Writing for One's Self/ Its Okay at Times

For years I did not buy in to the notion of "writing for one's self". In fact, it seemed to me to be a copout for not being able to get published. Now I don't condemn the notion itself even if I do cherry-pick how I define the phrase.

Beyond being therapuetic, writing without thinking about an audience can be good. Normally we are taught to have the reader in mind, and that's particularly true for certain types of writing.  But sometimes we write because there is something waiting to come out from deep inside and it has no particular audience in mind. That something may not be an important work and it might well be a detour from work we are currently doing. At other times it is work that stands in the way of other work. In other words, it might be important to us personally but it is not critical to our profession or even to our agenda.

The more you write, the more you are likely to face those types of works. For years I avoided those situations with all the fervor I could. I was not about to waste time on something unpublishable given that it is difficult and time-consuming to write anything significant in the first place. Writing became work--enjoyable but nonetheless work. There were many plots, subplots, documentaries, plays, psalms, poems, article, ectc. circulating around in my head that never received more than a lamentary nod.

But what about when something you've worked on so hard and have believed in for so long becomes such a work? In other words your "gem" has become simply something that you want to get out but are not sure anyone will care about? That was the case with my Viet Nam novel. I worked on it longer than anything else and I have had a greater emotional commitment to it than any other work I have written or plan to write.So having published it in kindle was strange, but now that I did it, it feels like a relief and I'm enjoying the feedback.

More important, I've relearned that all work has an audience and while we take a chance by putting our work "out there" there is actually a reason to do so. Words written are like melodies composed--they are meaningless unless someone else sees or sings them.

This meaningless is useless to the author. We write to be read even if its by just a few. There is nothing wrong with those works that never garner a mass audience but there is something wrong with those that only gather dust. So, publish the work, in one form or another or at least share it with a group of friends, neighbors or someone willing to read it. If it goes no further than that it will have served a purpose. All those bedtime stories that I wrote my grandson have worked to bond us closer, and my friends in my yahool group have enjoyed the short stories I've written for them, and of course some will buy my novel either because of friendship or because they've like my Christmas and Halloween stories.

I have said before that all things have a measure of their existence. In other words, they have a purpose. Those writings of mine may have already served their purpose and in that they have nothing to envy the longer works that I have and will continue to write.

The other point to be made here is that work that is "published" however we define that to mean is work that is behind us and which provides us perspective. We learn something from the experience of looking at them as finished products. We may cringe over the mistakes we've made or the awkward phrases, bad characterization, shoddy research or any other faulty writing that is now "published", but we know we can do little about them. We have to move on but their existence in "print" will remind us of the need to continue to hone our skills.

 Work that is in some closet or drawer usually doesn't provide us such reminders nor does it give us much of a perspective. Now, I know that this experience doesn't always work this way. I remember that as a magazine editor in New York I knew a freelancer who submitted badly written features every month, and we published them. Why? Because the ideas were great and we had a section that was hard to fill, so the editors edited and rewrote his work for publications. One time we did reject his work and I was assigned to tell him that his work was bad--and it really was--and he could not accept it from some "young editor" and he pointed to his numerous bylines as proof that I was wrong.

So, if you have something to write, do it. Someworks will have their built-in audience but others will seem to be devoid of potential readers. Yet, the passion for a particular work will cause you to work hard, spend the required time, and eventually help you hone your skills. These works are like a good workout. Sometimes as writers we have to be "gym rats" with the pencil or computer. While at the gym we might focus on the next 5K, or the game, there are times when we only focus on our bodies, and not on what we are going to ask our body to do. In those moments we are able to take the time to do what we don't do at other times. Such is writing for "ourselves".

One last point: this advise can apply to scholarly work. While in scholarship it is imperative to publish, we sometimes find ourselves with work that doesn't have an outlet. We either dump it without finishing it or we stop writing because the unfinished product becomes a bottle neck. The result is the same, we don't publish. My thought is to finish it, send it around, take bits and pieces for a presentation, a short essay, a classroom supplemental reading, etc. and let it become a "publishable" work that we can then evaluate as a done deal. We will be amazed by what it does for our writing, and, of course, we will be relieved of the pressure of having an "idea" that has no audience.


























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To Some of My Mormon Liberal Friends: The Rest Skip It

I write this to some of my liberal Mormon friends whom I admire and often seek to learn from, but who sometimes annoyed me to no end. I do so because I care about them and worry that they sometimes value their political and cultural views more than their religious beliefs. They read many books, seek to learn, and try to develop very profound principles. Unfortunately, many of those principles don't come from the scriptures, the prophets, or even what they learned growing up in church. They often come mostly from graduate school and from gentile intellectuals. There is nothing wrong with that unless those become the final arbitrators of what they deem as divine truth.

I write to those who don't like to wear white shirts because they make them feel like capitalists, or those who figure that pants are better than dresses (who gave you that idea?), or who sit in the back and act like nothing being said from the pulpit applies to them unless it has to do with being kind to the poor and the homeless; and to those who only get with the spirit--of anger--when someone is defending guns, capitalism, or American Exceptionalism. Its also meant for those who like to emphasize how they are different from the rest, think marrying outside the church is cool (it is not wrong, of course), love being the toast of the gentile media, or wonder out loud if the church is ever going to catch up with them. And particularly for those who think their brand of "liberalism, feminism, or humanism" is the real one, or they just invented it when they joined it.

Let me remind those wonderful souls that there are liberal mormons who wear white shirts and ties--and sometimes even suits--wear dresses (or whatever they deem respectful), read their lessons, are inspired by the teachings of the prophets, like to go to the temple, feel a part of the body of Christ and love their fellow members as much as the "progressive" intellectuals that they read. These liberal Mormons also give their last buck to the homeless on the corner, work in soup kitchens, march in solidarity with the oppressed, the immigrant, women, etc., and believe we are killing the environment. They abhor vulture capitalism and probably voted for the current officeholder in the White House.

These individuals don't see home teaching as a waste of time, or fret over the fact that their missionary sons and daughters might be teaching "Utah culture" instead of "real" doctrine. They might have misgivings about some of the views of their leaders but choose to learn the good that they might offer. They read the Ensign, get their kids the Friend, and listen to General Conference to learn something and not to see if the Brethren are following an ideological slant, or who the next Boyd K. Packard is going to be. And they even find something (maybe just a little) good in Packard, McConkie, and Joseph Fielding Smith's writing.

They read all about Brigham Young, Joseph Smith, Ezra Taft Benson, the battles over the priesthood, and all the things we do wrong to our sisters and our gay saints, and it tears their guts out, but they believe in the notion that we are imperfect people and will do rather stupid and hurtful things in the road to our salvation, but more important: that God will be the Judge.  And they fret because they have skeletons in their own closet.

These liberal mormons have been general authorities, bishops, relief society presidents, stake presidents, primary presidents, YM/YW leaders, missionaries, sunday school teachers, or ordinary members, and people love them and see them as "examples of the word". And yet they would be the last ones to admit they are anything special.

They are sympathetic to and go out of their way to comfort people who feel marginalized and oppressed. And they often push back against the unkind culture of some wards, but they still believe and do so deeply. They see the scriptures--yes, those written by men with great faults--as inspired and they don't see a need to write a female, black or latino version of the book of mormon. If those actually existed out there--and were inspired--they'd be the first to read them, but they won't invent them. They see the struggle for equality as fundamental to a just society and a more perfect church but still see redemption as God's greatest gift.. They befriend those who disagree and even those who might disparage them. They might hate guns but don't see their owners simply as gun owners. They hate the arrogance of some in the church but stop short of being harsh because they see their own pride.

Finally, these liberal momons are not going to get tired of the church when it doesn't listen to them and leave. And in case you might not know some of their names (they don't all call themselves liberal, but they do share the values): Tom Alexander, Kathryn Daynes, Hugh Nibley, Cheiko Ogazaki, Alejandra Garcia, Merlin Jensen, Dora Gonzalez, Mary Richards, Carlos Zegarra, Richard & Claudia Bushman, Renato Ruz, Terryl & Fiona Givens, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and (add your own). They exist in large numbers but don't always toot their horns as much as those out to make the church in their own image--conservative or liberal. More important, they accept that believing is sometimes a heavy burden for those who are different and progressive, but know that it is worth it because their values are best understood within the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Having said that, I want to emphasize that I love the other liberal mormons too, even some of those who act a bit too good for the church. I love their striving for a more just society and their fundamental goodness, but I wish more of them would show those qualities within the body of Christ and not stay aloff and hurt. They might just be surprised how much they can make a difference, and how some "adversaries" are nice people too who will love them even if they don't understand them. And if they don't, they are still God's children which makes it imperative that we love them.

I have been pushing against the grain in the church for decades and while there have been times that I've wanted to throw in the towel, I usually end up responding as did Peter when the Savior asked him if he too would leave, "where will I go?"  In those  moments I 've realized that my experiences within the church have been and continue to be the most important of my life. And the harsh ones have made me a better person. So continue to fight for a better church, one that is open to all, respects everyone within their diversity and is focused on the teachings of Christ, but remember that "a better church" it is not one that is made in our own image, or has our particular values, but rather one that the Lord would call His own.

Soon enough I will write to my conservative Mormon friends!

Independent Thought, Part 2

Academicians are famous for shutting the door to their offices and consuming themselves with their work. It would be easy to mistake that for seeking scholarly or intellectual independence, but it is not always. Sometimes it is simply being focused on one's work or possibly just a chance to take in a few zzz. One version of Intellectual independence is about engaging in work that separates us from the rest. The other is simply doingwork on our own time and space. But at this moment I will speak of the first.

Independent intellectual thought is about bringing something new to the table; creating new ways to think about things; or even to re-examine some ideas that may have been around but were not given much credibility. Independent thought is not always innovative or even "correct" but it does work outside the normal spheres. And yet, at the same time it is not so unique that it has a constituency of one. Some people are unorthodox, others are outrageous but they don't contribute much independent talk.

Wanting independence to engage in arguments and conversations that are healthy and valuable to others is important. I tend to be communal and believe that part of it has to do with growing up in a poor Mexican American barrio and attending a small religious congregation. I learned through that experience to frame much of my work in the context of other people. Now, I will admit that I was--and still am--a loner and engaged in much private thinking. I love my space and sometimes feel uncomfortable in groups unless I have something specific to do. I was never much for fanfare.

At the same time, I feel the necessity to be of use to others This internal conflict was part religious training and part of it came from deep within me. These conflicting parts of me have made me a "good" Mormon but also caused me deep anguish when people aren't willing to give me space. It happened to me for about 10 of my first 17 years here in Provo. It was extremely hard. Eventually I accepted that being independent of thought can at times be lonely. But I never gave up on community--well, not for long periods of time anyway--and now I have mostly found community and at the same time retained much of my independent space. I have stretched my religious and academic communities here, and they have often reigned me in, many times at appropriate times and in appropriate ways. I have found common ground with people who are quite different from me but who have similar final goals.

I have cross boundaries and been able to do a lot of things that I really wanted to do by not abandoning those parts of me that are often in conflict. Sometimes they come together to get me past problems created by one or the other attitude. People who are usually just on one side of the divide between community and individuality are rarely ever independent because they usually succumb to all of the demands of that one side. Those who struggle with the polar opposites are those most likely to be truly independent because they are the final arbitrars of the decisons they make.

Let me say something that will probably anger some people: not everyone is cut out or has the capabilities to be independent of thought and action. If everyone was then there would be no value in independence of thought. And constituencies of one have very little value, except to that individual and then it is a limited one, because to live is to interact.

My Novel is out!

Today I went from being a middling historian to possibly a middling historian/novelist with my first novel in kindle. It was a long-time coming and fulfills a dream I had many years ago. I've worked on this novel for decades as Alex and I raised a family and I went to school to become a scholar. I finished the first draft as I entered graduate school and so I put this away and occasionally re-read and did some tweaking. Then, earlier this year I finally decided to get it done and published.

Part of the dream of writing fiction began when I was quite young. I wrote my first short story when I was about 12 years old, and then began more serious writing when I went to Viet Nam. On my return, I applied to the University of the America's writing program in Puebla, Mexico. I got accepted just about the time that Alex told me that she was pregnant. I chose the safe route and went to school in the states and there I got back into the Chicano Movement and that led me to where I am now. I don't regret this road taken but do admit that I always wondered what it would have been if I had gone to Puebla. My Alex always felt guilty for getting pregnant and us not having gone there; but then she didn't get pregnant on her own and we've had a great ride. But because of that she has been my greatest supporter and motivator to keep writing fiction. This novel would not have been possible without her.

Like all first works it has its limitations but it is a work of love. It is based on my experiences in Viet Nam, though I admit that the truly "heroic" scenes are all fiction. So, if you'd like to help an aspiring (but old) novelist get it on Amazon.com kindle. It's only $1.50. And tell you friends even if you do use a disclaimer like "its the holiday season so I'm trying to be nice to the guy". Its title:  "Can Tho: A Story of Love & War".  Not a great title but you get the point.

No, I won't quit my job, move to Cape Cod, grow a beard, and wear sandals all the time. But I will be smiling for a while.

Finding Independence in our Intellectual lives

While I don't plan on retiring from writing, presenting or teaching any time soon, I do plan to leave the academy full time and do so much earlier than the typical Social Security retiring age. I have no desire to call BYU my last hurrah. I plan to write full time but not for any particular institution or under the "watchful eye" of a boss or administrator. In order to have that day come sooner rather than later, I have given much thought to what it means to be independent.

I use to believe that becoming independent meant having the money to retire and not to be beholden to anyone. Now, after much thought,  I believe that real independence comes from inside and not simply our checkbooks or our undisturbed space . No doubt, we must be able to pay the bills and "our" space is important, super important, but independence really comes when we recognize what is important to us. We decide what we want to do and how we want to do it. Sometimes true independence comes from simply doing what we want to do even if it is in the guise of being an "employee". Other times it comes from having our own business or being freelancers. And at times it is about simply living our writer's and intellectual's life but doing it with less.

I don't see an independent life necessarily in terms of our particular labor situation. There are many things I can do presently in my job. I've traveled to other parts of the world, lived off research funds in different places and been able to write the books I've wanted. I've also designed courses to fit my interests and my style. Some work out and some don't. Sometimes the institution is happy with me and sometimes it doesn't appreciate my take on some social issues, or even my questioning of institutional decisions. But for now the relationship has been fruitful for both. If that changes it is likely that one side or the other will make the move to sever the relationship. That is why I believe in a measured fidelity because relationships always come down to fit. The loyalty is sincere and fruitful but based on mature decision-making.

I believe, then, that independence is a state-of-mind that can be enhanced by a myriad of things: enough money, elbow room, loyalty, good colleagues--or none--and physical space. It also requires belief in the fundamental mission of either one's life or the institution with whom one is affiliated. And needless to say, it needs us to be content with the things we do. I remember when I was in Habana, Cuba there was a street sweeper that had worked in the same neighborhood for over 23 years. He loved his job. People in the neighborhood knew him and appreciated his good work. He had the appropriate tools, had no demanding supervisor, had flexibility and input on how to do his job, and it paid him enough to provide for his family. Despite a very bureaucratic and politicized system he told us he felt free.

I also remember the owners of a small literary magazine who scraped by--with a little help from food stamps--but did marvelous work and helped launched a number of writers, poets and university professors. The couple, and a friend, did most of the work, and their word was the bible for many an aspiring writer. Those individuals found their niche and they were happy, fulfilled and felt important in their world. I don't know what ever happened to the street sweeper--maybe he is in Miami now--but I do know that the magazine eventually folded, but my sense is that those individuals are still plugging away at the things they love. One is--if still alive--probably using his hands and fixing things. The other three are probably now on their computers writing or editing something.

They probably won't leave much to their children except an example of hard work and commitment to a particular chore or love. Being independent is really about fulfillment, and not only a personal but also a collective one. Now, I know some people want to be independent so they can get up when they want to, go to places they like, and be beholden to no one but themselves. That's not the independence I'm talking about though in many ways one can claim to do the same even though one does care to get up, does go to places that might be necessary and is beholden to a higher ethic or cause. Like that of the aforementioned individuals an independent life is ultimately a connected and responsible one.

There are probably some people reading this--I hope someone is reading--that are unhappy where they work or may dislike the actual work itself. I've been there and done that, and in fact there are times when I feel that way even in my cushy job. Circumstances change and sometimes so do people--or bosses and administrators--and they disrupt our equilibrium. But they need not destroy our  desire to do what we most want to do. Our purpose as writers and intellectuals is to write and think. In this case we can always find a way to do it. But we must also find a way to change our situation. It might be our attitude, our job, or profession that needs to change. That is when we realize how hard it is to be independent and how much effort it takes. We spend years going to school and honing our skills, making tough decisions and navigating difficult moments to keep jobs, but the only time we spend on becoming independent in-place or outside of it is when we daydream.

I remember when I first arrived in Viet Nam I ended up with a unit that was vulgar and rather unfriendly. As a religious young man I felt completely uncomfortable and miserable. I prayed for several nights hoping that someone up there would hear me and send me to a better place--no, not heaven--but nothing came. Then one day after a fervent night of supplication, I heard a soft but firm voice say "you change". Now, I must say I was offended. After all I was the (self) righteous soldier of the bunch. But throughout the night I kept hearing the voice. Some of you can understand that you don't win against those voices, so the next morning I changed my attitude, I befriended all those I could, found something good in all that I did, and life started changing for me. Within a short time I was doing the things I wanted to do, creating my space and when I left I was one of the most likedguys in the unit. With it came a greater degree of independence than most people had in a military unit. But all of this came with hard work, eating a lot of crow, and being patient--something I'm not good at.

This is an ongoing process and we must fight and work for our independence constantly just as we do keeping our bosses happy. Independence is hard work no matter the circumstances. It is something we create and nurture and protect. The feeling of independence, even when physically only in our minds, can be liberating and allow us room to think and write. It also forces us to prioritize and to figure what really is important to us.


Next Post:  Some more thoughts on an independent intellectual life

Counter-intuitive Thanksgiving

I believe in being grateful. As such Thanksgiving Day is a special time for me and I always seek to enjoy it with family and friends. My children are possessive with their parents so with them we consume not only turkey but our whole day. Friends come before and after.

There is much to be grateful for but often times we try to forget those tough lessons that make us better. So this season I'm grateful for some of the "bad" things that have blessed my life.

Being born poor in the West Side of San Antonio. In my poverty I met some rather wonderful people who taught me how to value life. I learned about religion, charity, service, hard work and commitment from those who truly believed in those things and not because they were going to benefit from them in this life.

For my incredible inferiority complex. It has forced me to work harder, to empathize with those who doubt themselves and are born on the wrong side of the tracks. It has kept me from being coopted by glitz of the world, and away from bad company.

For my spiritual doubts. They have brought me highs and lows but they remind me that life is complicated, that God is there always but we have to look for him, that things are not as simple as they seem, and that no one has a monopoly on spirituality--this was especially important when Iserved as bishop of congregation.

For a particular group of lesbian/feminsts who misinterpreted something I said and have engaged on a continual attack on me in articles, conference presentations and book chapters for the last 15 years. They taught me to be more precise in my scholarship, to respect those who vehemently disagree with me, and that while life is not fair, I must always play fair lest I do something to someone that they have done to me.

For the rejection of my second scholarly book by the University of Wisconsin Press. I redoubled my efforts and found a press that did a better job of promoting it than the one in Madison. It also reminded me how lucky I am to be a scholar and to publish material that finds respect in some quarters.

For having some misguided students while I headed the university's Washington Seminar Internship program. They taught me that sometimes things are going bad when you think they're going good, and that there will be times when we will love those we instruct, pray for them, and spend sleepless nights worrying about them and they will still think we don't care about them. They shook my faith in young people and then helped me regain it when a number of them apologized later and others came to my defense.

For bad BYU football seasons because they reminded me that sports are not that important and obsession over them usually takes a university where it shouldn't go. But also because it gave me some wonderful moments with my grandchildren who loved going but were sometimes anxious to leave after the first quarter of a closely contested game. They taught me priorities.

For BYU women's volleyball teams in the early years because they were not very good but the young women lived their principles by telling the referee that they had touched the ball as it went out, thus losing the game. It reminded me that integrity has more meaning when it actually hurts to live it.

For some young colleagues who thought I was a real "jerk" for being a tough rank and status committee chair. They forced me to stand my ground and defend that part of the academic process that is good. Yet, they also made me sensitive to its unfair parts and more committed to mentoring young scholars. Because of the decisions I made we now have a tougher but fairer system in our department. Of course, a new batch of young scholars probably think I'm still a jerk.

For independent children. They have made me doubt myself and caused me countless sleepless nights in which I've drenched my pillow with my tears. Yet, I love their passion.  They've made me understand that all of us have our own lives, that we pay for our own mistakes, and that things can still be all right. They have also allowed me to smirk when I see them struggle with their own kids.

For this blog. It shows how little I actually have to say and "puts me in my place".

For growing old. It forces me to seek maturity, to choose goals more carefully and yet frees me from long-term entanglements. It also allows me to "fake it" when the younger runners pass me by.

Finally, for every trial and tribulation yet to come this year. They won't be nice but they'll have their intended consequences and I'll be much better for them.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Creating Communities

Historian Richard Bushman once said that all scholars seek a community in which they find support and friendships. No one really likes to be alone even if they do work pretty much alone. The sense of community for scholars, writers, teachers, artists, etc. is simply a reflection of their desire to share, to feel supported, and to know that there is someone "out there".

This "community" is not always about close friends or people who obsess over all we do, but it is about a group of individuals who have a common interest, who like to share some part of their work or thoughts, and who are willing to give feedback. For young scholars or those who are making a change in their scholarship, these communities can be critical. Most scholars, artists, and teachers--as well as a host of others in other professions--will vouch for the value of having a community.

In today's internet era, these communities seem to pop up more regularly and there seems to be an abundance of them, and all seemingly ready to accept new members. The dilemma, however, with most of these communities is that they do not really provide the feedback that someone really needs to grow in their vocation. The one-liners rarely provide enough to gleam anything of value, but more importantly these community "members" are often only momentarily interested. Given that the internet allows people to feel empowered to comment on everything without having to really open themselves to serious rebuttal, you receive all kinds of useless feedback.

But even more problematic in these communities is the "overload" they engage in. Most of these communities's interactions turn into a constant posting of "new" material with an accompnaying litany of one-line comments, followed by more postings and so on. The internet has made it easy to grab material from every corner of the scholarly or published world and to share it with whomever is willing to click a URL. This posted material has no sequence, logic nor does it necessary build upon the prior postings. It is tempting to keep "clicking" until one's brain becomes mush, unfortunately, being good at something does not always mean knowing everything about that something. Constructing something valuable is about analyzing, deciphering, and selecting what is appropriate to include in any project.

 Commnities can initiatlly come together naturally but rarely do they remain so unless borders are set and the members nurture and maintain a set of values for their particular community. These communities may be transnavigable but they are not without boundaries. Since there is no real formality in these communities self-deportation--to use a Mitt Romney term--is usally the way they remain focused. Those boundaries, however, remain fluid and not rigid because as interests and subjects change so does the membership within them. Needless to say, in one's professional life there will be a lot of transnavigating in and out of communities.

The key to a successful community is that it is self-motivating and provides a space for open discussion. People feel that their ideas are appreciated but are considered challengeable. Since it is not a forum for refereeing work one can see the comments as a discussion of one's work and not as a judgment of it. People can disagree but they must do so in the context of adding to the conversation and not arguing a point. So a comment like "what about this approach" or "have you thought about" is better than "you're wrong" or "where did you come up with that". The sooner that a community is bound by respect and a little bit of admiration, the sooner it becomes a valuable asset to the members.

Valuable communities, however, are possible only when its members actually engage fully in the type of work that brought people together. It cannot be a grouping of two stars and a whole bunch of meteorites. Communities are an asset only when they are composed of equals, even though there are some more equal than others. Communities are not only about responding to a posting or a discussion but about creating a reason for interaction. This does not mean constant conversations or discussions, but the less one participates the more likely the boundaries of the community change and soon one might find him/herself outside the peripheies. It is then when one realizes that another community might be more appropriate.

As I mentioned earlier, young scholars, writers, teachers, etc. and those shifting fields are more likely to need communities than those who are more seasoned and who are pretty much invested in a particular field. The reason: we all need fans and people willing to spread the word about our work, and who can defend our flank when we are busy repulsing the enemy on the other flanks. Also, they provide encouragement, ideas, new ways of looking at things, and sometimes they even provide news of an opportunity. The community also shows to others that what we do is important enough that it has gathered a dedicated group of individuals to reason together about it.

There will be times in which we are not particularly interested in one becaue of the nature of our work, or simply because there are no others with the same interest. That happens. And its okay. But in most other cases it is better to have one.

Intellect, Scholarship & Lingo that is Worlds Apart

When I was a young soldier in Valley Forge Surgical Hospital I became seriously interested in writing. While I had yearnings before, it was at the base library that I began checking out books on writing and expanded even more my reading lists. I also got to meet--and ended up debating--young soldiers from throughout the country, particularly those from the East Coast. Most came from good schools, having been drafted either after graduation from college or while taking a short break from the books. These easterners were not shy about expressing their disdain for someone they considered to be a country bumpkin from Texas with few literary or rhetorical skills. That I was Mexican and Mormon only re-affirmed in their minds that I was not very smart and even less intellectual.

They were right but it was not because I lacked brains, but rather that I lacked the kind of reading experience and the schooling that they had received given their economic and social status.  While I went on to read a lot, get a Ph.D. and write six books I imagine our "sophistication" gap has never narrowed. We simply valued education in a different way. For most of them education was about maintaining what they had and making more of it. For me, it has always been about learning to make a difference for other people. But probably just as influential in our divergence is that their education was Euro-American centric while mine has been Third World. Consequently, when we spoke we spoke with a different terminology and we contextualized the world differently even when we might have shared some political or ideological views.

I see that in my relationship with some of my colleagues here at the Y. What we are interested in determines much of what we study and pay attention to. And so we speak different scholarly languages. Consequently, when my colleagues who teach ancient Greece and Rome, the Enlightenment, or Atlantic World history speak and write, they all sound more intellectual and knowledgeable than I do. They know writers, philosophers, artists, etc that I have often never heard of.  Of course, the same applies to them in reverse when I am doing the presentations.

They go to different concerts, art shows, festivals and listen to some rather different music, much of which I have never gotten into. Their world is rather different from mine. And I would say very different from that of most Chicano and scholars of color. In conversations and discussion I find them intelligent but no more than I or even my colleagues who teach in other marginalized subfields in today's academy. A colleague who does western history and I often joke that while others in the department are traveling to Venice, Athens, Paris, Tokyo, etc. he visits Yuma, Arizona and I spend a lot of time in South Texas towns where I mostly eat Church's Chicken and "cool off" in hot-water hotel swimming pools.

He and I rarely connect our work and our historiography to the great works on the European continent and we rarely spruce up our prose with poetry, lyrics and musings from the "greats" which is common in those fields. So, what does this have to do with anything? Possibly nothing and maybe everything when it comes to scholarship.

The scholarly community is as class-based as anything else in our Western world. If you went to school in the Ivy League or the few other major universities in the country your job applications are likely to get you past the first cut, and your dissertation topics are likely to "sound" and be appreciated as rather innovative. You will, of course, learn and use "global" terminology. So instead of studying Puerto Rico, you are studying the Atlantic world and you won't study slavery in the south but a comparative Afro-Carribean world that stretches from the Bahamas to Brazil. Scholars' actual knowledge of  these areas is superficial by the sheer nature of their size, but the "large historiography" they manage make them sound like intellectual and profoundly knowledgeable scholars. In those disciplines you don't study people but races, not towns but global communities, and you don't necessarily worry about what happens to neighbors but you will be concerned with how national capitals interact.

Now, there isn't anything wrong with any of that but there isn't anything particularly great about that kind of scholarship either. I remember going to lunch with a candidate who spoke of the Atlantic world and used all kinds of comparative terminology, but at the end of the talk I figured he was simply talking about imperialism but from a different angle. I had no problem with what he was doing and he has turned out to be an incredible colleague, but in the end his work was not that much different than what others had been doing before. It was simply conceptualized with different terms and presented in a different way. And in an uncharacteristicly good scholarly prose.

I think sophisticated, Eurocentric terminology has its place but in of itself is not any better than what it is. I think most seasoned scholars understand this but not all young scholars do. It is the same thing in Latino history where for the last decade literary people who claimed history to be irrelevant a decade before are now using history with a literary bent to prove that others lack theoretical solidity. Instead of being what they purport to be, the "literary histories" they produce are often works with an over abundance of terminology and interpretation that makes the language more important than the actual history of a place or a people. I know, to them language is suppose to be more important. But them saying it does not make it so.

I'm not anti-post modernist nor do I discredit scholarship on whiteness, color, sexuality, literary criticism, etc., but I do believe that its adherents need to stop assuming that their scholarship stands above other more traditionally-written one. Some of them also need to deal more with documents, archival materials, oral histories, and, yes, stories and not just multiple layers of interpretations or play with words.There is much that we can continue to learn from their approach but its "originality" has worn off and it has to grow beyond its avant-garde, or as I like to put it, its dissertation/graduate school phase.

This brings me back to my original story. Much of this eastern "lingo" used against me then was just that "lingo". Now, I don't know what happned to most of those soldiers. Some probably went on to prominence in the fields they chose. But I'm sure that few of them ever thought I would amount to much given my Texas roots and my ethnic background. And as I mentioned earlier, if we were to ever meet again it is likely that my books, endowed chair and my academic reputation would probably not impress them much. And it would  not surprise me. Quite early I knew our worlds were, well, worlds apart. It was fine then and it is now.

We are who we've become: I'm a Mormon Scholar

Most of life is an unplanned journey--unless, of course, you are Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, both who seemed to have planned to be "somebodies" early in their lives. The rest of us have done as much planninng as we could but often have been carried by the currents of the small choices we made. No doubt there were times in which we have surfed the waves, glided above the vallies, and rode fast on the highways of life. But at other times we simply held our breath long enough to finally pop up for air. In each circumstance we've learned a little and possibly grew a lot. Probably done the latter more often in bad times than in good ones.

Each of us has taken a particular road, one often designed by who our parents were, where we lived, and what was happening around us when we came of age. At the same time, most of were not simply dragged by events. We made decisions and took actions. Over time our decision-making made us who we have become. Whether that is what we want to be or not, or whether that's the end, is something unique to each person. But here is part of my story:

When I reminesce about my life I usually start with the memory of a pecan tree in the east back side of the little Mormon church I attended. The building had once been used by Anglo Mormons and in fact was the first Mormon chapel built in San Antonio, Texas. By the time my family came to San Antonio from Mexico, it had become an old building and one relegated to the Mexicans in the church as most White Mormons had moved to the northside.

The importance of the tree, besides the delicious pecans that dropped seasonly, was that it was a place to sit under and think. The church lay behind it, you could see the cars pass on your left and see the barrio people take out the trash on the right. Though the chapel sat on a corner it did have ample space on one side, an alley on another and it shouldered against a branch of the public library on the other, thus providing a contained but large space in which to contemplate life.

What did I think about when I sat under that tree? I thought about being "somebody". At first it was about getting out of poverty, having a house of my own, a good job, and an honorable reputation. But soon as the Mormon teachings dug deep inside, it became about serving God, my fellow(wo)men, and making the world a better place for all of God's children. And it was about personal discipline.

For me, religion became all encompassing by the time I became "active" in church at about the age of 15. Baptized at14, it took me about a year to become fully engaged. Once I did I completely immersed myself in the "gospel". But while doctrines, commandments, and rituals were important, for a young men like me the "everyday theology" became even more meaningful initially because it gave me experiences mostly impossible in my circumstances.

My family was quite poor and while not destitute, we bordered on the edge of economic disaster for years. I was also rather shy and had a horrendous inferiority complex. I had little to look forward to in life in spite of my parent's ambitions for my brother and I until I became a "Mormon boy". Then, I became a scout, a member of the choir, a seminarian, a bishop's messenger, a home teacher, youth leader, second baseman on the softball team, a setter on the volleyball team, a translator, and a part-time missionary. I came out in church plays, participated in speech festivals, attended youth conferences, "counseled" adults and even became a teacher in the church's primary program at age 17 or maybe it was 16.

My literary tastes expanded from biography to religion, scripture, history, science and literature. I also began practicing--in private--giving and writing "talks" which is what most Mormons call preaching. I also became interested in leadership traits, all things often beyond the concern of a teenager in the barrio. All of these came about because of the Mormon concept of "eternal progression", which teaches that there is no limit to learning or to growing intellectually as well as spiritually.

At the same time that I was opening up to a spiritual world, I became interested in the activism occuring in my barrio at the time. San Antonio was torned by racial politics as Mexican Americans fought for their civil rights and simply to be allowed to live in peace. Given my religious views I could not fanthom why anyone would deny someone his/her rights. And why was there so much poverty in a land of plenty? In a short time my religious fervor mingled with my political awakening. Latino Mormonism has always focused strongly on a communitarian brother/sisterhood, and in one's responsibility to the poor and the afflicted.

I had to learn to "live in the world but not be of it" which is probably the hardest thing that a scholar of faith needs to learn. You should be compassionate and charitable yet stand against what you think is wrong even if it is politically or socially unpopular. You can't be seduced by needs of the poor to a point that you are not willing to point out how of their problems are self-inflicted. And you can't be fooled by the piety of the well-to-do and their charitable giving. For the scholar of faith righteousness does not belong to one political party or another, one ideology or the other. Good and evil are found on all sides, yet you don't have the luxury of simply picking "the lesser of two evils".  

The fervor to be in good standing with my God, to help my people, and my love of reading and writing all combined to make me the Chicano/Mormon scholar that I am today. The church gave me the spiritual foundation, the desire to "skill" myself, and the struggle for human rights gave me an earthly purpose. Becoming an activist, community organizer, journalist and then a professor widened my horizons and made me even more sensitive to the world around me.

More importantly, I served as a Mormon bishop twice and that, more than anything else, caused me to look deep inside of me to find out if I truely cared for people; to ask myself if the things I did were good for the people around me or just for me. It made me realize that true personal validation--of the kind that I yearned for as a poor boy--came not from what I accomplished but how I served others. It took time and even now I have not fully integrated those ideas within me but they are always present in the things I do, the books I write and the courses I teach.

I don't know what I would have thought of myself if I could have been able to get a glimpse of my future back then. Given that our youthful imagination and our desires have few limits, I probably would have said, "good start, now let's 'be better than what you have become'". Nonetheless, it is that search to fulfill my youthful desires that keeps me going both as a person and as a scholar.

When we don't understand how we got to where we are and when we don't seek to validate our deepest and most sincere desires we find life less than fulfilling. We all have had our pecan tree and our dreams and it is good to ask ourselves periodically if we are seeking to fulfill them. Sometimes the journey can be as fruitful as the arriving.

A Wordsmith Does Not (Always) A Storyteller Make!

I remember while working at Nuestro Magazine in New York City that there was a young man who periodically submitted some very witty and well contructed articles for publication. It was a joy editing his work and it was not uncommon for someone on staff to invariably say, "this kid can well". He was younger than most of us and while the people on that staff went on to prominence in journalism and in other fields, not much has been heard from that young man since those years.

My point here is that being able to handle words and to write sentences that serenade our ears and eyes does not make one a great writer. Writing isn't about putting words together or even about sounding good. Ernest Hemingway is famous now but early on few praised him for his wordsmith abilities. His style became one to emulate and critics would come to praise it but that only happened after he became famous. What made Hemingway, and others like him, good was that he could tell a story. His were vivid, they drew you in and they left a tale imprinted in your mind. And ironically his words or flowery phrases never got in the way of the story.

I can remember as a young man how moved I was when I read Rudy Anaya's Tortuga, admittedly not one of his most popular but surely one of his most unforgettable. And, of course, his Bless Me Ultima, now a movie, will remain a classic in New Mexican and Chicano literature. All of us can point to works that have touched us: War and Peace, Gone With the Wind,  Al Filo del Agua, Les Miserables, To Kill a Mockingbird, Los de Abajo, etc.

With some writers you can remember a sentence here, a flowery phrase there, but with great writers and scholars you remember the story. You might find quotable parts or you may not but what you will find is a story that resonates deep within you. Scholars can also write good stories even if their's are within case studies, philosophical musings, or sociological studies. Case in point: An American Dilemma: The Negro and Modern Democracy, Companero Che, Mormonism in Transition, etc.

In my time, I have known many a good young wordsmith who never became a good writer. After all, many can learn to put nice sentences and phrases together with much practice. Just read the memoirs and short story collections that are out there by the hundreds. Many are superbly written, yet, few of them will ever be memorable or have much of an impact on those who read them. Good writing unlike good wordsmithing comes from having something important to say, and by finding the feelings, passions and experiences that allow us to frame them in a way that touches people. And this applies to tragedy, comedy, romance, history, sociology, etc.

If you notice most of today's memoirs are rather short, they tend to be a collection of nonconcurrent chapters, and they don't tell a complete story. Usually they are emotional roller coasters. Each is carefully constructed and probably took draft upon draft to finally get it right. They are often witty or extremely emotional. But the real story within them rarely moves flawlessly from chapter to chapter. Instead, they are a collection of parts meant to be put into a whole by the readers themselves.

That kind of writing has its value and can at times be enjoyable to read, but it is also often the kind of writing that struggles to go beyond the witty and the emotional. It is difficult to write longer works with that style of writing because it is "short" on ideas and too dependent on the "I" whether written in first person or not. Self-consumption from which most of these works suffer does not allow the writer to delve deep enough for a truly significant story.

So what does this have to do with anything? Probably nothing, unless you find yourself with a good command of words and even ideas but find your work resonating little outside of your family members and your research assistant. Or if you are a non-academic writer and the only feedback you are getting comes from fellow writers. That happens to all of us ocassionally but if its happening all the time, it might be time to think about why and about how to change that.

There are times when what we write is way ahead of its time, or simply too good for the ordinary reader, but those cases are extremely rare. If you write something good someone will see it and they are likely to get others to read it, especially with today's social media. Now, despite what Tom Hanks says in the De Vinci Code movie, there are academicians who do sell more than 12 books. In the academy the new book sales--with some exceptions--will rarely go into the thousands, but the resales, the library purchases and hand me downs can expose a scholar's work to thousands of individuals. And while they don't bring much money to our pockets, they are responsible for rank advancement, tenure, conference invitations, awards and the occasional radio, newspaper and television interview. In other words, there is mileage to be gotten from a well-written and more important a work that has essence and tells a good story.

So why do some great wordsmiths never become great or even good writers. I think it's because they are caught up in the world of their own words. Here the construction of the message becomes more important than the message itself. These writers lack the patience and may I say the virtue to look deeper within themselves and the people around them. They fail as most of us do to connect their feelings with the cord that bind us all as brothers and sisters or interconnected beings that we are. Their story doesn't say anything about our own experiences. They seem to entertain, inform, or momentarily inspire us but their substance soon fades, and we are left no different than when we began reading.

To me, then, telling the story is the most important component of writing, even in academic work. All significant works have a story to tell. They may be traditional narratives, avant- garde pieces, they may start in the middle and go back and then forward, or they may start at the end and go full circle, they may be literary or scholarly but they all tell a story. It may sound simplistic but find a good work that doesn't have a story even if one has to search for it and you will find a poor work. History comes from "his-story" but we could easily have termed it "her-story", or even "their-story", and still further--for geologists, environmentalists, biologists, economists, etc--its-story".

 So a suggestion for my friends the wordsmiths: instead of spending one more hour fighting over each word on the page or screen, expend more energy ensuring that your story is not lost in a web of phrases, sentences and paragraphs. After all, words are not stories and wordsmiths are not always storytellers.

Community of One: But Still Connected

Lest some misunderstand my last post let me say that community is not a constant all the time. There will be times when we do not connect or the connection comes too infrequent. Simply put, sometimes our taste in conversational topics leaves so much to be desired that us not being there probably makes the collective interactions of a group more pleasant. Needless to say, I have found myself rather lonely in crowds in the one or two occasions in which I have attended my department's larger group gatherings. I am a one-to-one and small group socializer. It is easier for me to relate and to relaxe in smaller groups. I do not have a strong voice--as a couple of my colleagues do--that can transcend a noisy table or room.

Yet, I have had wonderful one-to-one conversations with most of my colleagues and I appreciate all of  them. So, while I'm a community-builder I find that I cannot build community with everyone nor does my particular community appeal to all or possibly even many. I appreciate--though not always want--being alone. Its importance and value  are important to me as it sometimes takes me out of uncomfortable situations.

Being alone is a time to reflect, to heal wounds, to plan the next moment of life, or simply to relax. It can, of course, also be a moment to mope, conjure up imaginery slights, wallow in self-pity, and convince one's self that "I don't belong". It has all happened to me. But being alone can also help us assess how much we are part of a community and to think about what we have to give up, give in, negotiate or ignore to be a part of something beyond ourselves. It allows us to figure out whether being where we are is worth the loneliness we may feel. Often times, it provides us a way to be comfortable with who we are.

Thus, in my book, it is okay to be alone and to find joy in our one-person community, to be our own best friend, and to find answers within. Of being alone we can say what the poet Robert Browning Hamilton said of sorrow:
     
        I walked a mile with Pleasure (the crowd):
           She chatted all the way,
        But left me none the wiser
           For all she had to say.

         I walked a mile with Sorrow (alone)
            And ne'er a word said she;
         But oh, the things I learned from her
             When Sorrow walked with me!

As long as we never forget that "We are all kin, though wide our various ways", we can find joy in our being alone. We should, however, be willing to "pass through" communities, stay for as long as it is beneficial to us and others, and then move on. Being alone should not be a state of being as much as a stage of life that comes and goes according to our needs and circumstances. We can be loners yet still be connected. Ours may be the "nose bleed" section of a community but it should still be within its periphery.

I still believe that being in a community is important and allows us to grow more so than being alone, but I also believe that we should find the crevices, outposts, and narrow lonely roads within the parameters of our community. This will allow us a place to go when we need to be away from the crowd and with only ourselves.

Growing an Intellectual Community in the Academy

A few days ago a former colleague sent the history department an e-mail explaining why as a Mormon he was voting for President Obama instead of Governor Romney. It was a powerful combination of intellect, scripture and political savvy. Yet, its prime importance to me was that it reflected a sense of intellectual brother/sisterhood. His was not an advocacy letter but simply a explanation to friends and colleagues of his feelings during this election season.

A couple of days after I received it I spoke to another colleague about the letter and we agreed that its impact was more communal than political. It was a sharing and it was intellectual rather than partisan or emotional. It got us talking about what is the "academy" and what is "scholarly and intellectual" within that environment. We concluded that many parts of the university environment can be opportunities in which to grow intellectually as well as come together as a community. Needless to say, it rarely does play out that way, but it can.

Where can we create an intellectual environment while creating a sense of community? In practically every place at the university when we bring down the wall between students and professors--and among senior and junior colleagues--and create spheres of respect, recognizing that each has a particular role but that both are there to learn and evolve intellectually. Some examples: during office hours where we can take time to expand the discussions from one of what are the assignments to how they fit in the process of learning history. And we can invite students to share their ideas and then we share our own. The same can be done while chatting with young colleagues in the hallways, workroom or after faculty meetings.

In class we can ask the students to participate in the process of learning by going to the blackboard, to read out their material and to partner with others. And then we become a member of each group by our participation within each. In master's and honor thesis committees we can go beyong asking students what they know and learned to inviting them to have a conversation with us about how their topic fits into the scheme of learning history or simply their topic. As committee members we can engage the student's topic--discuss, debate, expand--and move the process away from an interrogation to a conversation. In this way we teach students what a scholarly discussion is like and make them feel like they are participants in learning rather than residents of Guantanamo Bay. In this process the student will fully understand how well they did and be more likely to understand our concerns or our "delight" with their work.

We can teach the intellectual process to students when we grade their papers, converse outside of lectures they are assigned to attend, and we can have outside class activities and even invite some to our homes. In every sphere mentioned we are teaching, sharing, listening and coming to a point where we are now "reasoning together" instead of solidifying the teacher/pupil asymmetry that is common in these relationships. At the same time by asking them to take on the role of scholars or at least students of intellect we create new boundaries of respect and a relationship of mentor/mentoree.

No doubt--and I stress this--not all students are interested in this relationship. And there is really little we can do about this if our invitations to go beyond the textbook and the classroom dynamics are ignored. The same is true when our own colleagues are more interested in shutting their doors and writing their books, planning their next lesson, or snoozing off in the comfort of their private space. Knowing this allows us to plan ahead. After all building community is about finding a group of people--students or colleagues--who have an interest in a particular topic or action. That is why there are "communities" and not just one community. Historian Richard Bushman argues that we all look for our "communities of scholarship," places where we feel comfortable sharing and learning. Without them we often feel isolated.

What about when you are in a place in which there is little interest in this? I have found myself in that situation for a mulitude of reasons: I'm Mexican, Mormon, liberal, conservative, feminist, anti-feminist, young, old, etc. Yet, I've found that there is still a way to make community even if it is a shifting one with students coming and going and colleagues participating and then fading way. That means that my community grows with me and around me there is an inviting environment and an attitude that says that my "space" is always open to the "wayfarer" who needs a stop over to recharge their battery or to find a helping hand.. We never know who will stay for a long time, who will come back periodically, and who will replicate that model of community somewhere else. Yet, we can be sure that in our community we provide a positive space in which learning, growing and friendship are valued. Through this process we mentor, are mentored, teach and are taught, comfort and comforted, but more important we live our lives as part of a larger intellectual community.

A Difficult Life

Here's an interview with Junot Diaz the pulitzer-prize winning author. The short interview reminds us one more time the difficult life of those who engage the written word.

Sometimes things just don't come together the way you want them to, and you find yourself tossing things out or rewriting until you realize it "ain't going to make a difference" and then you toss it out.  I remember as a young boy rolling my eyes when i read that Hemingway wrote 30 drafts of his novels before he was satisfied. I would find myself doing the same thing when I wrote my scholarly books and they weren't even half as good as the Hemingway novels. Success in writing comes after miserable and at times torturous writing sessions that often leave you anything but happy. Those people who say they just "love everything about writing" are those who write little, write fluff, or the ones who use ghost writers. That is the case with many of today's television pundits who put out a book a year.

Recently, I dumped a collection of essays in the works for years. It was a project I wanted to do so badly, but after taking a hard look at what I had done, I decided it just didn't work. It was like casting a beloved grandchild out into the "cold and dreary world". At the same time, if we don't learn to make hard decisions about what is good and what is not about our writing we won't progress. As it is, we often let thing slip by. Surely I have done it and recently I read something by someone I admire very much who did just that. The post was simply not very good and I could tell he had not put in the time.

But enough about me. Enjoy--or maybe not--as you are reminded of the torture sessions that await that next great scholarly book, novel, short story, essay...idea.






http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/magazine/junot-diaz-hates-writing-short-stories.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120930

Gregorio's Christmas: a short story

It is probably too early for a Christmas story but given that I want to make a point about what I earlier called "democratic writing" I am sharing a short story that I wrote last year for my yahoo group of former high school classmates. It was never meant for publication and so there was a lot of license that I took in writing this piece. Most of the friends liked it and one or two still get a laugh out of reading it. Please share with me anything that you've done that follows this genre (my invention) or simply work that is there but has not seen the light of day.

Gregorio's Christmas

Democratic Writing & Writing that Transcends

One of the things that Facebook and Blogs have done is to democratize writing and publishing. The new e-book self-publishing phenomenon can be added to the above.This means that publishing is not the domain of a few editorial houses or magazines. People can now write for profit or simply to converse with their friends and those willing to read what they write.

There is something liberating about being able to write without thinking of where will "I publish this", though admittedly it is still the major publishers who dominate the process for serious writers. At the same time, publishing for kindle or other e-book distributors has provided more venues for writers of all kinds. And so we have more people writing and calling themselves writers than at any time in our history, although during the 1960s and '70s there were lots of free magazines and newspaper which provided space for more people to speak their mind.

I remember that when I was in my mid-twenties a number of magazines and newspapers sprung up in San Antonio that invited people in the West Side to submit their stories, poems, essays and interviews for publcation. They really did not have to be polished or even good to make it onto print. I guess there were some editorial guidelines and the editors--a husand and wife and friend team--did draw a line with the truly terrible submissions. But overall, if you had a passion and willingness to write you could end up a "published author". I never did publish with them being too self-conscious of my writing and figuring that I did not have anything important or interesting enough for them to want to publish.

Looking back now, I think that my reluctance was also due to my orientation for thinking about things that transcended the barrio. I had nothing against writing about the barrio landscape or the abuelitas, abuelitos or the day-to-day routines of Mexicanos which was a common theme in Chicano literature at the time. I believed, even then, that writing is universal and while the topic may be of a particular people, circumstance or landscape, good writing always transcends cultural, ethnic, racial and other boundaries. Consequently, my notion of good fiction rarely took place in the barrio.

When I became an editor of El Saguaro, a literary journal that came out of the Mexican American Studies & Research Center at the University of Arizona, I constantly tried to get Chicano writers to diversify. Most wanted to stay with topic of the barrio and in this they were following the advice of all writing teachers: "write about what you know". But I never believed that the advice was meant to keep us writing only about that which we experienced personally or about the people we interacted with daily. What we "know" can often be an idea, a character type, or something we read and fantasize about continually.

So, for one issue of El Saguaro I only accepted nontraditional--gothic, mystery, romance, avant-garde, etc.--Chicano literature. I had visions of someone writing a science fiction piece with Commander Valdez commandeering the U.S.S Enterprise, or about Inspector Roberta Castro figuring the murder case that had stumped everyone else. I would have even accepted a Mexican Animal Farm. Well, I didn't get any of those but I did get many other pieces that were non-traditional and incredibly creative and some even took place in el barrio. Even today I consider it a crowning achievement in my contributions to Chicano literature.

My own piece was about a Chicano military man called to govern a post-apocalyptic world. While liberal and progressive, he was called upon to save the Republic from some who had been his friends and people he had associated with in the past. The story was not about a Chicano saving the world from those who oppress but from those who felt oppressed. It was an attempt to tell a much more complicated story about leadership and governance.

Last year I wrote a Christmas story about a Chicano in Viet Nam who was going home after the Holidays. I wrote it for a yahoo group composed of friends that graduated with me from Sidney Lanier High School in San Antonio. This year I am hoping to write a Halloween story and I think I got one other person in the group to get excited about writing one also. So, great for our democratic writing. 

I will be practicing my own democratic writing when I publish my novel this month on Amazon kindle. I have simply not found anyone who wants to publish a novel about a couple of Mexicans Americans in Viet Nam. The theme is universal--so much so that a Latino press did not want it because it was not Latino enough--and speaks to those who have gone to war and fallen in love.

Good writing is neither white nor black, brown or yellow,  red, gay or straight. And it can be in any genre, landscape, with a multitude of characters (or animals) or possibly with none. But its message, in whatever form it comes--has to find application in particular stages of life of any or most people. Are there exceptions, yes, but most of the time no.

So, I'm glad for Democratic writing, but not for the kind that is only about writing "of our own" and having it apply "only to us". Writing for la palomilla (the folks) only is like "preaching to the choir". It has its purpose and its place, but rarely does it expand the conversation.

I'd like to see if anyone has a different opinion. It gets lonely talking to myself. Familia, at least you guys write to me. That's if you are even reading this.

Rarely: But the Opposite is Just as Bad

The answer to the question in my last post is: I guess it depends on what kind of writing you do, but for the most part it is a resounding no! It is hard to write good literature or even good history without adversity. There are many reaons, the most obvious is that life is about conflict, obstaces that we overcome, or ones that overcome us. Without them, we have a story as flat as the plains of Kansas and just as boring. One can write poetry, psalms, songs and even comedy without engaging in sticky, or depressing details but it is hard to write a history or even a novel without tension, adversity and challenges that the protagonists or characters in your book confront. Even in scholarly work the people we write about usually face a pushback in their lives. Currently, I'm reading a short memoir that has very little drama and while I want to read it I admit that it is not very engaging. The protagonist faced many obstacles in his life but actually never engages them in an significant way, deciding instead to accentuate the positive to a point that it reads like a 7th grade essay.

But the point I want to make here is not that all literture needs tension but that tension, adversity and challenges are not the only point of any story or work of scholarship. It is about resolution even if that resolution sometimes turns out to be fully negative in the end. In today's scholarship and even in some of the general fiction there is too much negativity and too much whinning. Everything becomes a story of unfairness which suffocates all action. This is particularly true in memoir where "straw men (and straw women)" are constantly set up and the memoirist spends the rest of the book bemoaning his/her tragedy. It is like a revisit to the 1950s & 60s where American writers discovered how dysfunctional were their families and decided that since everyone else's was also dysfunctional they had a ready made audience.

Today, dysfunction and childhood adversity and "they don't treat me right because of who I am" stories proliferate. Now, there are many who do confront adversity and unfairness--lest I say racism, sexism, agism (I'm getting there), etc. But that literature mostly has value when there is some form of resolution even if its learning to live with one's misery. Resolution, then, is not about a complete turn around or a "fix" to all our problems, instead it is about personal--or at times collective--decision-making that frees one from hopelessness even if not totally from the problem itself.

This doesn't mean we don't write tragedy or histories of oppressed people. It means that we give them life, recognize the struggle, and validate them regardless of whether they fully solved their problems or are overwhelmed by them. Otherwise we add to the literature of negativity and whinning. Most people are fighters, and those that aren't are usually not worth writing about.

Good Literature Speaks to Adversity & Struggle

Earlier this year at a faculty seminar I made the comment that Mormon literature was yet to really be significant because it was too middle class. One colleague from the English department took exception and rattled off several works he thought were important. I quickly added that while I had been too sweeping in my comments I still believed that adversity and challenge is what makes good literture. If not, then all we write about is how well or not we fit into our institutions and/or our mainstream.

The same can be said about the intellectual pursuit. When we focus constantly on the personal we create small worlds around us that usually lead us to small ideas. I came from a generation that was engaged in large ideas but nevertheless there were people who still though small. We had civil rights, feminism, national liberation movements, Vietn Nam, the Cold War, the rise of conservatism, etc. and yet my brother would say years later, "where was I when this was happening?"

Real intellectual pursuit does not come in simply reading many books or engaging in unlimited academic conferences or literary discussions. It comes only when we put to use what we are learning and discovering. Now, you can't just have "zeal without knowledge" as one famous Mormon intellectual use to say, because then your learning might just be as inconsequential as that of the library couch potato. And without doubt a serious intellectual pursuit does require lots of quiet time in order to think and process what knowledge we accumulate.

But it also requires us to engage in the physical as well as metaphsycial world. It requires us to look deeply within us and then profoundly outside of us to see where we can serve a purpose. It means connecting what we write with what we see and feel and experience, and particularly with what we do. No doubt that not all that we do physically or even verbally makes us good with the written word, expands our mental capacity, or even makes us sprititually profound. But an indifference to that which swirls around us will surely guaranteed that we will not achieve any of the aforementioned.

When I feel detached, indifferent and insensitive, I realized that it is time to become involved with my students and my community in a different way, to expand my writing themes, attend different conferences or activities, and pay attention to those issues around me. More important I think of expanding my horizons and stretching my knowledge  so as to force me to look beyond my world. It can sometimes be about isolating myself--ala David Thoreau on Walden Pond--and at other times about rolling up my sleeves and doing something useful. That often means finding something to struggle over and to be challenged by.

One caution: struggle and adversity cannot simply be invented and they are anything but one-dimensional. That is one reason why Soviet writers and musicians rarely created any good art--though they played great music created by past Russian composers who did have much to write about adversity under the Czars. And one saw the decline of literature in Cuba soon after Fidel Castro came to power because it became all about promoting THE Revolution and not about the struggle and challenge of creating and defending the ideals--not the politics--of a revolution.

This happened to Chicano Movement-sponsored writing and music and is the reason why Chicano artists were the first to begin abandoning the Movement. As long as they were writing about struggle and liberation they were good. As soon as they started writing to promote the "institutions" within the Movement ideas dried up.

I wish I had been more explicit with the English professor that Mormon literature will get better when we start talking more about the struggles of people of color and women and less about "fitting in to" the faith. Or when our literature maturely depicts the struggle to transcend institutional limitations. It isn't all about dissident writing--thought some of it can be--but about the battles one confrtonts to remain faithful to an entity that like all other institutionalized ones has its particular needs and passions. That is what good religious writing has been about. Even that which promotes the faith.

Make no mistake, this kind of writing on any topic is painful and sometimes uncomfortable but it comes with the territory.

Next post: Can someone write good literature (or scholarship) without talking about pain, struggle or adversity?

Convention Speeches: Another Form of Good Writing

The Democratic Convention last night reminded me that I was once a part-time speechwriter for a hospital administrator and a director of Mexican American studies. Both thought I was really good at it, and I think I could probably have made it--with a break here or two--into serious speechwriting. I love to construct speech patterns, sprinkle some history, make a few jokes and then get into a cadence that drives home the point. I thought Deval Patrick and Julian Castro did a magnificent job yesterday whatever you think of their politics. By the way, Rosie Castro--Julian Castro's mom--and I were friends when younger and she was the one that re-introduced me to the Chicano Movement when I came back from Viet Nam.

Some people ask why most politicians do not write their own speeches. One reason is that it takes a lot of time to put words together and also a lot of practice. I remember in writing the speeches that I did, I would continually rewrite, practice outloud and then try to picture myself standing at the back of the room listening to my speech being given by another. If you can not detach yourself from your words you can't write speeches. For a candidate, CEO or other to write a speech, they have to love to write, to reflect, to understand an audience and laugh at themselves. Most jokes poking fun of the speaker are rarely written by the speakers themselves. Most politicians and leader types rarely know how to laugh at themselves.

Speechwriting like ghostwriting takes a humble demeanor because most people will never known who wrote the speech even though today some speechwriters are celebrities themselves. But can anyone name who helped write Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech? Exactly my point. Or how about John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech, or Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America"?

Speechwriters and ghostwriters find their satisfaction in doing a good job. They also find joy in helping promote their candidate or their causes, and that is why you have liberal, conservative, democrat and republican speechwriters. It is rare that you have one writing for the fellows across the aile.

When I was writing speeches I would check out books from the library on speechmaking, famous speeches and, my favorites, memorable sermons. I was particularly enthralled by Peter Marshall who served as the Chaplain of the Senate. His sermons were so down to earth but so powerful at the same time. As a young boy I use to love to sneak into the chapel of my small Mormon congregation and give what we Mormons call "talks" to empty wooden benches, often emulating Marshall's sermons.

Giving speeches is also about practice and context. And it is only by practicing that you get good at it. When I became a lay bishop most people thought I gave good talks and asked me how I did it. I would simply say "practice, practice and more practice". But it helps if you have something to say--remember passion--which is a crucial part of speechwriting. The famous speeches are anything but fluff. You can't make a speaker or a speech great if there is nothing really important to say. You might be a wordcrafter of the finest order but your speech will fall on deaf ears or be remember only until the lights are turned off. Speechwriters have to believe in something and they have to believe that their candidate--or whoever--actually believes in the same things.

I think my stint as a speechwriter and a  sermon-giver--unlike many Mormon bishops I gave as many sermons as I did talks--made me a better scholar. I find that I quickly get into my grove and I don't give boring presentations. I remember going to Houston a couple of years ago and had to make three presentations in one day. Each was a totally different audience. After the last one a colleague, whom I deeply admire, said that I had given the same story in three different ways. I actually think he was mocking me but I believe it is because most scholars don't know but one speed in giving presentations and they rarely think of audience. They think of what they are going to say and what they want to get across and not who is going to receive it.

Here again, it is all about being a good writer. Writers know their audience and differentiate one group from another. A speechwriter also knows that space, time and interest all play a part in how people respond to a presentation. We all have heard great speeches and great presentations. Most of them seem directed at us. They make us comfortable--or sometimes uncomfortable if that is the point--they inspire us and they motivate us. We also learn even if we hear that which we already know.

Speechwriting is a good way to learn to write. Most good writers read their work outloud to themselves to see if it sounds right. Thus, it stands to reason that hearing someone else read your work is an even better way to find out how good you are. But like all writing, speechwriting is a craft and you have to invest in learning how to do it right. Some people are natural speakers and they can woo a crowd but it is when you read their speeches that you known whether they write well and whether their speeches will have any legacy.
If you didn't see the speeches last night, go back and search for them. I didn't say anything about Michelle Obama's but it was as good as any last night. That woman can talk and boy does she have a good speechwriter.

Do Not Write Advocacy or Prophetic Scholarship

My involvement in the Chicano Movement and the Raza Unida Party was what got me started on my scholarly journey. But while sympathetic and a promoter of Chicano/latino civil rights, I always resisted and felt uncomfortable by what I call advocacy and/or prophetic scholarship. I strongly believe in what I write but I do not feel I have any scholarly authority as a historian to put a conclusion or offer a solution to every historical narrative yet to be played out. This same reluctance should be embraced by other scholars of the social sciences and the humanities.

Most advocacy scholarship is driven by ideology and not research, analysis or even scholarly questions. Its interest is to promote a particular point of view that can only be validated through normally very narrow parameters. Now, there is nothing wrong with ideological writings but they are not scholarship per se. While I accept that none of us can write without advocating something or other, I do believe that we should not invent things outright or act like modern-day prophets who know more than they do.

One disclaimer here is that some scholarly work is meant to be advocated--some genres within sociology, economics, public policy, psychology, etc. But even those who do that type of scholarship should be cautious.

Caution should also be applied to what I call prophetic scholarship which is the type of scholarship in which we ascertain that something will happen because of how we interpret what has happened before.Recently, I had a friend who was waiting for an election to see if his several hundred page predictions would hold. His work ended up depending more on the efficacy of  a political campaign than on the "facts".While valuable--I read the manuscript--I did not consider the work scholarly writing in the best sense, though it might make him the next Karl Marx.

The problem with both advocacy and prophetic scholarly writing is that it is usually based on assumptions that have yet to be tested and it is difficult to test them before they are promoted. Since most of this scholarship is hardly earth-shattering, it is rarely put to a test. And often it is forgotten or, at worse, gives a scholar a reputation of doing shoddy work that is more astrology than scholarship.

When young scholars, in particular, start with advocacy scholarship it usually means they have skipped many a step. It is shameful that too many mentors and too many Ph.D. committees do not hold their students' reigns a little bit tighter. Advocacy scholarship if it is to be written and be presented as scholarship and not just as polemical or intellectual writing must be done when one has proven to know a topic well, to have researched it exhaustively and to have published extensively on it. To do otherwise is to try to pull a fast one on the public.

Does this mean that a brilliant young scholar cannot advocate something and be right--whatever right means--yes, that's probably what I mean. Even when they might get much of it right what they don't get is the process of how things evolve and how they reach the point they did, a crucial element in scholarship. You learn that not just by researching but by reading and writing about it, getting reviewed and criticized, and then responding to critics with more work.

To become a good "advocate" means seeing your own work and saying, "gosh, I coud have done better, or I didn't get it completely right". And doing it over and over again while seeing your ideas tested out over years. That is almost impossible for a young scholar to do in his/her first book, and even more impossible for the old scholar with no books in hand. Scholarship is partly about writing and if you don't write enough or haven't had the time to, you have little to say when you do. Are there exceptions? Yes. Are you one of those? Overwhelmingly the chances are you are not.

As scholars we make assumptions and even offer advice but we should be careful not to advocate what we have not proven ourselves. This is particulary true for the social sciences and humanities. Advocacy and prophetic writing is also a good way to have our work age almost immediately. I know of a scholar whose predictions of world calamity will prove him a prophet or discredit his scholarship within less than a year. Do we really want to be in that situation?

The function of scholarly writing can be to inform, to inspire and motivate, to correct an assumption or to critique, but it rarely works as a road map. There are always exceptions to this rule but they are exceptions which are often quite rare. And they come after years of writing, reflecting and testing out our ideas. When you are there then this doesn't apply to you.

Letters from Garcia: Part 3 : Scholarly Writing as Craft

Letters from Garcia: Part 3 : Scholarly Writing as Craft: A couple of years ago I asked a very productive colleague whether he considered himself a writer. Without hesitation he said, "yes". I asked...

Part 3 : Scholarly Writing as Craft

A couple of years ago I asked a very productive colleague whether he considered himself a writer. Without hesitation he said, "yes". I asked that same question to a Chicano scholar with the same amount of books and probably a better scholarly reputation, and his response was also without hesitation: "No".  Interesting, no?

Scholars are writers--when they write. And they usually don't publish or produce books if they are not. Accepting our role as writers is fundamental to being able to produce books and do it more than once. Writing is a craft, pure and simple, not some God-given ability limited to a lucky few. No, I don't mean that everyone is a Sandra Cisneros, Charles Dickens, Octavio Paz, Isabelle Allende or James Patterson, but each writing genre has its own levels of competency--and yes talent level--and for the most part they are accessible to those who make the effort to write well.

Since writing is a craft most writing rules apply across all writing genres which means that we learn to write by learning the rules of the craft and the techniques that have evolved over time. My shelves are full of writing books just as they are with books on how to do research, historiography, as well as scholarly books on many topics.

I read a lot, but not only in my specific field or even my discipline. I find that when I read science, sociology, anthropology, fiction, drama, poetry and scripture my concept of writing is enlarged. Everyone of my books has been influenced by a work outside my field because everyone of the authors was working at the same craft that I do. Sometimes I discover that "new techniques" in my field are ages old in another, and as such much more developed.

I find that fiction writers and essayists are the ones that put the most effort into their writing. So from them we learn the most about technique. Scholars tend to dismiss technique and so much of our writing is bland and in fact over the last century we scholars have developed the notion that the more inaccessible our scholarly books are the better they are. Its as if we decided that the fewer the people reading our work, the greater our academic glory.

If you don't know about flashbacks, setting, scene, characterization, summary, description...you know little about the craft. Now, these things won't make you a great academic writer, but without them you won't even be a good one. To them you add good research, good analysis, valuable feedback and expertise that often comes with time. But the latter are lost if you don't have the tools to put them into paper or on a computer screen.

Good scholarly writers use most of these techniques even when they don't know they are using them. Some people have the knack for developing some of these techniques without studying them by simply writng and reading. But it takes longer to "discover" them than it is to learn them.  Of course, craft requires practice and that means writing, writing and more writing.

One thing I learned from reading the biographers Milton Lomask and Barbara Tuchman is that you start writing as soon as you have some idea or have some research done. You don't do what most academicians do and that is wait "until the research is done". Writing helps develop ideas, reveals the blackholes in your research, and pretty much tells you if your project is doable. You can always correct as you learn more. Even if everything you wrote is wrong you will find that writing about your topic makes you more passionate about it and helps you feel closer to it.

For every project I write, I usually have two or three notebooks or folders of writing that rarely get into the final product. I also discuss my ideas, research, individuals, etc. in my journal. Scholarly writers should not go through life without a journal, even if its only to make sure your biographer has something to write about when you get famous. Write early in the morning, while on a break from family, during commercial breaks, and before everyone else wakes up. Develop a system that works for you and periodically upgrade it. Find a writing spot and when that gets old find a new one. Most important look closely at your work to see if you have some of the elements of writing that make your manuscript easier to read.

If you know setting, you will be able to place your work in the appropiate time and space. If you know characterization, you will be able to write better about people. If you know summary, you'll be able to get through those long parts that are simply not as exciting but quite necessary, and if you know flashback you will be able to expand your story across time without having to follow an A-Z narrative form exclusively.

Treating writing as a craft helps you to write what you are capable of writing, no less and no more. It won't make you a Pulitzer prize winner unless you have the talent and circumstances but it will make you a good scholarly writer who is capable of writing the books that are in you. It helps you when you fall into those trouble spots, when writer's block descends on you, and when you don't have the foggiest idea of why things are not flowing the way they should. Knowing the craft is knowing how to do what you most want to do.

I will stop here because its getting too long. But I will have a final note on this topic in a couple of days.