what is going well for you? What did you do yesterday that you feel good about today?
  • Don’t humiliate students in front of others.
  • Create a way for each student to be concretely appreciated by their peers at least once a month.
  • Provide a mini-course on how to give intelligent, undivided attention to people. A protocol she recommends is Lee Glickstein’s Thinking Circles.
  • Apply a 5:1 ration of praise to critique when telling students what you think of their work.

A Mexican-American Lit Shelf: Curated by Students

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Reading along the Rio Grande/Río Bravo. Dall-E 2 Prompt.

Over the years, I have often been approached by colleagues in the many English departments I have worked, who ask variations of the following questions: “do you have any recommendations for Hispanic authors I can use?” or “What do you teach that’s ‘multi-cultural’? Any Latina authors in particular? What do you assign?”

I bristle a little at these questions which recall Roxane Gay’s famous blog post from a decade ago: “We are Many. We are Everywhere.” But in any case all those questions prompted me to share some recommendations—not mine, but those of my students.

At the end of every semester, I invite them to recommend authors and texts that I may have missed or couldn’t include as part of our course (an inevitability in ANY literature class!) For my own sake and theirs, I think it’s essential to keep texts fresh, diverse, and engaging so that we can all enjoy exploring new voices and perspectives.

Co-designing and optimizing curriculum with students in this way vests them deeper in the learning journey, ending the course as a community of discerning readers within the genre, and as thought-partners with the instructor.

And I must say that their generous responses have always improved my instruction. But more than this, they make me smile—sometimes because I meet old author-friends again, and sometimes because I’m surprised to find voices I’ve never heard of before.

So, here is this semester’s list—carefully curated by my students—of the top Mexican-American literature recommendations accompanied by their words about the content, authors, and why they’re worth considering for your next read.

Recommended Texts

Albuquerque by Rudolfo Anaya

I would simply continue to encourage the works of Rudolfo Anaya. After Bless Me, Ultima came two more novels and a series of story collections. But Anaya’s next breakthrough came with the 1992 publication of Albuquerque, set in the city Anaya has called home since 1952.

The Autobiography of Brown Buffalo by Oscar Zeta Acosta

Acosta was born in El Paso, Texas in 1935. He was an attorney, an activist within the Chicano Movement, a politician, and an author. His book The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, is obviously an autobiography but with a magical realism twist. It is his coming of age story in the 60s. He is not the most likable person, in my opinion, but the book does cover cultural and personal identity. Also, something interesting about him is that he disappeared and no one really knows what happened to him. According to his son, the last thing he was told by Acosta was that he was “about to board a boat full of white snow.” He is said to be the inspiration for “Dr. Gonzo” from Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Blowout! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice by Mario T. García and Sal Castro

García is a professor of Chicano studies in UCLA. Before teaching, he received his BA and Master’s from UT at El Paso. He has written serval other books like The Chicano Generation and Testimonies of the Movement and Desert Immigrants. Castro was a military veteran, had a career in teaching from elementary to high school, and was a Chicano activist. This book gives us a biography of Castro’s life and what inspired the blowouts, and how those moments unfolded.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Kimmerer talks about Indigenous customs and childhood along with the teaching of plants and Indigenous legends behind some plants, such as how strawberries were formed from the heart of Skywoman’s deceased daughter after being buried in the earth. Though not Mexican-American, Kimmerer is a scientist, professor, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation whose unique POV is helpful in understanding the Indigenous worldview that is also featured in Mexican-American (and Latin American) literature. She gets you to learn science from her mythical writing and also incorporates history and truly captures the essence of Indigenous livelihood. I love that even though she’s a woman of science she still claims her roots and acknowledges the significance of ancient indigenous people’s ways of identifying with life and the earth as well. She ties the worlds together beautifully and well brings people into the world of her mind which consists of the vast knowledge of both realms. The book follows her growing up with her tribe and learning from her family about plants and such things while also blending in stories of her ancestors, all to further the reader’s knowledge of plants and indigenous tales. I’ll link the preview of the book from Google so you can read the first 73 pages that are offered. It’s super cute and so peaceful to read I hope some of you try it and it would be a beautiful addition to the curriculum.

Chato’s Kitchen by Gary Soto

Soto is a Mexican-American author from Fresno, California. He was a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award. As well as a recipient of Discovery-The Nation Prize and the California Library Association’s John and Patricia Award x2. I remember reading his books since I was a little kid, the most memorable to me being “Chato’s Kitchen”. He writes for both adults and children, although his main focus is on children’s books. Here is his website.

Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez

Jose Olivarez is an author, poet, and educator from Calumet City, Illinois. His work has been featured in the New York Times, The Paris Review, and Poetry Magazine among other publications. Olivarez’s book of poems, titled Citizen Illegal focuses significantly on immigration, borders, home, and movement, particularly in a Mexican and Mexican-American context. His work is powerful because of his use of anecdotes and commentary about the difficulty of everyday life for immigrants and their children. According to NayaClark.com: “The poems in Citizen Illegal are illustrations of the traumas that America places on citizens and non-citizens alike. The collection serves to illuminate the specific human experience of immigration from Mexico to the United States, and places a human face, often Olivarez’s own, to a discourse that frequently relies heavily on dehumanizing language”. If you would like to read Citizen Illegal, you can buy the book of poems here.

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

Díaz del Castillo was born in Spain in 1492 and was a soldier under conquistador Hernán Cortés that participated in the Battle of Tenochtitlan that was responsible for taking down the Aztec Empire in 1521, and killing its ruler Montezuma II. Díaz del Castillo is said to have married an Indigenous woman and had a son named Diego and two daughters. This book gives insight into the confrontation of Spanish conquistadors and Indigenous Mexicans that inform Mexican and Mexican-American literature.

Corridos (various) by Mexican and Mexican-American authors

Corridos are an important part of Mexican American tradition that provide unique experiences of historic events. Corridos tell the stories of tragedy, war, identity, rebellion and so much more. I feel like modern corridos focus on love but traditional folk corridos would be a unique form of Mexican American literature. They say songs are like poetry and just from the corridos I’ve heard I’m sure they have a unique structure when read like poetry. Here is a compilation by Remezcla of “10 Classic Corridos & Regional Mexican Anthems that Still Slap.”

The God who Sees by Karen Gonzalez

An immigrant story about leaving one’s homeland for safety, and it draws biblical connections to many of the people in the Bible that have also migrated and left their homeland (Abraham, Hagar, Joseph, Ruth). I think it would be a great addition to have a biblical perspective of immigration and how tough it is to accomplish from a physical and emotional standpoint.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

A wonderful story detailing a year in the life of a young Chicana girl as she is growing and questioning her identity. Sandra Cisneros is a well-known author that has made ground-breaking progress for Chicana writers in publishing and is known for her commentary on the life of a Chicana women in Chicago. Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 and received her education at Loyola University and the University of Iowa. She has previously been a teacher as well as a counselor. Her works revolve around issues of race, class, gender, and the struggle of belonging to multiple cultures.

“The Jacket” by Gary Soto

The jacket in the poem is a symbol of poverty and bad luck for Soto and shows how something as simple as an item of clothing can affect one’s self-esteem. Gary Soto was born in California and writes about his life using poetry and short stories. He was not encouraged to go to school and mostly worked as a farm worker alongside his siblings. Soto prefers to write poetry and found his love for it while he attended college in Fresno.

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

Luiselli is a Mexican author who lives in the United States. Several of Luiselli’s books are based on real-world experiences. She was a volunteer interpreter for young Central American migrants seeking legal status in the United States. She has recently published a novel in 2019 titled Lost Children Archive where she writes about her work with asylum-seeking children from Latin America and relates to her earlier book, an extended essay on child refugees, titled “Tell me How it Ends.”

I am Not your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez

This is a novel about a teenager coming to terms with losing her sister and finding herself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican American home.  Fun fact this novel will also soon become a Netflix film that will be directed by America Ferrera!

Still Water Saints by Alex Espinoza

Alex Espinoza was born in Tijuana, Mexico but grew up in the United States. Alex mostly focused his writing on the community and identity of Latinos. Alex’s novels are widely acclaimed due to their distinct characters and portrayal of the Latino community. “Still Water Saints” talks about different characters living in a fictional California town called Agua Mansa. The novel explores the changing community, such as the struggles and achievements of families and individuals. Alex also explores the identities of the residents living in Agua Mansa and the constant change they experience. You can find more of his work here.

Additional Authors to Check Out

  • Oscar Cásares He is a Mexican-American writer (now a professor at UT Austin) who grew up in Brownsville. His writing focuses on the border and experiencing being torn with your identity.
  • Vianney Harelly She is a Mexican-American author that speaks about how Latinos can start healing their inner child. She speaks about women’s lineages and rebuilding those bonds.
  • Valeria Luiselli She was born in Mexico in 1983 and moved to the United States at the age of 2. She is the winner of several awards including the National Books Foundation “5 under 35” award and in 2019, she won the MacArthur “Genius Grant”. She is relatively young which I think makes her even more relevant and able to speak to a younger generation especially during this time where there is so much political and social unreset surrounding immagrants and women’s rights. She started a literacy program for girls in detention centers in New York, that focuses on creative writing and she is an advocate for asylum seeking children from Latin America. She also writes about mass incarceration the United States.
  • Juania Rivas Vasquez I would love to nominate my friend Juania Rivas Vasquez; she is a Chicana poet from Mexico and cofounder of a literary magazine. You can find her work on her Instagram: vata_lorca and also in her literary magazine.

Authors to Read more From

  • Jimmy Santiago Baca Jimmy Santiago Baca was born in 1952 and abandoned by his parents right away. His grandmother put him in an orphanage, but at 13 years old, Baca ran away from there and ended up being convicted for drug charges in 1973 and spent five years in jail. That’s where he taught himself to read and write! So hey, it looks like “Coming into Language” is semi-autobiographical after all (his whole autobiography is A Place to Stand). The point is, Baca’s story is a miracle: he was at the darkest point of his life and words became his only lifeline. He also wrote “Immigrants in Our Own Land,” which we read in this class and that’s part of a bigger selection of poems you can find here.
  • Sandra Cisneros I think I’m used to school sort of showing us the “light” (for lack of better word) side of history, etc. but I was surprised we were covering such real topics in class. I really appreciate the transparency during this class. It was so refreshing to tackle problems in our culture rather than sugar coat or simply ignore them. Because of this I would love to nominate Sandra Cisneros. Sandra Cisneros is an American writer most known for “The House on Mango Street” and “Woman Hollering Creek” She also helped organize a group called The Latino MacArthur Fellows, who work together to help their communities. Audio of “Woman Hollering Creek”: https://youtu.be/bgdk_vBuzaQ
  • Reyna Grande Reyna Grande is a Mexican-American author and an award-winning author, motivational speaker, and writing teacher. As a young girl, she crossed the US–Mexico border to join her family in Los Angeles, a harrowing journey chronicled in The Distance Between Us, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her other books include the novels A Ballad of Love and Glory, Across a Hundred Mountains, and Dancing with Butterflies, the memoirs The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition, and A Dream Called Home, and the anthology Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings. She lives in Woodland, California, with her husband and two children
  • Daniel Peña With my excitement over Bang, I can only ask that this book stay as part of the coursework, and I hope others will be encouraged to learn more about the author Daniel Peña as I have. Daniel is an award-winning writer and assistant professor, he was based out of UNAM in Mexico City, graduated from Cornell University and a guest professor in Leipzig, Germany.

🇲🇽 Happy future reading! 🇺🇸