I have been thinking about the placement and misplacement of homes and bodies, mostly of women. I listened to a podcast where Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros (who wrote «The House on Mango Street», which is a modern classic of Chicano literature, and also didn’t completely condemn «American Dirt» by Jeanine Cummins) rephrases a quote by Virginia Wolf about what it means to be a woman and an immigrant.
Tippett: So this title, “A House of My Own” — of course, echoes Virginia Woolf’s A Room … — but I didn’t see you quoting Virginia Woolf on that, but you did — you have mentioned something she said, that “As a woman I have no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” And you said that you would rephrase that. And you would say, “As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I am an immigrant in the entire world.” And I wanted to hear what you mean when you say that.
Cisneros: I had a postcard with that quote of Virginia Woolf when I was traveling on my first NEA grant, in my 20s, when I finished House on Mango Street. It was very important to me, that quote, as I was learning how to travel, because I’d never gone anywhere alone. But the more I traveled, the more I met women. And they befriended me, and they never asked for anything in return, the way that when men gave you something, there was always an ulterior motive, but not with women. And I just felt that, regardless where I went, I was experiencing my father’s immigrant experience — what it was like, for him, to come across and to feel uncomfortable and to find friends among strangers and to be alone and to be taken into people’s homes. You have gratitude, when you’re traveling and you don’t have a lot of money — or even if you do, if someone invites you to come into their home and share a meal. There’s a kindness in that.
And I just felt I understood my father’s life in a different way after I made that trip. So I think I’m still, at 64, trying to discover what’s good for me, and I’m still an immigrant, but now I have dual citizenship.
[laughter]
And I’m trying to cross many borders now in my life, both physical and spiritual, and I’m trying as best I can, because my time is running out. I don’t feel that I’ve done my best work. I don’t feel I’m as wise as I would like to be. And it seems like you’re just getting in the groove, and the party’s getting really good, and it’s like, “I gotta go.”
[laughter]
Why do I have to go? My father used to do that a lot when he was in his 50s and 60s; he’d say, “Mmm — ya me voy.”
[laughter]
And I would just tease him and say, “Where are you going? You just got here.” So I feel like I just got here. Pero ya me voy.
[laughter]
With this in mind, I revisited an old doodle I had made of a woman with hair big enough to contain the universe:
I had run out of space in my notebook and didn’t draw her a body. I corrected that in a newer version and gave her body hair, too. In this new version, this woman holds all homes inside her, including her own.
In the newest version, she is not alone:
Maxim Zaragoza 