In about a week I will be submitting my latest accepted manuscript for production.This was a work long time in coming and probably exposes me more as a writer, scholar, person of faith, and individual than any other I've written in the past. It is a memoir though surely not a typical one and it seeks to combine two audiences that have never had much to do with each other. It is the kind of work that conjures up possibilities but which is often more difficult to write and find a publisher for than the usual products of that genre. But as all of those who have gone through this process know
all the work and pain involved is forgotten once the acceptance notice comes and even more so when the product is in hand.
Getting to this stage of my writing life has been a steep challenge but one that I planned, prepared and worked hard to make happen. As a young boy, after reading my first essays and having been exposed to Octavio Paz, the great Mexican essayist, reading El Siempre (Mexican political magazine) and knowing a little about Shakespeare, Tolstoy and just getting an inkling of C.S. Lewis, I began to conjure up images of the things I wanted to "create". I was too young and unsophisticated to think about a "writing life" but I knew that I wanted to communicate and to put ideas into the public square. But in the first few years of my youth my syntax, sentence structure and punctuation horrified many a teacher though a few were willing to admit that I had good ideas and told a good story. The journey is too long to retell here but needless to say I am here because of hard work and some friends who were good writers and "suffered me" as I sought to learn from them.
My story is not remarkable other than in the amount of time I invested and so I'm always encouraging others to work hard and set goals. In fact, there are people who probably make a quick exit when I appear because they don't want me asking about "their book". In my mind, when someone says to me that they're writing a book I believe it is my obligation to be supportive and occasionally to painfully remind them that they could work a little harder and smarter.
Because this work had been in the "works" for a while I did not expect I would have another manuscript accepted after my last one was published. It really takes away pressure from having to contemplate a next one too soon. With this manuscript "not hanging around and staring" at me I feel like I have the luxury of some time to myself to contemplate and reflect. Oh, I do have a few items to take care of this academic year but nothing major except to promote my last book and to prepare for what might be the reaction to this one when it comes out. More importantly, this memoir said much of what I wanted to say and I need time to reflect and read some more before I start thinking of what else to say.
For that reason and others more personal I need this period of "silence". This silence does not mean I won't write in this blog--something I hadn't done in quite a while anyway--or make some small presentations but only that the highest priority will be a more profound contemplation of what comes next and about my "beloved community" which I feel I have ignored for a few years. I need to do things that have no professional "outcome", no bricks to build upon, and which are out of the public eye. Too much of our lives are taken by our "roles" and "obligations" that we forget that there are many things that don't have a timeline, a reward or a legacy beyond the immediate.
I truly need some of that downtime. It was that kind of time that kept me close to people and to the community that was so much a part of me before I became an endowed professor and saw my time consumed by the academy. The urgency in doing much came not from pure ambition but from the fact that I came to the academy much older than most.
The memoir--which takes me through my college years--will show who I was before I became what I am today. There will probably be a lot of silent time over the next season but it may also be a time of sharing, church plays, public service and lots of lunches with friends, both old and news. It will be a time to re-invest in things infinitely more important than another book.
Of course--if my department chair or dean are reading--the preliminary research on the next book began a while ago. But it can wait, for now.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
Children of War
The ongoing story of Central American children at the border reminded me this morning of the time I spent in that area as a correspondent for the Gannett News Service in the early 1980s where I covered the civil war. Besides covering the fighting, military men and some politicians I also spent some time visiting the refugee camps. The stories of horror melted away any kind of journalistic distance that I sought to establish. While the military reign of terror was indiscriminate when it came to gender and age, the tales of children being killed was the worse. Mothers--the camps were filled with women as most men had been killed or recruited into the army or insurgent groups--talked about the feared "knock on the door" after dark. It meant the death squads had found another victim and those taken would not return.
I remember one case in particular. A young girl, possibly 15 or 16, who was part of a Catholic reading group was dragged out of her home in the middle of the night. The government considered these reading groups subversive because they were discussing human dignity and the need for societal change in their country. These groups were nonpolitical and in fact were not very well liked by the guerrilla groups in the country because they sought peaceful change. The young woman would be missing for days until they found a "part" of her body in a nearby community. Over several days they would find other parts of her body scattered about in the region. Once put together the autopsy revealed gang rape, mutilation of her organs, torture and eventual dismemberment. Hers was the most vivid of the crimes but there were many others. The people in these refugee camps were traumatized, some left with almost no emotion.
El Salvador's military government was similar to those that the U.S. supported in places like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Panama. These governments were ruthless in the oppression of their people, many of their military men having been trained in the School of the Americas in Panama. In fact, most of the military dictators and others accused of war crimes graduated from that school and one in Bennings, Georgia.
A few years before I went to Central America I visited Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon where I saw similar trauma though there the defiance against Israel and its Lebanese allies was simmering just below the surface. I remember going to a PLO school where the children were being taught how to handle a rifle and to sing revolutionary songs. A committed PLO doctor, nonetheless, told us how worried he was about what war and anger would do to these children. Would they also engage in violence?
War is destructive, so is oppression and when you mingle it with poverty, social dysfunction and hopelessness you get either violence--radical Islamists or Mara Salvatrucha--or you get societies that move in massive numbers desperately seeking something better. Time will tell whether our leaders' hearts are large enough to embrace these children or whether we will succumb to the typical fears of "illegal immigrants". Eventually we will also have to find ways to help resolve the problem that sends them here.
I remember one case in particular. A young girl, possibly 15 or 16, who was part of a Catholic reading group was dragged out of her home in the middle of the night. The government considered these reading groups subversive because they were discussing human dignity and the need for societal change in their country. These groups were nonpolitical and in fact were not very well liked by the guerrilla groups in the country because they sought peaceful change. The young woman would be missing for days until they found a "part" of her body in a nearby community. Over several days they would find other parts of her body scattered about in the region. Once put together the autopsy revealed gang rape, mutilation of her organs, torture and eventual dismemberment. Hers was the most vivid of the crimes but there were many others. The people in these refugee camps were traumatized, some left with almost no emotion.
El Salvador's military government was similar to those that the U.S. supported in places like Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Panama. These governments were ruthless in the oppression of their people, many of their military men having been trained in the School of the Americas in Panama. In fact, most of the military dictators and others accused of war crimes graduated from that school and one in Bennings, Georgia.
A few years before I went to Central America I visited Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon where I saw similar trauma though there the defiance against Israel and its Lebanese allies was simmering just below the surface. I remember going to a PLO school where the children were being taught how to handle a rifle and to sing revolutionary songs. A committed PLO doctor, nonetheless, told us how worried he was about what war and anger would do to these children. Would they also engage in violence?
War is destructive, so is oppression and when you mingle it with poverty, social dysfunction and hopelessness you get either violence--radical Islamists or Mara Salvatrucha--or you get societies that move in massive numbers desperately seeking something better. Time will tell whether our leaders' hearts are large enough to embrace these children or whether we will succumb to the typical fears of "illegal immigrants". Eventually we will also have to find ways to help resolve the problem that sends them here.
Friday, July 4, 2014
The Tragedy of Immigrant Children
I have to admit that I've been trying to avoid much of the news coverage on the immigrant children from Central America that seem to be pouring into this country without their parents and in fact often in search of them. It is a tragedy no matter which way one looks at it and given our political system one with little chance of resolution. We will not have immigration reform this year and next year starts the presidential campaign and so it will be another two years before we might get to the issue. And so the tragedy will continue, and it is a tragedy in more ways than just having young children crossing a very dangerous border which for Central Americans begins when they leave their homes. Each step is fraught with danger from unscrupulous policemen, cartel henchmen, coyotes, rapists, overloaded trains, hot deserts, etc.
The first tragedy is when the child is left behind by parents who want a better life. Too often, however, that better life becomes restricted to the person here and possibly their "new" families. One of the things that we don't talk about when we talk about immigrants is that they are often running away from more than just poverty. They are escaping everything associated with their former lives of poverty and sometimes that means spouse and children. They might not think it about consciously but once they are here their lives become consumed with being here, and that can often mean meeting other people here and creating a community that excludes those left behind.
In a study done years ago, a scholar found that women from the third world who are hired as nannies will often become more attached to the children they care for than to their children back home. These beautiful, usually white, blond, blue-eye children become their passion and the dark, black-eyed often malnourished children without future become less attractive as sons and daughters. To alleviate their guilt they send money home and on the occasional visits will take numerous gifts, but they always come back after telling their own children that "soon, mommy will come for you" until one day they stop coming and their children stop believing.
Living among undocumented immigrants I know of scores of men and women who now have families here and while they feel for those left behind they have chosen to make a new life for themselves because the old one is unbearable, thus, a child loses not only a father or mother physically but they also lose their "familial place" to other siblings that they will likely never know. Most are also left with families that cannot provide them much and where they are very low on the pecking order of love and comfort. They are rarely happy and so they leave, chasing a dream of reconnecting to parents that they don't know anymore and which they love only as an "ideal". By the time they come searching, they do so not to find the parent but to try to find the "thing" that made their parents forget them. By then, it has become about working to have things because in their minds that is the reason their parents left.
Like the child soldiers of Africa, some of these child immigrants are so disconnected from community and so alienated from love that though they yearn for it, rarely do they know how to receive it or express it. This, of course, is a situation with varying degrees--some will reunited with loved ones--but surely one that awaits a child immigrant if he/she does not quickly reunite with a parent and finds a loving home.
The tragedy for American society is that in the past children have been the ones that open our hearts to change, but it seems not to do so today. A colleague of mine writes that the civil rights movement found much success when its leaders turned the fight against segregation and violence into one about saving the children. They convinced the American public to see children instead of black skin. Of course in the process they missed teaching whites what it took to really educate black children, but that's for another post.
The story of the child immigrant is one of much less empathy even among some of those black children now grown and heading major agencies, including the one that oversees the detention centers. The first action that the president is making is to send more ICE agents to the border while these children are "housed" in buildings without beds and where they are crowded too many to a room and have little time to see open space or even to play. Worse, they have aroused fierce anger by whites who are "tired" of immigrants coming over the border regardless of the reason. These child immigrants--in the minds of many Americans--are not really children they are simply "wetbacks" or "illegals" that will one day grow up to take jobs. It is shameful to say it but immigrant children today do not elicit the same concern that white or black children do. They are too foreign to the American heart.
They are an evolving tragedy because most of them will be deported only to have them try again and the next time they might not be lucky in the desert or in escaping those who would exploit them. Or they will give up emotionally, join gangs or drug cartels and cause havoc in their communities. What other options do impoverished and neglected children have in dysfunctional countries many of which have been victims of American military and economic intervention or foreign policy decisions. These children are just another part of the "chickens coming home to roost", or as journalist Juan Gonzalez likes to say, "they are the harvest of empire".
There are many people who do care but most of them are powerless to help in more than just the minimal way, hampered by a lack of political will among those sympathetic and blocked by the fierce opposition of those who see a coloring of America as a horrible thing. Thus, I try rather unsuccessfully to avoid getting emotionally involved. I've seen this too often in the past and it rarely gets better.
The first tragedy is when the child is left behind by parents who want a better life. Too often, however, that better life becomes restricted to the person here and possibly their "new" families. One of the things that we don't talk about when we talk about immigrants is that they are often running away from more than just poverty. They are escaping everything associated with their former lives of poverty and sometimes that means spouse and children. They might not think it about consciously but once they are here their lives become consumed with being here, and that can often mean meeting other people here and creating a community that excludes those left behind.
In a study done years ago, a scholar found that women from the third world who are hired as nannies will often become more attached to the children they care for than to their children back home. These beautiful, usually white, blond, blue-eye children become their passion and the dark, black-eyed often malnourished children without future become less attractive as sons and daughters. To alleviate their guilt they send money home and on the occasional visits will take numerous gifts, but they always come back after telling their own children that "soon, mommy will come for you" until one day they stop coming and their children stop believing.
Living among undocumented immigrants I know of scores of men and women who now have families here and while they feel for those left behind they have chosen to make a new life for themselves because the old one is unbearable, thus, a child loses not only a father or mother physically but they also lose their "familial place" to other siblings that they will likely never know. Most are also left with families that cannot provide them much and where they are very low on the pecking order of love and comfort. They are rarely happy and so they leave, chasing a dream of reconnecting to parents that they don't know anymore and which they love only as an "ideal". By the time they come searching, they do so not to find the parent but to try to find the "thing" that made their parents forget them. By then, it has become about working to have things because in their minds that is the reason their parents left.
Like the child soldiers of Africa, some of these child immigrants are so disconnected from community and so alienated from love that though they yearn for it, rarely do they know how to receive it or express it. This, of course, is a situation with varying degrees--some will reunited with loved ones--but surely one that awaits a child immigrant if he/she does not quickly reunite with a parent and finds a loving home.
The tragedy for American society is that in the past children have been the ones that open our hearts to change, but it seems not to do so today. A colleague of mine writes that the civil rights movement found much success when its leaders turned the fight against segregation and violence into one about saving the children. They convinced the American public to see children instead of black skin. Of course in the process they missed teaching whites what it took to really educate black children, but that's for another post.
The story of the child immigrant is one of much less empathy even among some of those black children now grown and heading major agencies, including the one that oversees the detention centers. The first action that the president is making is to send more ICE agents to the border while these children are "housed" in buildings without beds and where they are crowded too many to a room and have little time to see open space or even to play. Worse, they have aroused fierce anger by whites who are "tired" of immigrants coming over the border regardless of the reason. These child immigrants--in the minds of many Americans--are not really children they are simply "wetbacks" or "illegals" that will one day grow up to take jobs. It is shameful to say it but immigrant children today do not elicit the same concern that white or black children do. They are too foreign to the American heart.
They are an evolving tragedy because most of them will be deported only to have them try again and the next time they might not be lucky in the desert or in escaping those who would exploit them. Or they will give up emotionally, join gangs or drug cartels and cause havoc in their communities. What other options do impoverished and neglected children have in dysfunctional countries many of which have been victims of American military and economic intervention or foreign policy decisions. These children are just another part of the "chickens coming home to roost", or as journalist Juan Gonzalez likes to say, "they are the harvest of empire".
There are many people who do care but most of them are powerless to help in more than just the minimal way, hampered by a lack of political will among those sympathetic and blocked by the fierce opposition of those who see a coloring of America as a horrible thing. Thus, I try rather unsuccessfully to avoid getting emotionally involved. I've seen this too often in the past and it rarely gets better.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Viet Nam War Anniversary
Next year marks the 40th anniversary of American troops leaving Viet Nam thus ending more than a decade of military adventurism in Southeast Asia. I remember in 1975, already in college having come back a few years earlier, hearing and seeing the American military police pushing people off the gates of the American embassy as diplomats and military personnel boarded helicopters and cargo planes just hours before the North Vietnamese soldiers entered Saigon. I remember sitting on the wooden steps of our $50-a-month rental in Kingsville, Texas and just crying, suffering not closure but heartbreak. I knew too many Vietnamese who had worked for the base where I was stationed and knew they were going to get punished if only because they swept our huts and washed our clothing.
War is always more complicated than what our politicians say or even think, especially those who have never gone to war. I was torn at the fall of Saigon. I never believed we should have been there and yet I knew wonderful South Vietnamese people who had no blame in the geopolitics that consumed the world at that time. I also had friend who died there and others who came back but didn't, having left much of themselves in some rice paddy, airbase, jungle ambush or house of prostitution. All of us who went left something of ourselves there and many of us brought something from that place that remains a prized if complicated relic of a war nobody really wanted. Most raced to forget quite soon after our departure, except those whose relatives and friends left their last breath there.
My novel is about the war and my memoir (hopefully soon to be accepted for publication) is a big chunk about that place of war. There are not too many days that go by that I'm not reminded about something I left or found in that place. I know that I--along with millions of other Americans, veterans or not--will be flooded with memories of and pains from that "police action" which seems to have lasted far too long for some of us who came of age and then aged alot during that time.
I remember our family hosting a welcome back party for one of my father's friends who had been one of the early advisers in that Southeast Asian country. He came to our house with a number of drinks in him and after one discussion of what he had seen he barged out of our house to vomit on our front yard. My father, always the gentleman went out to be see if things were alright. I remember watching from my window as he grabbed my father by the shoulders and said to him with a painful voice, "be glad Garcia that your children are too young to go to this war." It would be about five years later that I arrived in Cam Ranh Bay for my own tour.
While I had begun writing before I got to Viet Nam it was there that I decided that whatever I did to earn a buck I would find a way to do it writing. More important than getting a glimpse of a career, however, was learning a bit about the world outside my immediate circles. I met great people there though it is likely that some would not get the seal of approval from many today, yet they taught me things because we were all trying to navigate a world foreign to us and doing it while trying to say alive and sane. Emotions in war create a hungering for connection that we often love, hate, desire, etc. in ways that we don't back home and so our emotions are exposed to all kinds of situations and they become raw and eventually formed callouses. Remembered correctly they can be a way to decipher life around us and mature us as nothing refines the character than the fire of adversity.
As we wind down another war remembering Viet Nam can provide perspective especially for a generation that is now graying and which saw its Age of Aquarius turn into one of hostility and divisions, some which remain even today. I think that it was David Broder, NY Times journalist who said that the lines that have come to demarcate American society were drawn during our debates about the war, American foreign policy and our Exceptional-ism. I don't know whether I would affirm such thought but I do know that since the Viet Nam era I have only seen conflicts and ideological splits.
I know that like many I will continue to be influenced by my time there and next year should be a rather sensitive time for me and many other Viet Nam vets.
For my fictionalized view of the war see my novel Can Tho.
War is always more complicated than what our politicians say or even think, especially those who have never gone to war. I was torn at the fall of Saigon. I never believed we should have been there and yet I knew wonderful South Vietnamese people who had no blame in the geopolitics that consumed the world at that time. I also had friend who died there and others who came back but didn't, having left much of themselves in some rice paddy, airbase, jungle ambush or house of prostitution. All of us who went left something of ourselves there and many of us brought something from that place that remains a prized if complicated relic of a war nobody really wanted. Most raced to forget quite soon after our departure, except those whose relatives and friends left their last breath there.
My novel is about the war and my memoir (hopefully soon to be accepted for publication) is a big chunk about that place of war. There are not too many days that go by that I'm not reminded about something I left or found in that place. I know that I--along with millions of other Americans, veterans or not--will be flooded with memories of and pains from that "police action" which seems to have lasted far too long for some of us who came of age and then aged alot during that time.
I remember our family hosting a welcome back party for one of my father's friends who had been one of the early advisers in that Southeast Asian country. He came to our house with a number of drinks in him and after one discussion of what he had seen he barged out of our house to vomit on our front yard. My father, always the gentleman went out to be see if things were alright. I remember watching from my window as he grabbed my father by the shoulders and said to him with a painful voice, "be glad Garcia that your children are too young to go to this war." It would be about five years later that I arrived in Cam Ranh Bay for my own tour.
While I had begun writing before I got to Viet Nam it was there that I decided that whatever I did to earn a buck I would find a way to do it writing. More important than getting a glimpse of a career, however, was learning a bit about the world outside my immediate circles. I met great people there though it is likely that some would not get the seal of approval from many today, yet they taught me things because we were all trying to navigate a world foreign to us and doing it while trying to say alive and sane. Emotions in war create a hungering for connection that we often love, hate, desire, etc. in ways that we don't back home and so our emotions are exposed to all kinds of situations and they become raw and eventually formed callouses. Remembered correctly they can be a way to decipher life around us and mature us as nothing refines the character than the fire of adversity.
As we wind down another war remembering Viet Nam can provide perspective especially for a generation that is now graying and which saw its Age of Aquarius turn into one of hostility and divisions, some which remain even today. I think that it was David Broder, NY Times journalist who said that the lines that have come to demarcate American society were drawn during our debates about the war, American foreign policy and our Exceptional-ism. I don't know whether I would affirm such thought but I do know that since the Viet Nam era I have only seen conflicts and ideological splits.
I know that like many I will continue to be influenced by my time there and next year should be a rather sensitive time for me and many other Viet Nam vets.
For my fictionalized view of the war see my novel Can Tho.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Gathering Seeds for our Writing
It has been a while since I last wrote and its all because I've been quite busy trying to put together presentations and essays for both this summer and the fall. After that, I'm hoping to slow down a bit and concentrate on my biography and some fictional work that I've got to finish. I said earlier that I was going to slow down but I made no specific plan to do so and before I knew it I was again over committed. Much of the work to be done is not urgent, meaning that I have the time to do it, but it does take its toll. More important, it keeps me from doing other things, like reading, taking long walks or invigorating old acquaintances. All of those are important to a writer and historians as it is in being engaged that we get our ideas and our story plots.
I have a new friend in San Antonio--Julian--who is the ultimate writer. When I got a chance to meet him for the first time, he spoke about how he got his story ideas, most of which came in conversations with friends, acquaintances, strangers and anyone he met during the day. While he, I and two other friends talked and joked, he was counting out the story ideas that he gathered from our conversations. He is a funny guy and had us laughing out loud but he never lost his writer's radar. He reminded me--not that I need to be, though a friend there was learning something for the first time--that writers/historians/playwrights, etc. hear conversations and see things differently from others who engage in conversation and view things for their immediate impact. Those who engage the written word should always be deciphering, assessing and storing information. At the same time, we can't be like movie critics who go to the movies and never enjoy them because they are deconstructing and reviewing instead of watching. We must watch, listen but hopefully we've trained our ears and other senses to quickly pick up things and to store them.
That is why it is important to have journals and notebooks where we write our impressions and retell the day's activities and things we learned. Sharing them in letters or e-mails with people who will engage with them is also a good idea.I don't do as great a job as I should but I do have numerous journals and notebooks all over the house and office with tidbits, paragraphs and other notes--and numerous e-mail discussions with friends and colleagues--and at one time or another I've come back to them for insight or simply for ideas.
I never leave home--that is for long trips--without some notebook or journal because I find that in buses, airplanes and hotel rooms I always have something to write about. Most important in having these notebooks is that I don't have to make too much sense or write beautiful paragraphs because these are simply ideas, phrases or words that will jar something within me, usually days, months or even years later. They are valuable because they are raw and written with the passion felt at the moment. Unlike notes that we take for a research project or an academic essay they are not just reference points or attributions, they all are, or can be, seeds for further thought.
I knew a fellow years ago who use to carry a small recorder around with him so that he could record himself or others and then take time to listen to what he had heard and said during the day. We have all faced the situation that we remember we said, heard, or thought of something "brilliant" but can't remember what it was.
Most writing is an accumulation of things we've heard, thought of, said, read or experienced. Even scholarly work is developed in such a manner. Yet, because we are at times lax in "gathering and taking it home with us" we lose the seed of what could be important work. There are accumulated somewhere in the space that hovers over us many books and articles, short stories, plays and novels that will never be written because we misplaced or never collected the ideas. I actually think that is the reason why some smart, good writers never go beyond the stage of "wishing" to write a good work. Or they write the first one but can't never get the second one out. They think that all they have to do is research and plan out a project and the inspiration will come. But it doesn't work that way. Ideas like seeds must be watered and fed constantly, often times long before we start trying to put them into written form. When we gather and accumulate those seeds, we don't always know what will grow but we are certain that in time we will be weeding, fertilizing, pruning and then stepping back to watch something grow. Writing is often like that. It is the end product of a long process that can take months, years and even decades. The seed for my latest book I gathered nearly 30 years ago and my novel was likewise a flowering of something gathered and begun nearly that long ago.
When we gather seeds, create works and then spread the seeds that come of them we are likely to find that they too will blossom though it may take a long time. That approach has made me productive and I always have more than one idea floating in my head, the key, however, is that those are seeds which have been nurtured for years and been germinating just as long. So even when it seems that I've come up with a "new" idea, it is usually not that new.
I have a new friend in San Antonio--Julian--who is the ultimate writer. When I got a chance to meet him for the first time, he spoke about how he got his story ideas, most of which came in conversations with friends, acquaintances, strangers and anyone he met during the day. While he, I and two other friends talked and joked, he was counting out the story ideas that he gathered from our conversations. He is a funny guy and had us laughing out loud but he never lost his writer's radar. He reminded me--not that I need to be, though a friend there was learning something for the first time--that writers/historians/playwrights, etc. hear conversations and see things differently from others who engage in conversation and view things for their immediate impact. Those who engage the written word should always be deciphering, assessing and storing information. At the same time, we can't be like movie critics who go to the movies and never enjoy them because they are deconstructing and reviewing instead of watching. We must watch, listen but hopefully we've trained our ears and other senses to quickly pick up things and to store them.
That is why it is important to have journals and notebooks where we write our impressions and retell the day's activities and things we learned. Sharing them in letters or e-mails with people who will engage with them is also a good idea.I don't do as great a job as I should but I do have numerous journals and notebooks all over the house and office with tidbits, paragraphs and other notes--and numerous e-mail discussions with friends and colleagues--and at one time or another I've come back to them for insight or simply for ideas.
I never leave home--that is for long trips--without some notebook or journal because I find that in buses, airplanes and hotel rooms I always have something to write about. Most important in having these notebooks is that I don't have to make too much sense or write beautiful paragraphs because these are simply ideas, phrases or words that will jar something within me, usually days, months or even years later. They are valuable because they are raw and written with the passion felt at the moment. Unlike notes that we take for a research project or an academic essay they are not just reference points or attributions, they all are, or can be, seeds for further thought.
I knew a fellow years ago who use to carry a small recorder around with him so that he could record himself or others and then take time to listen to what he had heard and said during the day. We have all faced the situation that we remember we said, heard, or thought of something "brilliant" but can't remember what it was.
Most writing is an accumulation of things we've heard, thought of, said, read or experienced. Even scholarly work is developed in such a manner. Yet, because we are at times lax in "gathering and taking it home with us" we lose the seed of what could be important work. There are accumulated somewhere in the space that hovers over us many books and articles, short stories, plays and novels that will never be written because we misplaced or never collected the ideas. I actually think that is the reason why some smart, good writers never go beyond the stage of "wishing" to write a good work. Or they write the first one but can't never get the second one out. They think that all they have to do is research and plan out a project and the inspiration will come. But it doesn't work that way. Ideas like seeds must be watered and fed constantly, often times long before we start trying to put them into written form. When we gather and accumulate those seeds, we don't always know what will grow but we are certain that in time we will be weeding, fertilizing, pruning and then stepping back to watch something grow. Writing is often like that. It is the end product of a long process that can take months, years and even decades. The seed for my latest book I gathered nearly 30 years ago and my novel was likewise a flowering of something gathered and begun nearly that long ago.
When we gather seeds, create works and then spread the seeds that come of them we are likely to find that they too will blossom though it may take a long time. That approach has made me productive and I always have more than one idea floating in my head, the key, however, is that those are seeds which have been nurtured for years and been germinating just as long. So even when it seems that I've come up with a "new" idea, it is usually not that new.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Memory in Writing
I think that most of us know--or at least have been told--that we cannot depend on memory to write something factual or to tell a story accurately. While mostly true I've found that memory--that is the reconstruction of a personal experience using recollection--can be of great use when we take it as it comes and not try to rework it to symbolized something it did not when it happened. It might be part of a building block of something today, but it was not "assigned" that task when it happened. It just happened because of circumstances or decisions made.
I'll provide an example: when I was in Viet Nam a fellow with a head wound was brought to the dispensary emergency room that I ran, and the doctors immediately recognized that he had to be sent to a surgical trauma unit or he would die. The closest one was in Saigon several hundred miles away. Since I was the medic in charge I was assigned to take him to the army hospital nearby so that he could be medevac to the capital city. But my instructions were quite explicit, he needed to get to Saigon without delay.
When the chopper I was on arrived at the army hospital three miles away, the chopper that was to take him was not ready so I decided to take him to Saigon in our chopper. It was a traumatic experience that lasted for hours and remained imprinted in my mind until today. When I began to write about this experience, I went and took out my Viet Nam journal and looked for details. All I found was that I had taken the soldier to the army hospital, nothing about the chopper not being ready, about the breakdown of our suction machine, of being covered in blood and standing for hours because there was no room in the chopper for the medics and the patient, and nothing about my feelings when I came home. I was shocked because the details were so vivid but I had no record of it though I would later find some references to the incident. Since I had never written anything about it or told the story it was not a matter of having incorporated later thoughts into my memory, or having dreamt up the whole thing.
Though not impossible, it would have been extremely difficult to have found the records of the incident so I decided to write about the incident from memory. To this day, I can remember most of the details. In remembering them I can see how consistent I have been in the way I've thought and acted most of my life. I've evolved, matured and changed some things about myself but I'm still very much like that young man who took charge of the situation even while being completely horrified by the obligation of keeping someone alive.
So what can I say about memory through this incident? First, that it doesn't always correlate to the record, that it is subjective, reflects one's character, and that it serves to provide significance to things that are currently significant to one. Memory provides perspective and crystalizes history with today's prism but doesn't change it unless we choose to manipulate the facts. In other words, rarely does memory contradict our thoughts today, and if it does, it is because internally we are still conflicted about the ways we see things, and more importantly the way we want to remember ourselves.
So how should we use memory and why should we even trust it? The answer is that we trust it to say much about our personal history. How we acted back then--interpreted today--describes one aspect of our life, and how we remember that action says something about how we see life. The fact we were in a time and place and that we took particular actions in of themselves serve as a "material culture" that can be examined to understand ourselves and the topics we write about. That we choose to remember some past events over others says much about our today but it also says much about our yesterday. Unless we simply invent an event, those we remember are those that engrained themselves for a reason. In the case of my remembered event it was its traumatic nature that made it so memorable.
My using in to tell my story is important not only because of what it says about me today but also about what was important to me when it happened. The incident, if told in detail, casts light on my relationships with the soldiers in the dispensary, with a Vietnamese nurse, with the sarge in charge, and says much about my views of the war and death itself. Since I made so many mistakes and the soldier ended up dying, the incident did not necessarily reveal me in a good light. In fact, the only time I shared the written version with some students their reaction was that I was insensitive to death because in trying to escape the trauma I focused on my date that day. It was not exactly what I wanted to hear, but regardless of what they thought the event was important in understanding both my experiences in war and what was fundamental to my character then and now.
We don't write history by memory but we can assess our view of life by those things we remember and by the way we remember them. I've always known that I have an exaggerated view of myself but I also hate the idea of inventing things simply to get a point across which is often a trait common in today's memoirs. So my view is that you can provide particular meaning to events in your past but you just can't invent situations, characters and dialogue--the most common "lie"--to write memoir. To do so devalues the actual experience, and creates a memory that did not exist. Facts, dates, characters, setting, etc. count and they count very much. How we organize them may have to do with what we want to say but the organization does not justify inventing a new set of characters, events or places. Or provide a meaning so foreign to the actual occurrence that it pushes it into the realm of make believe.
Invention is not memoir, it is fiction. And fiction is best written as such no matter what it might say about us. I did just that in my novel Can Tho where I was able to be a great guy, hero and incredibly romantic.
Just before I sent this out, I was quite sick with a stomach flu and I sat outside in my garage listening to "oldies music". As I did, I remembered how much a part of my life that music was and then realized I did not mention it in my memoir. Did I mischaracterized my life for the purpose of presenting myself in a particular way? No, I just chose one aspect of my life that is the most enduring and that says the most about me. I have no doubt that I will speak of my taste in music somewhere else. In fact, I've already began planning the next "life story" and the Beatles, Sam Cooke, Elvis, Martha and the...
I'll provide an example: when I was in Viet Nam a fellow with a head wound was brought to the dispensary emergency room that I ran, and the doctors immediately recognized that he had to be sent to a surgical trauma unit or he would die. The closest one was in Saigon several hundred miles away. Since I was the medic in charge I was assigned to take him to the army hospital nearby so that he could be medevac to the capital city. But my instructions were quite explicit, he needed to get to Saigon without delay.
When the chopper I was on arrived at the army hospital three miles away, the chopper that was to take him was not ready so I decided to take him to Saigon in our chopper. It was a traumatic experience that lasted for hours and remained imprinted in my mind until today. When I began to write about this experience, I went and took out my Viet Nam journal and looked for details. All I found was that I had taken the soldier to the army hospital, nothing about the chopper not being ready, about the breakdown of our suction machine, of being covered in blood and standing for hours because there was no room in the chopper for the medics and the patient, and nothing about my feelings when I came home. I was shocked because the details were so vivid but I had no record of it though I would later find some references to the incident. Since I had never written anything about it or told the story it was not a matter of having incorporated later thoughts into my memory, or having dreamt up the whole thing.
Though not impossible, it would have been extremely difficult to have found the records of the incident so I decided to write about the incident from memory. To this day, I can remember most of the details. In remembering them I can see how consistent I have been in the way I've thought and acted most of my life. I've evolved, matured and changed some things about myself but I'm still very much like that young man who took charge of the situation even while being completely horrified by the obligation of keeping someone alive.
So what can I say about memory through this incident? First, that it doesn't always correlate to the record, that it is subjective, reflects one's character, and that it serves to provide significance to things that are currently significant to one. Memory provides perspective and crystalizes history with today's prism but doesn't change it unless we choose to manipulate the facts. In other words, rarely does memory contradict our thoughts today, and if it does, it is because internally we are still conflicted about the ways we see things, and more importantly the way we want to remember ourselves.
So how should we use memory and why should we even trust it? The answer is that we trust it to say much about our personal history. How we acted back then--interpreted today--describes one aspect of our life, and how we remember that action says something about how we see life. The fact we were in a time and place and that we took particular actions in of themselves serve as a "material culture" that can be examined to understand ourselves and the topics we write about. That we choose to remember some past events over others says much about our today but it also says much about our yesterday. Unless we simply invent an event, those we remember are those that engrained themselves for a reason. In the case of my remembered event it was its traumatic nature that made it so memorable.
My using in to tell my story is important not only because of what it says about me today but also about what was important to me when it happened. The incident, if told in detail, casts light on my relationships with the soldiers in the dispensary, with a Vietnamese nurse, with the sarge in charge, and says much about my views of the war and death itself. Since I made so many mistakes and the soldier ended up dying, the incident did not necessarily reveal me in a good light. In fact, the only time I shared the written version with some students their reaction was that I was insensitive to death because in trying to escape the trauma I focused on my date that day. It was not exactly what I wanted to hear, but regardless of what they thought the event was important in understanding both my experiences in war and what was fundamental to my character then and now.
We don't write history by memory but we can assess our view of life by those things we remember and by the way we remember them. I've always known that I have an exaggerated view of myself but I also hate the idea of inventing things simply to get a point across which is often a trait common in today's memoirs. So my view is that you can provide particular meaning to events in your past but you just can't invent situations, characters and dialogue--the most common "lie"--to write memoir. To do so devalues the actual experience, and creates a memory that did not exist. Facts, dates, characters, setting, etc. count and they count very much. How we organize them may have to do with what we want to say but the organization does not justify inventing a new set of characters, events or places. Or provide a meaning so foreign to the actual occurrence that it pushes it into the realm of make believe.
Invention is not memoir, it is fiction. And fiction is best written as such no matter what it might say about us. I did just that in my novel Can Tho where I was able to be a great guy, hero and incredibly romantic.
Just before I sent this out, I was quite sick with a stomach flu and I sat outside in my garage listening to "oldies music". As I did, I remembered how much a part of my life that music was and then realized I did not mention it in my memoir. Did I mischaracterized my life for the purpose of presenting myself in a particular way? No, I just chose one aspect of my life that is the most enduring and that says the most about me. I have no doubt that I will speak of my taste in music somewhere else. In fact, I've already began planning the next "life story" and the Beatles, Sam Cooke, Elvis, Martha and the...
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Letters from Garcia: Extreme Writing Polarizes & Does Little Good
Letters from Garcia: Extreme Writing Polarizes & Does Little Good: Recently I've been a little concern with the kind of extreme verbal fights that are now common in the internet and which often promote t...
Extreme Writing Polarizes & Does Little Good
Recently I've been a little concern with the kind of extreme verbal fights that are now common in the internet and which often promote themselves as discussions or intellectual critiques. Today, anyone, including people who should know better, write in extreme forms, accusing anyone with whom they disagree of somehow being sick, evil, or idiots. These accusations are usually misinformed and very counterproductive.
Now, let me state right off that I am not talking about expressing radical politics or even radical ideas. While those might be seen as extreme most "legitimate" radical ideas have a long history and have been created over a period of time. They might not work and they too might create polarization but for the most part they must be acknowledged to have come out of experience and much thought. But not so extreme writing, which in today's world is usually an accusation, followed by name calling, and then a refusal to entertain a different point of view. Most of the time, this extreme writing is written by frustrated individuals who search the internet for things they disagree with, and who then feel empowered because they can say things from a distance and win their arguments because they bring the argument into their facebook or tweeter space and thus control--including the power to delete--what is said. These people present themselves as rather enlightened and use (self)righteous indignation as a source of authority for their views.
Like calling out "fire" or asking "when did you stop abusing your spouse" the damage is done even before the debate has begun or the evidence has been presented. Neither side of the political divide has a monopoly on this kind of extreme writing but the reality is that most people who engage in this kind of communication rarely ever represent any kind of reasoned or thought out philosophy, political or otherwise.
I consider myself to have once been a strong proponent of the left and I have the history to prove it, but even at the height of my radicalism I did not buy into extreme speech, writing or action. I always saw extreme expression, and still do, as the work of people with small minds who cannot conjure up the words, sentences or actions that express a sane though possibly radical view point.
I remember being involved in a political campaign for a Chicano third-party that was running against entrenched interests. We were in a tight race when a fellow right out of law school joined our community and "our side". I remember driving with him one day to put up some political posters when he jumped out of the car to rip the posters of one of the political opponents. He also had a habit of making disparaging personal remarks about the opposition, and was always critical of those of us who didn't.
We had an underground newspaper which was well-respected in the community. In many ways it provided a more radical assessment of the political situation than was normal in that slightly conservative community, but people respected the well-written and insightful analysis, and because for the most part even our satire had its limits and was in good taste.
This fellow, a friend of some of the older activists, became critical because we did not engage in what he called "chingaderas" which is a vulgar terms for no-holds bar personal attacks.
When I see or hear extreme language I'm always reminded of him because in the end he proved divisive and helped destroyed what had taken us years to develop in terms of community support and respect, activist solidarity and because when the going got tough he simply dropped out and went on to a lucrative law practice, leaving behind a devastated group of community organizers who saw their hard-fought work destroyed by extreme rhetoric and behavior.
Today, we have individuals who are ready to attack anything that they don't agree with, and to make personal attacks even if they don't know the person. The sadder part of this is that even professionals that should know better have taken up this approach to discussion and debates in the public square. This type of attitude is legitimized by television networks that engage in the same type of extreme speech though they might have to clean up the language a bit to be on the air. On the right, you have Fox News and on the left you have MSNBC. Yet, neither of them are really a "radical" voice because they offer no real blueprint for a fairer society, only platitudes for their political side. With few exceptions they simply engage in politic and ideological bomb throwing, thus, we get no real conversations.
Intellectuals and writers should think about what they do when they enter the debate on one side or another. Given their abilities to speak or to write they should make sure they are not sucked into endless lamentations and personal attacks. Any good conservative or leftist should be able to see that this country's political debate is one among high paid elites who despite their rhetoric do very little for the guy and woman at the bottom of the barrel, and who offer no way to resolve our problems or bring our people together.
Being thoughtful and mature in the way we use our words does not mean we compromise on principles or that we are not willing to wage the kind of rhetorical war that sometimes is needed to make change. It simply means that we are open about how we see things, that we acknowledge that the opposition sometimes has some validity in what it says even if they say it in a misguided way or for selfish reasons. When conservatives say that all people receiving government aid are leechers or when liberals says that all poor people are desperately looking to get off welfare, they are both wrong. Those of us who actually live on the ground, who have normal people for friends, and who can walk and chew gum at the same time know that not all people leech but that there are some who do.
When I began writing I said that I would try to write from the ground up, that I would admit when my politics and ideals were wrong or did not work, and that I would articulate a message that people understood even if they disagreed with. I was going to allow life to actually complicate my writing and thinking and to teach me something I did not already know.
While often critical and sometimes petty I have also been willing to swallow my pride and admit publicly when I'm wrong because I have set out to be like the people I grew up admiring who knew how to own up to their mistakes. I also learned a great lesson while young and that was to listen to your elders, respect those who have more experience and training, but be willing to pushback when you think they are wrong. But first listen and respect. Today, many of the internet vipers are usually young who think they know much, or old who still think they are young intellectuals. Most are naïve, idealistic but with a critical strain and most are disappointingly quite self-righteous. They don't listen to arguments but only "detect" words and phrases that automatically trigger a response, and they are good at demonizing those with whom they disagree, calling them "idiots" or some other derogatory name.
The "scholarly and intellectual community" has helped create these creatures by becoming excessively "deconstructionist" and obsessively into conclusions even when the jury is still out on a matter. I'm reminded of the Chicano intellectual Octavio Romano who use to say that academic scholars were mostly "mercenaries" who marginalized people by constantly pointing out their flaws. They were the ones who often dichotomize people branding some of them good and others as not so good.
Don't get me wrong, I believe there is a lot of nonsense that is paraded around as in depth and serious thinking, and sometimes it is a temptation to push back, but to do so at every instance and immediately after reading every disagreeable post is to engage in what is an illusional discussion with no ground rules and too much personal capital involved. It is a snake pit where there is little possibility of escaping with dignity.
I lament that we cannot disagree without being disagreeable and that we cannot see beyond our ideologies, religion, personal quirks or politics. I am distraught by our unwillingness to listen, to asses an argument, and rebut the bad points while acknowledging that there are things that we have overlooked or have not dealt with adequately. I know that civility can often create asymmetric ground rules to the advantage of the status quo, but nonetheless a good argument can often expose the fallacy of those whose thinking is murky and unwise. We may not win the debate but our well chosen words can leave a testament to what is wrong with the other side's views that eventually others will pick up to carry on the battle.
The internet has the possibility of creating a real democratic public square where even the lowliest of us can participate, but so often it simply creates a forum for the most extreme, arrogant and unwise voices in our society.
Now, let me state right off that I am not talking about expressing radical politics or even radical ideas. While those might be seen as extreme most "legitimate" radical ideas have a long history and have been created over a period of time. They might not work and they too might create polarization but for the most part they must be acknowledged to have come out of experience and much thought. But not so extreme writing, which in today's world is usually an accusation, followed by name calling, and then a refusal to entertain a different point of view. Most of the time, this extreme writing is written by frustrated individuals who search the internet for things they disagree with, and who then feel empowered because they can say things from a distance and win their arguments because they bring the argument into their facebook or tweeter space and thus control--including the power to delete--what is said. These people present themselves as rather enlightened and use (self)righteous indignation as a source of authority for their views.
Like calling out "fire" or asking "when did you stop abusing your spouse" the damage is done even before the debate has begun or the evidence has been presented. Neither side of the political divide has a monopoly on this kind of extreme writing but the reality is that most people who engage in this kind of communication rarely ever represent any kind of reasoned or thought out philosophy, political or otherwise.
I consider myself to have once been a strong proponent of the left and I have the history to prove it, but even at the height of my radicalism I did not buy into extreme speech, writing or action. I always saw extreme expression, and still do, as the work of people with small minds who cannot conjure up the words, sentences or actions that express a sane though possibly radical view point.
I remember being involved in a political campaign for a Chicano third-party that was running against entrenched interests. We were in a tight race when a fellow right out of law school joined our community and "our side". I remember driving with him one day to put up some political posters when he jumped out of the car to rip the posters of one of the political opponents. He also had a habit of making disparaging personal remarks about the opposition, and was always critical of those of us who didn't.
We had an underground newspaper which was well-respected in the community. In many ways it provided a more radical assessment of the political situation than was normal in that slightly conservative community, but people respected the well-written and insightful analysis, and because for the most part even our satire had its limits and was in good taste.
This fellow, a friend of some of the older activists, became critical because we did not engage in what he called "chingaderas" which is a vulgar terms for no-holds bar personal attacks.
When I see or hear extreme language I'm always reminded of him because in the end he proved divisive and helped destroyed what had taken us years to develop in terms of community support and respect, activist solidarity and because when the going got tough he simply dropped out and went on to a lucrative law practice, leaving behind a devastated group of community organizers who saw their hard-fought work destroyed by extreme rhetoric and behavior.
Today, we have individuals who are ready to attack anything that they don't agree with, and to make personal attacks even if they don't know the person. The sadder part of this is that even professionals that should know better have taken up this approach to discussion and debates in the public square. This type of attitude is legitimized by television networks that engage in the same type of extreme speech though they might have to clean up the language a bit to be on the air. On the right, you have Fox News and on the left you have MSNBC. Yet, neither of them are really a "radical" voice because they offer no real blueprint for a fairer society, only platitudes for their political side. With few exceptions they simply engage in politic and ideological bomb throwing, thus, we get no real conversations.
Intellectuals and writers should think about what they do when they enter the debate on one side or another. Given their abilities to speak or to write they should make sure they are not sucked into endless lamentations and personal attacks. Any good conservative or leftist should be able to see that this country's political debate is one among high paid elites who despite their rhetoric do very little for the guy and woman at the bottom of the barrel, and who offer no way to resolve our problems or bring our people together.
Being thoughtful and mature in the way we use our words does not mean we compromise on principles or that we are not willing to wage the kind of rhetorical war that sometimes is needed to make change. It simply means that we are open about how we see things, that we acknowledge that the opposition sometimes has some validity in what it says even if they say it in a misguided way or for selfish reasons. When conservatives say that all people receiving government aid are leechers or when liberals says that all poor people are desperately looking to get off welfare, they are both wrong. Those of us who actually live on the ground, who have normal people for friends, and who can walk and chew gum at the same time know that not all people leech but that there are some who do.
When I began writing I said that I would try to write from the ground up, that I would admit when my politics and ideals were wrong or did not work, and that I would articulate a message that people understood even if they disagreed with. I was going to allow life to actually complicate my writing and thinking and to teach me something I did not already know.
While often critical and sometimes petty I have also been willing to swallow my pride and admit publicly when I'm wrong because I have set out to be like the people I grew up admiring who knew how to own up to their mistakes. I also learned a great lesson while young and that was to listen to your elders, respect those who have more experience and training, but be willing to pushback when you think they are wrong. But first listen and respect. Today, many of the internet vipers are usually young who think they know much, or old who still think they are young intellectuals. Most are naïve, idealistic but with a critical strain and most are disappointingly quite self-righteous. They don't listen to arguments but only "detect" words and phrases that automatically trigger a response, and they are good at demonizing those with whom they disagree, calling them "idiots" or some other derogatory name.
The "scholarly and intellectual community" has helped create these creatures by becoming excessively "deconstructionist" and obsessively into conclusions even when the jury is still out on a matter. I'm reminded of the Chicano intellectual Octavio Romano who use to say that academic scholars were mostly "mercenaries" who marginalized people by constantly pointing out their flaws. They were the ones who often dichotomize people branding some of them good and others as not so good.
Don't get me wrong, I believe there is a lot of nonsense that is paraded around as in depth and serious thinking, and sometimes it is a temptation to push back, but to do so at every instance and immediately after reading every disagreeable post is to engage in what is an illusional discussion with no ground rules and too much personal capital involved. It is a snake pit where there is little possibility of escaping with dignity.
I lament that we cannot disagree without being disagreeable and that we cannot see beyond our ideologies, religion, personal quirks or politics. I am distraught by our unwillingness to listen, to asses an argument, and rebut the bad points while acknowledging that there are things that we have overlooked or have not dealt with adequately. I know that civility can often create asymmetric ground rules to the advantage of the status quo, but nonetheless a good argument can often expose the fallacy of those whose thinking is murky and unwise. We may not win the debate but our well chosen words can leave a testament to what is wrong with the other side's views that eventually others will pick up to carry on the battle.
The internet has the possibility of creating a real democratic public square where even the lowliest of us can participate, but so often it simply creates a forum for the most extreme, arrogant and unwise voices in our society.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Writing About Faith While Chicano
Recently I was notified that my memoir/autobiography which is tentatively titled "A Journey Commenced: The Early Years of an Engaged Life" will soon be sent out to reviewers to see if makes it to the following stage. This is the second time that my manuscript makes it to this stage, though the earlier version was less about my faith and more about my growing up Chicano. The reviewers' recommendations were mixed though both thought it was a good book project. The one reviewer that did not fully recommend publication did so because he/she wanted me to extend the book to cover all of my life and to say more about my faith. I had no desire to add more pages to it, and I also wanted to follow the lead of great autobiographies in my field which are usually limited to the early life. I also hoped that the manuscript would be the first of a number of works dealing with some of my private thoughts and with other personal experiences.
At the time there had not yet been a "Mormon Moment", Mitt Romney had not gotten past the Republican primary, and the Mormon musical had yet to appear and break all kinds of attendance records on Broadway. Needless to say, the press was unsure of the book's reception and so they eventually rejected it. Three years later I met the same editor who had recommended refusal and she apologized. "I was green and did not know who you were", etc.. She asked me to resubmit but after some discussion with her decided that it was good that I had not gone with that particular press. At the end of the past year, however, someone recommended that I submit it to another press, one that was interested in Mormon studies. I hesitated because my work is not Mormon studies, but I was convinced--by others--that it was a legitimate work in the larger context of works on Mormons given that I'm a recognized scholar that happens to be Mormon.
By then, I had already decided to write more candidly about my faith which is foundational to my scholarship and my activism. While I had a specific chapter in my first manuscript on my beliefs I had mostly focused on my growing up years, Viet Nam and my involvement in the Chicano Movement. This time I simply chose to ignore what others said and to interjected discussion of my faith's role wherever it fit naturally while retaining much of the earlier manuscript. In a way, it was a response to one other reviewer--a friend--who had characterized the original manuscript as too "religious" after only a quick perusal. A born-again Christian, I believe she over-reacted as sometimes religious people do to what other's might think. The two reviewers that actually read it came to the opposite conclusion.
The only thing that the new editor wanted was a short discussion on how this might fit into Mormon studies. Easy enough, I assumed. But the reality is that it was much harder to write that part than I thought. I became conscious of the fact that the press was taking a gamble simply because this was a book that spoke to two different audiences. A middle ground is really missing. If it had been a Catholic/Chicano discussion, it might be easier to imagine an audience. But Mormon/Chicano is a stretch. At the same time Mormonism's intellectual thought has been lacking color since its beginning. Even when Mormon intellectuals engage the issues of race or ethnicity, with few exceptions, they write as outsiders and rarely ever get to the heart of how people of color themselves think and act. They also rarely have the credentials to deal with the topic.
Where I come in is that I am an endowed professor of Chicano studies, a life-long member, a former bishop (twice) and someone who has publicly engaged in the issues that affect Latinos in the church for over three decades. I also happen to be the only Chicano (in the political and cultural sense of the word) at BYU. So the gamble has been taken that the reviewers and hopefully then the readers will bridge the gap by realizing that Latinos are now the largest group within the church and are projected to possibly become the majority of Mormons worldwide.
As a scholar who has always sought to write from the bottom up, it has not been difficult to write about religion because religion is such a big part of those on the bottom. Sometimes churches are the only allies people down there have. At the same time, some people might see a Chicano Mormon as an oxymoron. While most people familiar with me or my work know I'm a Chicano Mormon few of them understand what that means. If I was lackadaisical in one or the other, or if I'd abandoned one because of the other, it would be easier to write about it. But I'm neither lackluster in my religion nor have I abandoned my activist scholarship. I am a product of both and to untangle their influence within me would entail laser-like surgery that would leave me a lifeless mess.
So, how do you speak to two audiences that are miles apart? At first I thought that would be the difficult part, but then I realized that the challenge came because I had never truly written about--outside my journals-- or articulated publicly the duality of my life experience and its foundational value to my principles. I had hinted at it here or there, made comments during a presentation or two but never fully engaged the subject with an audience outside a few friends.
As I began to write my second version of the manuscript I realized that I needed to make stops along the way to explain things that in the first version I did not have to because there was an assumption that those who read it had knowledge of what I wrote, or at least thought it important because I was a well-known Chicano historian. But when I began to engage a broader discussion of my life I knew that I had to explain to myself as much as to others, what my experiences growing up Mormon and Chicano really meant, and how they informed my actions, beliefs and biases. I discovered that "on the ground" experiences were often the things that gave meaning to my Chicanismo and Mormonismo. Given that I was experiencing things as one person and not two, both "ismos" were evolving together and becoming one. I realized that given situations caused one "ismo" to rise above the other but that the other remained close by.
Then last year I gave my first public lecture on being Mormon and Chicano. It was liberating to speak to two things dear to my heart and I was pleased with the reaction. In the audience was the head of BYU Church and Doctrine department and also a dear friend who directs the Center for Western Studies. They later asked me to give the plenary keynote to open the Mormon History Association conference this summer, probably one of the first nonMormon-Studies scholar to do such a thing. And I've just gotten asked to contribute an essay for a book on 21st century Mormonism with the suggestion that I speak about my participation in the Chicano civil rights movement.
All of this has caused me to look deeper inside of me, to uncover those hidden thoughts and actions, and to blend more tightly the experiences which have made me what I am. While all of my work has been informed by who I am, it is only recently that I have tried to understand how deep this intertwining goes. Now, rather that to speak to two audiences, I simply seek to speak to whomever listens. After all, most of the times audiences don't make writers or presenters, it is usually the writer who invites people to listen, read and discuss what they've heard or read and thus become an audience. And of course, the writing itself can transcend a given audiences--if it is any good--and create larger ones. My sense is that I've gotten a new opportunity and I've always made good on them. If the manuscript doesn't go anywhere it will still have been a good exercise in learning to write and think more clearly about who I am.
At the time there had not yet been a "Mormon Moment", Mitt Romney had not gotten past the Republican primary, and the Mormon musical had yet to appear and break all kinds of attendance records on Broadway. Needless to say, the press was unsure of the book's reception and so they eventually rejected it. Three years later I met the same editor who had recommended refusal and she apologized. "I was green and did not know who you were", etc.. She asked me to resubmit but after some discussion with her decided that it was good that I had not gone with that particular press. At the end of the past year, however, someone recommended that I submit it to another press, one that was interested in Mormon studies. I hesitated because my work is not Mormon studies, but I was convinced--by others--that it was a legitimate work in the larger context of works on Mormons given that I'm a recognized scholar that happens to be Mormon.
By then, I had already decided to write more candidly about my faith which is foundational to my scholarship and my activism. While I had a specific chapter in my first manuscript on my beliefs I had mostly focused on my growing up years, Viet Nam and my involvement in the Chicano Movement. This time I simply chose to ignore what others said and to interjected discussion of my faith's role wherever it fit naturally while retaining much of the earlier manuscript. In a way, it was a response to one other reviewer--a friend--who had characterized the original manuscript as too "religious" after only a quick perusal. A born-again Christian, I believe she over-reacted as sometimes religious people do to what other's might think. The two reviewers that actually read it came to the opposite conclusion.
The only thing that the new editor wanted was a short discussion on how this might fit into Mormon studies. Easy enough, I assumed. But the reality is that it was much harder to write that part than I thought. I became conscious of the fact that the press was taking a gamble simply because this was a book that spoke to two different audiences. A middle ground is really missing. If it had been a Catholic/Chicano discussion, it might be easier to imagine an audience. But Mormon/Chicano is a stretch. At the same time Mormonism's intellectual thought has been lacking color since its beginning. Even when Mormon intellectuals engage the issues of race or ethnicity, with few exceptions, they write as outsiders and rarely ever get to the heart of how people of color themselves think and act. They also rarely have the credentials to deal with the topic.
Where I come in is that I am an endowed professor of Chicano studies, a life-long member, a former bishop (twice) and someone who has publicly engaged in the issues that affect Latinos in the church for over three decades. I also happen to be the only Chicano (in the political and cultural sense of the word) at BYU. So the gamble has been taken that the reviewers and hopefully then the readers will bridge the gap by realizing that Latinos are now the largest group within the church and are projected to possibly become the majority of Mormons worldwide.
As a scholar who has always sought to write from the bottom up, it has not been difficult to write about religion because religion is such a big part of those on the bottom. Sometimes churches are the only allies people down there have. At the same time, some people might see a Chicano Mormon as an oxymoron. While most people familiar with me or my work know I'm a Chicano Mormon few of them understand what that means. If I was lackadaisical in one or the other, or if I'd abandoned one because of the other, it would be easier to write about it. But I'm neither lackluster in my religion nor have I abandoned my activist scholarship. I am a product of both and to untangle their influence within me would entail laser-like surgery that would leave me a lifeless mess.
So, how do you speak to two audiences that are miles apart? At first I thought that would be the difficult part, but then I realized that the challenge came because I had never truly written about--outside my journals-- or articulated publicly the duality of my life experience and its foundational value to my principles. I had hinted at it here or there, made comments during a presentation or two but never fully engaged the subject with an audience outside a few friends.
As I began to write my second version of the manuscript I realized that I needed to make stops along the way to explain things that in the first version I did not have to because there was an assumption that those who read it had knowledge of what I wrote, or at least thought it important because I was a well-known Chicano historian. But when I began to engage a broader discussion of my life I knew that I had to explain to myself as much as to others, what my experiences growing up Mormon and Chicano really meant, and how they informed my actions, beliefs and biases. I discovered that "on the ground" experiences were often the things that gave meaning to my Chicanismo and Mormonismo. Given that I was experiencing things as one person and not two, both "ismos" were evolving together and becoming one. I realized that given situations caused one "ismo" to rise above the other but that the other remained close by.
Then last year I gave my first public lecture on being Mormon and Chicano. It was liberating to speak to two things dear to my heart and I was pleased with the reaction. In the audience was the head of BYU Church and Doctrine department and also a dear friend who directs the Center for Western Studies. They later asked me to give the plenary keynote to open the Mormon History Association conference this summer, probably one of the first nonMormon-Studies scholar to do such a thing. And I've just gotten asked to contribute an essay for a book on 21st century Mormonism with the suggestion that I speak about my participation in the Chicano civil rights movement.
All of this has caused me to look deeper inside of me, to uncover those hidden thoughts and actions, and to blend more tightly the experiences which have made me what I am. While all of my work has been informed by who I am, it is only recently that I have tried to understand how deep this intertwining goes. Now, rather that to speak to two audiences, I simply seek to speak to whomever listens. After all, most of the times audiences don't make writers or presenters, it is usually the writer who invites people to listen, read and discuss what they've heard or read and thus become an audience. And of course, the writing itself can transcend a given audiences--if it is any good--and create larger ones. My sense is that I've gotten a new opportunity and I've always made good on them. If the manuscript doesn't go anywhere it will still have been a good exercise in learning to write and think more clearly about who I am.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Avoiding Fiction while Writing it for the Screen
It may seem ludicrous for me to try to avoid "fiction" while writing what is basically just fiction. As mentioned at the end of last year, I am writing a screenplay based on my recently released book When Mexicans Could Play Ball and I now realize why most feature films based on real stories are rarely ever real history, and why most screenwriter don't even try to write real history. It is extremely hard. All genres of fiction have their dynamics, structure and goals and rarely do they have much to do with telling a true story. Screenwriting like other fiction has too many wings to fly and there are too many temptations to soar that most writers simply take off. In some ways, like post-modern history, the point is to express an idea or to tell a story and how you tell it is often more important than the story's facts.
It is hard to write history in history while respecting the screenwriting parameters and the same holds true for doing it in literature, plays, poetry, documentary film and novels. One would think that an exciting true story would have all the elements to have it told as "it occurred". Surely I thought so when seeking to make a real great story, with great characters, subplots and morals into a screenplay. I knew that there were techniques to master and I needed to be conscious that the camera was an important partner, and that producers, directors and actors all become co-writers in a screenplay, but I did not fully realized that the structure of the story would be "challenged" so dramatically or that I would need "other" elements to tell a story that seemed to have all of them already.
While the writing of history has changed much in the last few decades--or at least theoretically it has--there is still a need of some kind for a narrative, characters, and information that provides a particular time and space. And most of those have to be somewhat tangible in that we know they existed and they occurred in prescribed moments and places. Modern historians often take gigantic leaps but even they know that their "histories" must be "traceable" even if its with an approach different from theirs. In other words, we can't write about something that happened if it didn't happen, nor claim that it was in New York when it was in Chicago. There are tangibles and they must be respected no matter how creative we get at. There are "tangibles" in a screenplay but the delivery is even more important in the writing than the story itself or the facts. A good screenplay has a great story to tell but it neither has to be true or real. The point to be made is the most important aspect and that is why film has at times been as voyeuristic as any other form of writing. Voyeuristic history has never really worked.
The biggest challenge with writing for film is that time and space work differently on the screen and there is little of both. Screenwriters have to "abridge" years of events and personalities, most of which are much more complicated than can be depicted on screen in less than three hours. In abridging this information, screenwriters are "forced" to take shortcuts, collapse events, and "invent" bridges, be they fictional characters, monologues, or events, to make sure not only that the action moves forward but that by the end of the film we get "somewhere". This is probably why there are so few movies based on "a true story" that can be classified as good history.
Will I be able to do it? At this stage I'm not sure. I recognize that all genres have to be written within the context of their own parameters, and that I work with less space and time than I do when I write history books or even a novel. That has to sink in, but at the same time if I'm party to anything that says "based on a true story" I have the strong urge to keep it "true". I have to decide which is more important, to keep the the story "true" in a metaphysical sense or to keep it "accurate" or factual. I imagine that I will have to negotiate the demands of both the genre and my standards as a historian. But then, the likelihood of keeping the story as I write it once the director, producer, screenwriters get it (fingers crossed) is probably pretty slim. So, I will keep trying to avoid as much fiction as I can while I write in what is a genre of fiction. Sounds silly? Probably is, but I am both a writer and a historian and the tension will always be there.
It is hard to write history in history while respecting the screenwriting parameters and the same holds true for doing it in literature, plays, poetry, documentary film and novels. One would think that an exciting true story would have all the elements to have it told as "it occurred". Surely I thought so when seeking to make a real great story, with great characters, subplots and morals into a screenplay. I knew that there were techniques to master and I needed to be conscious that the camera was an important partner, and that producers, directors and actors all become co-writers in a screenplay, but I did not fully realized that the structure of the story would be "challenged" so dramatically or that I would need "other" elements to tell a story that seemed to have all of them already.
While the writing of history has changed much in the last few decades--or at least theoretically it has--there is still a need of some kind for a narrative, characters, and information that provides a particular time and space. And most of those have to be somewhat tangible in that we know they existed and they occurred in prescribed moments and places. Modern historians often take gigantic leaps but even they know that their "histories" must be "traceable" even if its with an approach different from theirs. In other words, we can't write about something that happened if it didn't happen, nor claim that it was in New York when it was in Chicago. There are tangibles and they must be respected no matter how creative we get at. There are "tangibles" in a screenplay but the delivery is even more important in the writing than the story itself or the facts. A good screenplay has a great story to tell but it neither has to be true or real. The point to be made is the most important aspect and that is why film has at times been as voyeuristic as any other form of writing. Voyeuristic history has never really worked.
The biggest challenge with writing for film is that time and space work differently on the screen and there is little of both. Screenwriters have to "abridge" years of events and personalities, most of which are much more complicated than can be depicted on screen in less than three hours. In abridging this information, screenwriters are "forced" to take shortcuts, collapse events, and "invent" bridges, be they fictional characters, monologues, or events, to make sure not only that the action moves forward but that by the end of the film we get "somewhere". This is probably why there are so few movies based on "a true story" that can be classified as good history.
Will I be able to do it? At this stage I'm not sure. I recognize that all genres have to be written within the context of their own parameters, and that I work with less space and time than I do when I write history books or even a novel. That has to sink in, but at the same time if I'm party to anything that says "based on a true story" I have the strong urge to keep it "true". I have to decide which is more important, to keep the the story "true" in a metaphysical sense or to keep it "accurate" or factual. I imagine that I will have to negotiate the demands of both the genre and my standards as a historian. But then, the likelihood of keeping the story as I write it once the director, producer, screenwriters get it (fingers crossed) is probably pretty slim. So, I will keep trying to avoid as much fiction as I can while I write in what is a genre of fiction. Sounds silly? Probably is, but I am both a writer and a historian and the tension will always be there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)