>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
[ Silence ]
>> Good morning, Buenos dies, por favor.
[ Silence ]   >> Por favor.
[ Speaking Spanish ]   >> Okay, we shall begin.
My name is Georgia Dorn and I am the Chief of the Hispanic Division
of the Library of Congress and we are cosponsoring this event
with the Center for the Book and we are so pleased
to again have the America's award here and Julie Kline
from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
I believe this is the fifteenth year that we have the award here
at the library and it is a great pleasure
to celebrate these wonderful books.
And of course, I especially want to welcome Julia Alvarez
and Carmen Tafolla and Magaly Morales.
And now I will turn it over to Anne Boni,
who will talk about the center for the book.
>> Anne: Thanks Georgia, welcome to the Library of Congress everyone.
It is a beautiful day and we are so glad you could come.
I am standing in today for John Cole,
the director of the Center for the Book.
He is in San Francisco on an emergency meeting with one
of our reading promotion partners.
So we are delighted to once again be here to host the America's Awards.
The Center for the Book was created in 1977 to stimulate public interest
in books, reading, libraries and literacy
and this is one of the ways we do that.
We get to host programs such as this where we bring authors
and readers and writers together.
We work with state centers throughout the United States,
every state has a state center, the BBC
and the US Virgin Islands is out latest state center.
We also work with reading promotion partners and national organizations,
non-profit organizations, government agencies and projects
that will promote reading and literacy.
We have a pivotal role in the National Book Festival,
organizing the author program and managing the pavilion of the states
where people from the state center coordinators, state librarians,
state humanities council staff come and pass out literature
and just talk with the thousands of people that come
through the pavilion each year.
We have been reaching out to young readers for a long time
through our letters about literature, reading
and writing contests and through River of Words art
More recent efforts at outreach include the creation of the position
of the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.
Ambassador is named by the librarian based on recommendations
from a selection committee made up of segments of the book community.
The first ambassador was John Cheska and he served from January 2008
until January 2010 when the second ambassador Catherine Patterson was
nominated and she is in the middle of her two year term.
The last new thing that we have done is we administer the young reader
center, which opened officially just a year ago,
but we have doubled the staff and doubled the space
and it has been one huge success.
And I know you are going over there, I think Georgette is taking you
over there following this meeting
and you will really be impressed I bet.
You can find additional information about any of these programs
on our new website, www.read.gov and that is about it for today.
If you want to talk after the show, I will be here
and thank you for coming.
And I would like now to introduce Julie Kline, Julie?
[ Applause ]   [ Silence ]
>> Julie: Want to say hello?   >> Andy: Hi.
>> Julie: Good morning.   This is Andy Kline, my son.
>> Andy: Hi.
>> I purposely put him on camera so I have this record
on the webcast every year of you know the fact that he can see
over the podium now, which is a huge thing.
Very nice to see you all here this morning, my name is Julie Kline.
I am at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee,
which is to help coordinate the America's Award for Children
and young adult books since its inception in yikes 1993.
And it is a pleasure to be here to recognize winners
of the 2010 America's Award.
The book What Can You Do with a Paleta, [speaking Spanish] written
by Carmen Tafolla and illustrated by Magaly Morales.
And also Julio Alvarez, thank you who is away
from the signing table now, Return to Sender.
I should say that What Can You Do with a Paleta was published
by Tricycle Press in 2009 and Return to Sender by Knopf Random House.
I think you have had a lot of action with these books this year already.
Magaly and Carmen are just coming
from the [speaking Spanish] Award ceremony,
where the book was recognized just this past week,
along with being I think at the Texas Book Festival.
Julio received the Pura Belpre Author's Award
from the American Library Association of [inaudible].
I didn't know that Oprah had a kid's reading list,
but apparently it is on there too.
And it has also been published in Spanish as a paperback
as Devolver al Remitente, which I do a lot
of educational outreach working with language teachers
and they will be thrilled to have one more novel
in Spanish they can be using with their classes.
And Carmen, Charlotte [inaudible] for writing with the book,
you may not know it but the first lady
of Wisconsin Jessica Doyle is selected as a Read
on Wisconsin book, What Can You Do with a Paleta, which is my state
so that is kind of nice, as well as being recognized in CCBC Choices
by the Cooperative Children's Book Center in Madison.
Stop, at least I don't have hold him up here, which I used to have to do.
A little background, on the consortium
of Latin American Studies Programs,
which sponsors the award class is an organization
that supports Latin American studies programs
at universities, teaching and outreach.
And the award as I said goes back to 1993 and we recognize
up to two awards each year for primary
and secondary reading levels, given in recognition of US published works
of fiction, poetry, folklore or selected non-fiction,
everything from picture books to books for young adults.
That authentically and engagingly portray Latin America,
the Caribbean or Latinos in the US.
By linking the Americas, the intent is
to reach beyond geographic borders as well as multi-cultural,
international boundaries focusing instead upon cultural heritages
within the hemisphere.
In determining the award, books are judged
for distinctive literary quality, cultural contextualization,
exceptional integration of text, illustration and design
and potential for classroom use, which I think is another twist
that makes this award just a little bit different.
We see a lot of use by the commended list by both classroom teachers,
as well as librarians using it for collection development.
I would like to if I could introduce the members
of the 2010 America's Committee who are here, Crystal Foster
in the back, if you want to stand up Crystal?
[ Applause ]
University of Arizona Sunnyside Unified School District.
Jamie Naidoo isn't here from University of Alabama
and he is the chairperson and please all of you remind me,
I promised to get his book signed.
Do not let me forget to get Jamie's book signed,
because he really wanted to be here, but he teaches a weekend class.
Ruth Quiroa from National Louis University in Illinois.
[ Applause ]
Also not with us from Madison Wisconsin,
Madison West High School now, Hollis Rudiger
and we do have three additional members of the committee all rolled
into one here, Elena Serapiglia with twins due in December.
[ Applause ]
And they look fairly well rested and calm now,
but this committee read we figured about 70 books and as you see
from the display it is everything
from picture books to young adult novels.
So they had a lot of evenings reading and quite a few Sundays
with Skype calls and conference calls to talk about the award.
And as happens every year for many of us, it is the first time
to actually meet face to face,
because the committee is spread across the country.
I did want to just mention, because I thought it would be fun
to do you may have noticed that one of the picture books back there is
on the childhood of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor,
she couldn't make it today, but I invited her.
She sent and you can see it, I will put it back there,
a really nice regrets letter, which I thought was a really nice touch.
I invited her, I thought it was just up the street
after all, the Supreme Court.   But she sent her regrets
and appreciated being invited to be with us today.
Please spend some time after the program looking at the display
of books from the full commended list at the back of the room.
We also have book sales by best boys and poets in the back,
which I think many of you have been taking advantage of,
but I still see high stacks so more sales would be welcome
and we will do some more book signing after the event.
Julia started signing early,
because she will be leaving on the early side.
One additional thing that we like to do with the award
when we can is schedule a school visit the day before,
Carmen got to spend time with about 60 to 70 third graders
at Bancroft Elementary School yesterday and it sounded
like it was a fun time; so thanks to Bancroft Elementary
and Michael McCory and the third graders.
Final list of thanks besides the committee and the Consortium
of Latin America's Studies Programs, the Hispanic division,
the Center for the Book and special events and public programs here
at the Library of Congress,
especially Paul Mesachie [assumed spelling], Cynthia Costa,
Georgette Dorn, John Cole and Anne Boni,
Random House for supporting Julia's travel,
my Center for Latin American Studies at UW Milwaukee, Best Boys
and Poets, Deborah Menkart [assumed spelling], Don Allen and Jasmine.
And something I am really pleased about that you will note
at the bottom of the program, did you know there were
so many Latin American studies programs at universities in the US?
I mention that class is supported by member institutions like ours
and this year we just had I believe it was 6 to 8 centers and I am going
to read them off so they know we gave them proper recognition
who purposely put extra money, most of them into US Department
of Education Title IV proposals to help this event.
And that includes the Ohio State University, Stanford University,
Tulane, Vanderbilt, Yale, University of Connecticut,
University of Florida and the University of New Mexico.
And I failed to mention, just because it is a rarity too,
we actually have a new member of the America's Committee
who will be starting with us.   When I said Tulane, I remembered
that Denise Waltring-Vargas [assumed spelling],
you will see in the next three years hopefully
at the awards ceremony just starting her term.
[ Applause ]
And I list out the different centers because in addition
to supporting Latin America studies at universities,
class is really devoted and many of our centers are
to educational outreach for K12 and post secondary audiences.
So we do a lot of teacher programs, we do a lot of teacher programs
to support the study of Latin America, the Caribbean and languages
in the classroom and I think this kind of support
from national centers is one more example of the kind of commitment
that is out there for Latin America studies and outreach.
Thank you very much and now I am going to introduce Crystal Foster.
[ Applause ]   [ Silence ]
>> Crystal: Good morning, I would like to share
with you just a journey through our commended book list.
So the America's book award commended list this year weaves
together a beautiful bravoso [assumed spelling]
of charming characters, history and its heroes,
cultural awareness, discovery and pride.
Our reading begins with flavor first from the Salvadorian soup
of [inaudible] and then with a poetic celebration of skin tone
from cinnamon to tamarind [assumed spelling].
We add in tradition with [inaudible] and Quinceanera celebration, as Lina
and Lola, two Mexican American girls joyfully learn
More celebrating joins in as we sing a familiar Christmas song
with some Latin zing and celebrate children everywhere
We cherish our abuellas, one who braids her granddaughter's hair
and learns with [Spanish], another who weaves life and lessons
into the stories she shares and another on the edge of crossing
over with angels with the help of butterflies,
birds and her family's love.
A lot of history is woven in this year as well, first as we learn
about the distinct cultures of this land before Europeans arrived
and challenges our own understandings of the past.
And then as our [Spanish] comforts, those searching for sanctuary
when humanity fell apart, first when Jews found refuge on the island
of Cuba and later with the journey
of Guatemalan immigrants moving north.
Next four historical figures join in,
Diego Rivera through a collection of beautiful poems telling the story
of his life and his art, a young [inaudible] Borhes,
as he falls in love with the written word, and a young Pele who falls
for football and grows up to be king of the game.
This year we are honored to include history in the making as we learn
about Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Judge to be selected
Three young men join in next,
Marcello who negotiates his father's world on the outside
and his own unique world within and Miguel and Eddie, both struggling
through their teenage years challenging the society's
expectations and figuring out who they are along the way.
And finally, our reading is complete with the youngest characters
of the Renee and Victoria sharing how they might seem different,
but show that we actually have more in common then we think,
especially when we take time to learn about each other.
And we have two honorary awards this year,
one for I Know the River Loves Me, by Maya Christina Gonzales,
who cannot be with us today.
And then one for Gringolandia, by Lyn Miller Lachmann,
if she could come up that would be wonderful.
Thank you.   [ Applause ]
>> Lyn: Thank you Crystal and thank you all for being here today
and giving me a chance to talk about Gringolandia.
When I speak to groups, particularly high school groups,
one of the questions they ask me is how long did it take you
to write this book.
And they are astounded when I look at them directly and say 22 years.
This book was 22 years in the making.
It started as a young adult contemporary novel
and by the time I finished it in 2007and it was accepted
by Sandy Taylor and Curbstone Press,
it had become a young adult crossover historical novel.
The story is about a young man, 17 year old Daniel Agular,
who is haunted by memories of his past in Chile.
He witnessed the midnight arrest and beating of his father
under the notorious Pinochet [assumed spelling] dictatorship.
After his father's arrest, he, his mother and his younger sister fled
to the United States to safety and he started to make a new life
in the United States with a rock band and a girlfriend
who is the daughter of a local minister.
His life changes when his father is suddenly released
and rejoins the family, but this is not the father Daniel remembers
from before he was arrested.
The new father is partially paralyzed and suffering
from post traumatic stress disorder of his experience and torture
in Pinoche's prison for five years.
And the stories about Daniel's struggle to reach his father,
to build a relationship with his father and it is a struggle
that brings him to understand who he is as a person as well.
Now over 22 years of writing the novel, I have many people to thank
and I would like to start with thanking all of my friends
from Chile and elsewhere in Latin America, my very good friends
who I lived with and worked with in the years during the 1980s
when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin where Gringolandia is mostly set.
We worked together to organize concerts
of musicians from Latin America.
We brought exile musicians from who were originally
from Chile living all over the world and struggling to make a life
for themselves in a foreign country and culture
and we brought them to perform.
We also brought musicians, a very interesting experience,
musicians who were working underground
in Chile during the dictatorship, braving death threats
and braving censorship in the banning of their music
and struggling to survive when it was very difficult for them
to find work, because they were prominent members of the opposition.
And I would like to as a gesture of artistic courtesy,
I would like to mention their names: Swanke Nilo [assumed spelling],
Eduardo Pueralta [assumed spelling], Isabella [inaudible], [inaudible]
and Isabel Potter, Anja Potter Arego, [inaudible].
I would like to thank Curbstone Press and my editor Sandy Taylor.
Sandy Taylor started Curbstone Press in 1975.
His first book that he published was called Santiago Poems,
a collection of poetry about the coup
and the dictatorship written by James Scully.
Gringolandia was the last book that he acquired before he passed away
in December 2007 and I would like to thank the staff and board members
of Curbstone Press that kept the book going
and continued the production and brought Gringolandia out
and marketed it and made sure the America's award committee could have
a review copy of the book despite the fact
that their leader was no longer with us.
And I would like to thank the staff of Northwestern University Press,
which has adopted Gringolandia and when the first printing sold
out brought the book back into print and will be keeping it in print
for use in both high schools and colleges and anyone who wants
to read it, young and old.
I would like to thank my readers of all ages,
because this is really a true crossover book and a lot of people
who have come to me to tell me how much they have appreciated are adult
readers, as well as teenagers.
I would like to thank the America's Award Committee
for recognizing Gringolandia and in general
for recognizing books published by small presses,
because it is very difficult for small press books to get the kind
of attention and regard that they deserve.
And given the economics of the publishing industry,
the brutal economics of the publishing industry,
small press books are going to be increasingly important in bringing
to light the experiences of people who are out of mainstream
and who have experienced silencing in the past.
I would like to thank the America's and congratulate the award winners,
Julia Alvarez, who I had the pleasure of meeting
at the [inaudible] celebration this past summer at ALA,
Magaly Morales and Carmen Tafolla.
And I would finally like to thank my family, my husband Richard
who is here and my two adult children who were not yet born
when I started writing Gringolandia.
[ Laughter] When I started writing this book, Chile was still
under a dictatorship following the CIA sponsored coup in 1973.
Today Chile is a thriving democracy with problems,
but with the dedication to confronting those problems
and working together as we saw 10 days ago with the remarkable rescue
of the 33 miners who were trapped underground for 70 days.
What happened in between the restoration
of that democracy was the result of the mostly non-violent struggle
and sacrifice of millions of Chileans, people like Daniel
and his father in Gringolandia, who showed how difficult it is
to get democracy back when a democracy is lost,
but how important, how necessary that struggle is and the fact
that it can be done and we all have to stand up to defend our rights,
to defend our freedoms and to defend the dignity
with which we treat each other and with
which our government should treat us.
So in the end, I feel like this award that I am so honored
to receive today is not really an award for me.
This is an award for the people of Chile, who have struggled
to bring back their democracy between 1973 and 1990.
Thank you very much.   [ Applause ]
[ Silence ]   >> Elena: Hi and good morning.
My name is Elena Serapiglia and I am one
of the 2010 selection committee members for the America's Award
and I absolutely love being part of this committee.
It has been really rewarding for me.
First I wanted to thank Yale University for providing me
with travel funds to come here to DC and also
to my employer Amity Regional School District No.
5 in Woodbridge, Connecticut
for giving me the school business day to travel here.
And I would love to thank also the America's award committee members,
who I really loved meeting, getting to know and talking with
and also the Library of Congress for doing such a fantastic job
at hosting this every year.
And of course to Julie Kline, who does a fantastic job as well.
More importantly, thanks to much to the authors and illustrators,
whose works have been so important and so useful in so many classrooms
and so many libraries throughout the country.
I got the fun job of getting to thank
and introduce both Carmen Tafolla and Magaly Morales
for their wonderful book What Can You do with a Paleta?
[ Speaking Spanish] So first a little bit about Carmen Tafolla,
who I met for about two seconds yesterday afternoon.
She is a native of San Antonio, Texas and earned a PhD
from the University of Texas in Austin.
She has written for both children and adults,
some happy children back there and she is a widely acclaimed author.
She has written both poetry and prose and again
for both adults and for children.
Two of her other books that I have had the wonderful experience
of reading, both because of the America's award are
That is Not Fair, Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice,
[speaking Spanish], which was published in 2008, which is a book
about Emma Tenayuca, a Latina civil rights leader from the 1930s,
which was widely acclaimed.
And then also What Can you do with a Rebozo, last year 2008,
excuse me from Tricycle Press, which was also widely recognized
and really well received.
And I should also add that What Can You Do with a Rebozo was
on the commended list for the 2009 America's award.
So thank you, those have been great to read.
And Magaly Morales was born in Veracruz, Mexico.
She has always been interested in the arts as I read from her website
and I had the quick pleasure of meeting her this morning as well.
Her illustrations are absolutely beautiful,
if you have seen any of her other works.
And again this year, as you can see, as we circle through again
if you look at Pi ata in a Pine tree, written by Pat Mora
and illustrated by Magaly Morales, this is a great version
of the 12 Days of Christmas, but with a little bit of Latin flavor
and again with beautiful illustrations.
Now when you take a wonderful author and a wonderful illustrator
and you put them together, you get what do you get?
You get their winning book.
You get What Can You Do with a Paleta?
Que Puedes hacer con una paleta,
which is absolutely beautifully illustrated with bright colors
with beautiful prose and it is just really fun for everybody to read.
I had a lot of fun reading it and I have to say my favorite part was
in the very back looking
at the different flavors that you can get, so.
A great book for younger children too.
It is great for their imagination, great for helping readers
and the fact that it is a bilingual book means that it is open
to even more people to read.   So thank you both for writing it.
Andy, does Andy want to help give out the awards?
Yes? Okay, so first Andy is going to give the award to Carmen Tafolla.
[ Applause ]   [ Silence ]
>> Carmen: Thank you very much.
I have to tell you that there is a phrase
in the Mayan Language [inaudible].
You are the other me, it means we are connected,
we may live in different barrios and in different bodies,
but the spirit inside of us is a piece
of the whole big spirit and it is all connected.
And that spirit follows us through life,
still the same inside no matter where we go or how we age.
Sometimes we see folks in a grand moment like this, a glorious event,
a book award or a publication event and there is applause
and there is wonderful gold seals on the books and it is easy to forget
where we were just before this, to forget that the award winning author
and the Ni o [inaudible] in the street are filled
with the same spirit and share the same glorious sense of [inaudible].
And I might just be dizzy, because I just came up through six floors
of one and three massive buildings in the largest library in the world,
but I can't help but think back
to the first time I dreamed of being in a library.
Because you see my barrio, my neighborhood had no library.
My barrio was not considered of the quality
of people that deserved a library.
I grew up in a neighborhood that was looked down upon by people
from other neighborhoods
and the schools were not called preferred school districts.
They were called the opposite of preferred.
They were considered the worst schools in the city,
because of who the children were that attended them.
And the police didn't want to come out to check out anything
in our neighborhood, because it was considered the rough side of town,
the dangerous side of town or as my papacita [assumed spelling] used
to say, well maybe it wouldn't be so dangerous if you guys came
out here once and awhile.
And there was no library on my side of town,
because as the city council said people there don't read,
they don't even know how to speak English.
But the summer I turned 11, the city finally put a library
on the west side of town, just two miles from our house
and it was filled with books.
Yes, they were old books and they were discarded books,
but they were books.
And I was to find out many, many years later that the books most
in demand and most popular
in that time period weren't even sent to the Westside library.
In fact, I never saw a copy of the Cat in the Hat
until I was an education major in college.
Where the Wild Things Are, I found out about in graduate school,
but still there were books there, dozens and dozens of books.
And for someone who dreamed of being a writer that was heaven.
I would check out five books at a time.
I would devour them rapidly and then I would have
to wait impatiently till the next week
when my mother would walk me back the two miles to the library.
I was so impatient that after I finished reading it once
or sometimes twice, I would go back and see if maybe that boring page,
you know there is always a boring page
in every book right behind the title page
and it has little numbers and figures and things.
It says stupid things like ISBN: 0-09, things like that.
I thought maybe there was something interesting there,
so I would go through that and try to examine it to see
if there was some [inaudible] in there that might be interesting.
There was nothing.
There was really nothing except that every one
of the books said Random House New York or Double Day New York
or Holt Reinhart New York.   And I began to think that if you had
to be a writer you had to come from New York.
You had to write about the kinds of things
that were written about in the books.
You had to write about the things that we saw in the contents
of the books, like about the Statute of Liberty and Central Park
and my barrio had no Central Park.
I tried to write my first novel and it went like this.
One day, while walking through the middle of Central Park, in New York,
and that was it, I was stuck.   That was the end of the novel,
because I had no clue what you could do in Central Park.
I had no clue what it looked like or what was there
or what you could write about.
And I said too bad, too bad I will never be a writer.
If only I had grown up in New York or some place in Portland,
instead of my old barrio in San Antonio,
Texas where there was no Central Park or park
at all at the end of the block.
At the end of my block, there was a Tortilla Ria
and the Tortilla Ria was a place
where an elderly woman sold corn tortillas for a penny each
and it wasn't even a store/store, it was a house
where the front room had a counter.
And she sold tortillas from that front counter.
And you would go in to order and this ancient woman would come
up to the counter, I had never seen anybody that old still breathing.
And the little kid from down the block would cut in line in front
of me slap seven pennies on the counter
and say siete tortillas por favor.   And the old lady would start
to count off the santaritos [assumed spelling] one by one, ohhh uno, dos.
So there was lots of time to stare and I stared at her face
and her face was brown and winkled and it had little squares,
little quadricos, it looked just like the charcoals do in the summer
when it hasn't rained for a long while and the puddles are cracked
into little brown squares.
That is exactly what her face looked like and I said I know why.
I know why she and the dirt look alike.
It is because they are the same age.
She is the oldest breathing creature on the planet.
That is what it is.
then the sun came in through the window and hit her hair
and her hair was so white that it looked like the rays from the sun
and the light from her hair were kind
of sending vibrations back and forth.
They were talking to each other.   They were saying
[ Speaking Spanish ]   They were talking to each other.
Her hair and the sun knew each other and I said I know why,
because they have the same birthday.   They are the same age.
She is the oldest breathing creature in the solar system.
And just then she was saying siete and I looked at her hands
and they didn't look like hands, they looked like they were made
out of the corn maza that she had been working all day long.
And I said you mean she is older than Mexican food,
no civilization would be possible anywhere
in the universe without Mexican food.
She must be the oldest breathing creature in the universe.
Yes that is what it is.
And then she took those seven pennies and put them in the pocket
of her [inaudible] and turned around very slowly to call
to the back of the house for help.
Because when you are the oldest breathing creature in the universe,
you deserve a little help.
And so she turned around very, very slowly and she yelled
to the back of the house, Mama.   [ Laughter ]
And her mother came out and helped her turn the tortillas
and I thought I had nothing to write about.
Well too bad, too bad maybe if I had grown up some place else,
but I grew up in this barrio, the non-preferred barrio of San Antonio,
the entire west side of San Antonio, the Mexican side of San Antonio.
And everyone outside of our barrio agreed that we lived
in a very bad neighborhood and that it was a great disadvantage
to live there, but we children didn't see our barrio that way.
We saw mama's sparkly eyed smile and daddy's big shoulders
that carried us outside to watch the stars at night.
We felt grandma's warm [inaudible]
and we smelled the toasty aroma of family suppers.
We saw the pretty little houses that didn't all look alike,
because one was yellow and one was pink, one was turquoise,
whatever color was on sale the month they needed to paint the house.
And the yards were growing thick and full of roses and [inaudible]
and spices and the people
of the neighborhood called everyone mahita [assumed spelling],
my daughter, my son.
And while pockets were frequently empty,
everyone's lives were full of dreams.
We were too poor to own anything more than our dreams.
So we held on to our dreams.
I would like to show you some photos from my barrio.
[ Child speaking ]   Thank you.
Because I would like you to see a little bit about we saw.
We had lots of cute little casitas, very cute and individual
with a lot of creativity.   [ Laughter ]
And many, many unique little gardens, no one standard
for how you make a garden grow and I was proud of my barrio,
because we had lots of family and extended family.
We had cousins and friends and cousins who were best friends.
We had grandmas and tias who provided lots
of abrossos [assumed spelling] and lots of homemade treats to eat.
And yes, some of the driveways were made out of dirt,
because most of our parents weren't being paid enough to afford
to lay pavement on the driveway and some of the streets were made
out of dirt, because the city council didn't think anybody
on our side of town had a car worth worrying about dents too.
There I am in my first social protest.
[ Laughter ]
The newspaper came out to take a picture,
because the neighbors were complaining
about the big [inaudible] in the middle of the street.
And so my mother said si, you can photograph her,
but let me go put her nice dress on first.
So in every picture of me that you see
that they had two minutes warning for, before I was six years old,
I am wearing the same nice dress that mama would pull
out for these events in the middle of the [inaudible].
And the school playgrounds were made out of dirt and even some
of the coolest houses were made out of adobe dirt and the kids lacked
out on that side of town, because so far
from the city council's attention, we could get away
with having chickens or a donkey in the backyard.
And while lots of folks called us dirty Mexicans,
we actually were told by our parents to stay clean and neat and dress
up for school pictures or for sixth grade graduations
and to always be polite to [inaudible].
Even when we knew they often punished us for speaking Spanish
for saying things like [inaudible][speaking Spanish].
If you see the kids in the back against the wall, they were there
for having done one of the worst things you could do to break the law
at our school and that was for to let a word of Spanish slip
out of their mouth during recess.
My middle school principal would later say to me as he overheard me
in the hallway speaking Spanish,
he was being nice, he didn't turn me in.
He just said to me you will never get
to high school speaking Spanish, but beyond that
[ Speaking Spanish ]   I knew that we had a treasure.
We had something inside our skin and hidden in the strength
and the beauty of our [inaudible] and our values and our relationships
with family and friends so after I got my Bachelor's and my masters
and eventually a PhD, I headed back to the barrio.
And I began to write about what I saw and knew was there regardless
of what others might criticize or make fun
of I thought there was a beauty to this barrio culture
and this barrio experience and my first book co-authored
with [inaudible], as you see here [inaudible].
I asked them to title it Get Your Tortillas together,
because we needed to collect what was ours and document what was ours
and get our tortillas together.
I knew that we had the [inaudible], incredible treasures in our culture
and our barrios and our [inaudible] and in their familias,
in the ten thousand primas we always seemed to have around
and in the way everybody eventually became part of the familia.
I knew that we had a history, our parents' primos
and our grandparents' primos had been here part of this country
for hundreds of years, crossing over to [inaudible], but still part
of what made this country.
And when people had excluded us from our schools,
we had made our own escuelitas [assumed spelling]
and preserved our own stories and traditions.
We were proud of who we were and we knew how to celebrate
and this was what I wanted to write about, about how a culture survives
against the odds, how people protect their cultural treasure
and everything from family gatherings to the [Spanish],
where the stories are told and they let us warm our imaginations.
So I continued to write about the things that were not being written
about and when I was in my thirties after having been published
in textbooks and poetry books and journals and anthologies and even
on city buses, but still not accepted quite
in the mainstream trade publishers,
I discovered that there was one piece of my work
that had been published more than anything else
and it was a little tiny 10 line poem.
It wasn't about New York.
It wasn't about Central Park or important world issues.
It was about an old woman and her mother in a tortilla shop
and I truly believed it was not successful just
because good writers need to come either from Central Park
or from a block with a tortillaria at the end of it.
It was successful, because it came from inside who I authentically was
and our best and our brightest and our most dynamic
and our most successful does come from who we authentically are,
each one of us, from the part of us that goes
so deep it touches the spirit of [inaudible].
So I kept writing more and I felt I needed to say something
about that beautiful barrio
and about just how much beauty is contained in any barrio
or any neighborhood where the parents or the grandparents
or the store cashier or the extended family members
of that neighborhood try to make the world a beautiful place
for that child.
And to surround the child with love and dreams and all
of the sensory delights of life,
a place where the big velvet roses bloom red and pink and fuchsia,
where the outdoor, where the only place sassy and sweet,
where the smell of crispy tacos or juicy tortillas floats
out of every window and where the paleta wagon rings its tinkly bell
and carries a treasure of icy paletas in every color
of the [inaudible] and where the children and their parents
and their barrio and their cultures are finally seen
for what they are, truly beautiful.   But I could not have shared
that without the transformative artistic magic
of Magaly Morales' illustrations or without the spiritual support
and unconditional enthusiasm of my life partner, Dr. [inaudible]
or without the significant consortium
of dedicated professionals and librarians and readers to make sure
that stories like this are noticed and recognized and get
onto the shelves of libraries and into the hands of children.
Gracias, to the members of my professional barrio,
my professional community, to each one of you in the [inaudible].
[ Applause ]   [ Silence ]
>> Okay next we would like to,
Andy is going to give the award to Magaly Morales.
[ Applause ]
>> Okay, thank you.   >> Your welcome.
>> Magaly: Good morning.
Well I am going to read this, because I am a little bit nervous
and I think my English, I am not proud of my English yet,
so it is easier for me to read it.
I will have like to not have to do it, but I have to I am sorry.
Well when I was a long time in [inaudible], I saw a movie on the TV
about a group of young people that make graffiti murals
and painted their names with very original letters
in the back of their black jackets.
I had seen graffiti before, but this was wonderful, the colors,
the shapes, the shadows, the lights.   I was fascinated.
There at my 11 years old, my passion
for the visual art was suddenly born.
I wanted to do that.
I didn't know how or did I know with what, but I had my color pencils
and my school notebook, what else could I need.
So I created the craziest letters that I could imagine,
everyone different with curves, with straight lines, one set of others,
separated, rounded, squared.
I never had made a gradient or combination of colors.
I didn't know anything about shadows and lights,
but remembering the image I started trying
to copy what I had seen in the movie.
I imitated going from dark green to light green, from red to orange
to yellow, black for the shadows, but what about the light
that they use for shines and spray raise.
How could I make it with my simple color pencils?
Yes sure with my mom's corrector, I had a scrawny ugly brush
that didn't discourage me.   I became very skilled painting,
fine streaks with the tips of the ugly brush.
I am sorry I don't have pictures for this part of my life.
I would have liked to show you.
I used to give them away to everybody, so I have any of them.
And now my artwork was ready.
Since that day, I painted my name in every imaginable way
and when I got tired of painting my name, I began making my friend's
and acquaintances' names.   I even had a waiting list.
The [inaudible] were those from friends
who wanted their name mixed with their lovers.
So this was one of my first drawings,
I am there with [inaudible] and our dog Tracy.
And that is another example for the first thing I started doing.
Shortly after, I started to imitate more complex images,
more elaborate designs with lights and shadows, gradients
and color mix, all of which are learned
by myself and by observation.
I also decided to make up my own ABCs, since I have a lot
of self made letters in all of the names I had made, I think I made
up three or four alphabets.
Now I know they are called fonts and are very well paid.
Although I never reached the [inaudible],
it was very hard work for a kid of my age.
This is another example of that time.
Besides [inaudible], I wanted to make for myself,
so I never made clothes, I invented some great things to wear,
like a couple of antennas made with a headset, wire,
cardboard and many colors.
While walking in the street, kids would point at me and beg for a pair
like mine and their mom always came to ask where I had purchased them.
During my whole adolescence, I inspired my activity with anything
that caught my imagination.
I also liked to write and I would make short stories based
on my daily experiences.   It seems like my mind never rested.
In school, I was only interested in creative activities.
My notebooks were another medium for creation.
I made the science with bar graphs and letters.
I would draw elaborate titles for each class subject.
On one corner of the note, I would add a drawing of the head
of the classmate in front of me or anything
to make more tolerable the class of mathematics or physics.
And of course, I always choose painting or artwork shows
or art [inaudible] as they would call them in Mexico.
In which by the way, I never obtained the best grades.
Some of my classmates that didn't draw very well got better grades
than I did.
Somehow my teachers had decided that I wasn't good enough in art,
even though I had to say I already had been polishing my skills
and practicing so much.
These are some other things that I used to do.
Later by my sister's advice, I decided to study graphic design,
a career previously unknown and very new in Mexico and even
so I had been practicing on my own for years.
It was there that I discovered that even more than design
that I loved illustrations and that even a creative,
crazy person like me had a place in this world.
I was about to finish the last year
of school I started a new romantic relationship and became a mom.
That is Rodrigo   [ Laughter ]
My oldest boy, unfortunately the relationship turned out abusive
and I went through a dark
and difficult period in which I lost my way.
I didn't know where I was and where I wanted to go.
When able to return to the school I loved,
I chose to study another career physical education
and began working teaching elementary school children.
And before I realized that I had left behind [inaudible] creating,
a few years later, my sister Julie immigrated to the United States
and started developing a [inaudible].
Whenever I would talk to her, she would tell me [inaudible].
Maggie, go paint and I would then sort of [inaudible].
Yes, I am coming with the tone of I don't know the reflect of my doubts.
But then one day as Julie was preparing to come and visit us
in Mexico, she called to tell me Maggie I am going
to Mexico in two months.
When I arrive, I want you to have some illustrations for me
to bring them back and show them to my agent.
She told me this so clear like she believed that I could do it,
maybe it was time for me to believe it too.
Finally after many years, I decided to start painting again.
I took a Mexican legend and with the inspiration illustrating
with my colored pencils, when my sister arrived,
she brought with her, her two first books.
She had published Harvesting [inaudible] and Just a Minute.
I opened the book and I was stunned, the painting, the composition,
the clean of the details.
No my illustration could not compare with hers, mine were horrible.
However to my surprise, she liked them and with a look of confidence,
she took them with her back to the USA.
This is one of them that the [inaudible].
We are working now in this book again with some changes.
This is the other one that I made at that time.
Two weeks later, Charlotte Sheeting [assumed spelling] her agent was
phoning me to ask me to be represented by her agency.
I continued little by little creating a new illustration
These are some of the first images I made for my portfolio.
And two years later, I write my first contract.
The book was Chavela and the Magic Bubble by Monica Brown.
After that a Pi ata in a Pine tree by Pat Mora and shortly
after What Can You do with a Paleta, by Carmen Tafolla.
Nevertheless by many circumstances,
la Paleta was the first one published.
This experience had been so healing that once I start painting
and creating again, I found my way in many other areas of my life too.
I took and mastered the Gestalt psychotherapy
and now I am practicing psychotherapies.
I started studying English again.
I came back to practice in the [inaudible] which I always love.
I became a professor and now I teach young adults
who will become PE teachers.
After many years of being a single mother, I meet a dreamy,
that was getting out of the room, but that is okay.
[ Laughter ]
I meet a dreamy, lovely, gallant, brave, smart, gorgeous man Isael
and together we are growing a beautiful family.
And here we are Rodrigo, Quetzally, Isael and I,
the Rodriquez Morales family.
When I started to use my creativity again, I left my shell and came
out to breathe the fresh air of this world.
Painting, drawing, color management
and the [inaudible] creation have always been a passion for me.
I am transforming the creative art.
It makes me get into other worlds and connect
with energies bigger than me.
But I never thought that this magical condition could coexist
with reality.
I never thought that my creations had any value.
I never thought that I could take it to a professional level.
I never thought that an agency
in the United States would represent me.
I never thought that a publisher would give me a contract.
I never thought that being Mexican
that I could publish out of my country.
And I never, never ever thought that someone would give me an award
for my drawings and paintings.
And I am very happy to be here with you today, with my husband,
my children, my wonderful mother, my talented sister, lovely Michelle
and my family that is not here, but are in spirit,
my talented sister Julie, my brother Alejandra
and my great father [inaudible].
My family is the [inaudible] of my work, the mother of my life
and the road for where my dreams, here we are all together.
From this root, a large family grows, it is all of you.
The inspiration is grown from the hurt of wanting to be [inaudible]
when an invisible thread connected to the wisdom
of every person in this life.
We together are the others of the beauty of this world.
Carmen, you are a very special woman.
I feel honored to have shared this with you.
And you predicted very well the coming
of all these events, do you remember?
Thanks to all of you, I hope we see each other again soon.
By the way, Julie has been now telling me Maggie [inaudible],
Maggie, go write.
So we will see what comes in the future, gracias.
[ Applause ]   [ Silence ]
>> Ruth: Good morning, thank you so much.
I was moved to tears, so forgive me.   Thank you so much.
My name is Ruth Quiroa and while we are setting this
up I will go ahead and get started.
My name is Ruth Quiroa and I am honored to have the opportunity
to introduce Julia Alvarez.
Julia is an author who is able to reach a wide range of readers
from kindergarten through adult and her works include novels, poetry,
realistic and historical fiction, picture books,
bilingual picture books,
intermediate chapter books and young adult novels.
Some of the books she has written for children and adults include:
The Secret, these are picture books, the Secret Footprints,
the Gift of Gracias, the Legend about the Gracia [assumed spelling],
the Best Gift of All, the Legend of [inaudible], [speaking Spanish].
She has also written two intermediate books for grades two
through seven with one more due in 2007 about the infamous Tia Lola.
We see a lot of humor in her work as well.
She has three young adults' novels, Before We Were Free,
Finding Miracles, and our focal book Return to Sender, published in 2009.
She has also written one adult novel that has embraced by young adults
and high school teachers alike, my daughter even read it last year,
Namely in the Time of Butterflies, published in 1994.
Julia's books have been published in at least 13 different languages,
in 17 countries, including 4 Spanish speaking countries in addition
to the Spanish language editions in the US, so namely Mexico, Spain,
Argentina and the Dominican Republic.
Julia has received numerous awards including the F. Scott Fitzgerald
award for outstanding achievement in American literature in 2009.
She was born in New York, but grew up in the Dominican Republic
until she was 10 years old, at which time her family escaped the dictator
and moved back to Brooklyn; although the return to the US was filled
with homesickness as reported in my research,
particularly for her cousins, Julia through herself into reading
and eventually into writing.
She completed her undergraduate degree at Millbury College
in Vermont and her Master's Degree
in Creative Writing at Syracuse University.
She then became an English professor at Middlebury College
and began publishing collections of poetry and essays.
Her first two novels, published
in the early 1990s titled How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent
and In the Time of Butterflies gained considerable recognition
and praise.
She then gave up her position at Middlebury in order
to devote herself to writing,
although the college offered her a post as writer and resident,
where she still remains today.
Julia's website reports that she enjoys opportunities
for occasional teaching, visiting classes, giving readings
and advising young writers at the college
and how fortunate those students are.
Julia's deep love for the Dominican Republic is evident in many
of her books and in her life work.
Some important themes in her books include identity and language
and issues around the assimilation to a new country.
Together with social justice, strong female protagonists, the importance
of bearing witness to the justices, such as that of the dictatorship
in the Dominican Republic or as experienced
by undocumented immigrants,
particularly farm laborers in the US.
In addition, Julia and her husband Bill own an organic coffee farm
in the Dominican Republic, which further exemplifies a commitment
to bring about positive change to the fruition of fair
and living wages for farmers and the protection of the environment
and traditional ways of farming.
During my research I also noticed that the art and illustrations
in several of her picture books
and a non-fiction book are produced by Dominican artists.
As for our book today, Return to Sender,
I listened to Julia share her thoughts about the seed
for its creation
on a teacher/student resource website titled teachingbooks.net
that is accessed by thousands of teachers
around the country, in the world probably.
Prior to this, I wondered how she was able to shift from writing books
which focus primarily on experiences related specifically
to her own cultural background and the Dominican Republic
to European American farmers
and undocumented Mexican farmers in Vermont.
I learned that the local public schools
in her homestead Vermont began to seek her assistance with translation
for children of Mexican migrant workers.
These workers came to the US because they were unable to profit
from their farms in Mexico and now milk cow
for many Vermont dairy farms,
a service without which small farmers would not survive,
given the high costs of farming and the lack of workers in the region.
Julia noted that Mexicans living in these regions
of Vermont were highly visible because there were
so few living there in that state.
Because of this, they were afraid to leave the farms and often had
to live underground lives.
The children of Mexican heritage in these schools
and their European American classmates were experiencing high
levels of confusion about these issues,
while the Latino children also lived
in constant fear of government raids.
In particular, they were worried about the possible arrests
and deportation of their parents.
That they would go home from school to an empty house
or to see their parents taken away in front of their eyes.
All of these experiences led to the creation of Return to Sender,
which was titled after the actual name of INS raids.
Our text Return to Sender is narrated in alternating points
of view from the perspectives of 11 year old Tyler,
whose father was injured in a dairy farm accident and Marie,
whose family is illegal and works as migrant workers on this farm.
The initial uncomfortable interdependence
between the two families gives way to mutual understandings
and respect, tempered by the pain and fear
that both feel toward the potential political ramifications
of their situations, as well as the stress of the disappearance
of Marie's mother during her attempt to return to the US
by crossing the Mexican border.
Notably, all of the characters in this compelling book must face real
and important humanistic issues related to undocumented immigration,
which serve as challenges to the efficacy and morality
of US immigration policies and laws.
As such, they are forced to stretch and make choices leading
to new growth and insights.
This book provides leaders the opportunity to see through the eyes
of two young people deeply touched by these economic
and political issues, as well as personal tragedies
that are everyday realities for so many students in the US.
Other themes in this book are presented symbolically
such as the images of swallows traveling between countries
and going beyond physical, political,
cultural and linguistic barriers.
This book is a particularly important book for teachers,
who may not have a strong background knowledge in these areas,
but whose school districts
and classrooms are experiencing ever increasing numbers
of Latino students each year.
Therefore, on behalf of the review committee for the America's Awards
for Children and Young Adult literature, I am most pleased
to present Julia Alvarez to you today as the author
of this timely book for our students, teachers and parents.
Thank you.   [ Applause ]
Where is our presenter, when you come forward.
>> This right.   [ Inaudible talking ]
>> Come right over here.   >> Thank you.
[ Applause ]   [ Silence ]
>> What is the title of yours?   >> Return to Sender.
>> Julia: Oh I don't have any pictures for you.
>> That is fine.
>> Julia: I didn't know that we could do this,
but I so enjoyed both of the presentations.
They were wonderful.   Thank you both.
So Magaly, I know English and I still wrote a speech,
because I get nervous when I get here
and I have been writing books probably before you were born,
but I still get nervous.
And actually the only show and tell that I have is that every time I get
up to give a speech, I have my father's handkerchief
that he gave me once to wipe my tears.
So this reminds me that sometimes it can be tears of happiness.
So that is my show and tell that when I get up to give a speech
and I don't have it with me, I just get even more scared.
So anyhow, I want to thank the National Consortium
for Latin American Studies program's class
for co-awarding my novel Return to Sender,
the America's Award for 2010.
I am one of four sisters, the first three of us born 11 months apart.
We were known as the triplets in the Dominican Republic.
So I always feel more comfortable sharing the stage with sisters,
so it is a special pleasure to share this award and this moment
with Carmen and Magaly and Lyn, who are Magaly and Carmen being honored
for their glorious picture book What Can You Do with a Paleta?
Additionally, Magaly I have shared several prizes
with your own sister Judy Morales, so it is wonderful
to be here with you and Carmen.
And I have to be careful when I pick up my award
that I don't pick yours up.   I don't know if Judy told you,
when we won the Pura Belpre award together,
I got home and she got home.
She had my medal and I had her medal.
[ Laughter ]   So we had to exchange them.
Also I would like to give class a belated thank you
for awarding my novel Before We Were Free, the America's Award in 2002.
I was not here, I was not able to come that year to the ceremony.
So I am doubly grateful that I could be now with you in person.
Your consortium has been consistently strong
and very important supporters to me and other authors.
I am very grateful to be with you and honored to be here.
So that is the good news, very good news indeed when one
of your books wins a prize.
But there is a bad side to winning, you have to write a speech.
Believe it or not, I dread speech writing.
As the day for this award ceremony approached, I emailed Julie Kline
and confessed that speeches are the hardest things to write,
exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.
Julie, very nicely wrote back, would you like to tell a story instead.
So Julie, where are you, I am taking you up on your invitation.
And this morning, I want to tell you a story about Return to Sender
that I have kept to myself.
At first, I thought oh come on, why rain not just
on someone else's parade, but on your own parade.
But as I have seen the craziness mounting
in this fall election season and I am so glad that a week from now
that there will be a rally right here in Washington DC
to restore sanity, I just couldn't keep quiet anymore.
So here is a story I have long wanted to tell
about writing Return to Sender.
First some background, some of which Ruth gave you,
so I am going to race through it.
The novel is based very much on my own experiences working
with undocumented Mexican migrant families in Vermont.
In 1988 when I accepted a job at Middlebury College, I used to joke
that I was moving to the Latino compromised state of Vermont.
In the year 2000, there were 5,004 people
of Hispanic origin in all of Vermont.
In fact, we are the state with the smallest Latino population.
But in the last 10 years, we have seen a big change
in the state specifically on our Vermont dairy farms.
I don't have to tell you that small farms are in trouble with the price
of milk at an all time low,
many dairy farmers are going out of business.
Vermont has lost more than 250 dairy farms in the past five years
and they are going under, they are going under this year
at a rate of about six a month.
Many farmers can't afford to hire the help they need or even
if they could, they can't find local workers willing
to do the round the clock hard job of milking at the dairy herd.
24/7 every 8 to 10 hours, cows have to be milked, so more
and more dairy farmers have resorted to hiring Mexican migrant workers.
Many of these workers are undocumented, some come with wives
and children and their families continue to grow here,
so that come of the children are Mexican nationals
and some are USA citizens.   I know it is an old story elsewhere.
In many Border States, urban centers in the Midwest, but this story got
to our dairy state of Vermont about 10 years ago.
So our Latino compromised state has begun to change.
Now just in my county, Addison County,
we have 500 undocumented Mexican workers and their families.
As you can imagine, this influx
of Spanish speakers is something the state wasn't prepared for.
So often, I get calls from the open door clinic or the hospital,
the schools to come translate for doctors, teachers, administrators
and my local farmer neighbors.
I have spent the most time in our local elementary school working
with Vermont farm kids and the New Mexicans and Mexican Americans,
Mexican American arrivals.
Out of these experiences came the genesis
of my novel, Return to Sender.
It is told from two points of view, alternating chapters.
One is Marie, a young Mexican girl 11 going on 12, whose family comes
to work on a Vermont dairy farm that is on the brink of being sold.
Marie was born in Mexico,
but her two little sisters were born in the states.
The farm where her fathers
and uncles work is owned by Tyler's family.
Tyler, the farm boy, also 11 going on 12 is my other point of view.
And as for the title Return to Sender, as you heard it refers not
to the post office stamp on letters with incorrect addresses,
but to the dragnet operation carried out by the Department
of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs enforcement in 2006,
in which work places were raided and undocumented workers seized
and sent back to their home countries.
Under operation Return to Sender farms in Vermont were raided,
the undocumented worker seized
and in many cases the children were left behind
with farm families not knowing what to do and then calling Julia.
[ Laughter ]   Like I know.
You don't have to be an experienced story teller to figure out that
in the course of a story about Mexican workers on a Vermont farm,
there will probably be a raid by the Department
of Homeland Securities agents.
Actually, the branch that does the raiding is known as ICE,
wonderful detail for a writer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
So when I got to that point in writing the novel
where the raid was happening, I had to find out from the Department
of Homeland Security's ICE office what to do with the children
of these undocumented Mexican migrant workers once their parents
had been taken away.
So as any good writer knows, you have to research the details,
even in a fictional story.   So I called up the DHS, Department
of Homeland Security, pretty clueless I know.
I called their 800 number and was soon lost
in the entrails of voice mails.
Finally I decided hey I live in Vermont,
a small hands on rural state, I will just call our Department
of Homeland Security office up in St. Albans.
I ended up talking to a Mr. Michael Gilhoolie [assumed spelling],
northeast regional spokesman for immigration and customs enforcement.
After giving me the third degree, who was I,
why did I need this information, who was my employer,
he told me he couldn't reveal that information to me.
I needed to go to the FOIA website,
the Freedom of Information Act website and inform myself
on what kind of information I had a right to ask for.
Then go on the DHS website and download an application that I had
to submit in order to be evaluated and approved
to learn what I needed to know.
I had three little characters waiting in the middle of the novel
for what was going to happen then.
Writers and by extension their fictional characters have
to be patient, persistent souls.
So again, I went online and this time I found myself lost
in the labyrinth website of the Freedom
of Information Act, FOIA website.   One afternoon when I was fed up,
I decided to call the Vermont DHS office again,
hoping that Mr. Gilhoolie had taken the day off
and that I would get someone else
who would just give me the information I needed.
No luck, I got Mr. Gilhoolie again and this time he wanted the name
of my supervisor at the college.
Earlier I had told Mr. Gilhoolie that I worked at Middlebury College
to make myself sound less threatening and more substantial,
but really I was calling him in my capacity as a self employed writer.
Now Mr. Gilhoolie threatened to call and report me to my supervisor
for continuing to disregard the procedures of the DHS
and the laws of the land.
I told Mr. Gilhoolie that I was just asking
for simple straight forward information
that any citizen had a right to know.
After we both poured a little more smoke from our nostrils fuming,
he finally shunted me to Bobby Fay Ferguson, Director Office
of Multimedia at the National Office in Washington DC of the DHS.
I should email her my appeal.
So here is the email that I sent to her.
November 1, 2007, Dear Bobby Ferguson, Mike Gilhoolie
of our Vermont ICE office gave me your email in hopes
that you might be able to answer a question I have
as I have not found anyone who can give me this information.
I am working on a young adult novel about a farm family,
whose legal Mexican migrant workers are deported.
However in the novel, these farmers have three children some
of whom were born in the USA and are therefore citizens.
My question is, part of the plot is what happens to those kids?
What would be the procedure?
I need to know in order to make the plot credible and realistic.
I got an email reply with two attachments.
November 1, 2007, Dear Ms. Alvarez,
I am so glad that Mr. Michael Gilhoolie provided you
with my email address so that you will have the correct information
regarding how DHS works with requests such as yours.
This office serves as the liaison to movies, television, books,
videos and other multimedia type projects.
I have attached a copy of the DHS management directive number 2231,
which explains the department's policy and a questionnaire
to be completed and returned to this office.
We will review your request once the completed questionnaire is returned.
Sincerely, Bobby Fay Ferguson, Director Office of Multimedia, DHS.
So the attachment, Directive 2231 consisted
of 10 single spaced pages outlining the policies of the Department
of Homeland Security that one must abide by in order
to qualify to receive information.
After reading it, I had to fill out a questionnaire
and among the questions was provide a script, treatment,
story or outline of the project in sufficient detail
to allow the Department to evaluate the project's objectives
and how DHS is necessary for the project.
Another, identify the distributor or publisher or other outlet,
where and when will the project be released or published,
etc. And then this was the clincher at the end,
please include a statement that the requester has read and will comply
with all of the principles and provisions of the Department
of Homeland Security Management Directive 2231.
Lyn mentioned that we have to protect democracy to keep it alive,
you don't have to go to Latin America, we are in it.
So where are we 1950, Joe McCarthy world.
So here is the letter I wrote back to dear Ms. Ferguson.
Ms. Ferguson, I am writing a young adult novel.
The parents are deported.   What would be the procedure?
I am just summarizing.
This is not a security matter or an investigative piece to make me jump
through so many hoops to find out something so ridiculously simple,
information that should just be available to all
of us informed citizens is bizarre and troubling.
As for this statement that I have
to sign before they could release any information,
as a writer my responsibility is to tell the truth according
to my characters, not sign on to allow any organization to censor
or compromise what I write.
So at this point, I withdraw my request,
but I must say I am discouraged by this kind of response by agencies
who I support as a taxpayer.
But beyond that I am troubled with what this means for this nation,
as I have always felt that the best protection
for a free country is an informed citizenry.
So what did I end up doing?
I have these three characters stuck in the middle of the novel.
I felt as if I had wandered into a back room of our democracy
that I wouldn't have believed existed, had it not happen to me.
I was stunned, distracted, couldn't get back to work.
It looked like my three characters were going to be permanently stuck
in the middle of an abandoned novel.
But I knew those three characters represented real kids
that I had worked with at our local schools,
kids all around the United States and I was a citizen like the rest
of you suddenly face to face with something very rotten and not
in the state of Denmark, but here.
You let a little thing like this go and another little freedom here
and another there and one day you find yourself
in a country you don't want to live in,
like the [inaudible] dictatorship in the Dominican Republic
that we left behind in 1960 to come to this country.
Finally I found a way to get the information that I needed.
Someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew someone
at the ICE office agreed to talk to me if I would keep his name
and details of our meeting confidential.
I went back to my characters and tried to stay focused on my novel.
I knew finishing the book would be my act of protest,
but I also promised myself that one day when I got the chance
to tell readers this story, I would do so, lucky you.
If this were an isolated incident of the narrowing
down of our American civil liberties,
I would just think it was one writer's bad luck
with a bureaucracy, but all around us and we were talking about Arizona
at breakfast this morning, all around us,
especially in this fall election season we are seeing the closing
down of the American imagination.
Immigration reform, especially is in a sorry state, raids , deportation,
Draconian laws, like those in Arizona and in Freeman Nebraska,
my husband's home state are really making some of us question what kind
of nation we are living in that forgets its own immigrant past.
This is truly the civil rights struggle of our times,
one we are engaged in as a nation.
Your America's awards are an important vote of confidence
in our literature at a critical moment in our history.
More than about my book or Carmen's or Magaly's, Lyn's book,
the America's awards are your way of saying yes we do,
we need all of these stories
to help us understand what is happening to us as a nation.
Your awards are a way of calling attention to stories
and story tellers that might otherwise be deported
from the shelves of American literature.
From the bottom of my heart and [inaudible],
I thank you for keeping alive the great democracy
of reading the wounded life of the imagination, the dwelling
and possibility, which is what Emily Dickenson claimed are poems
and stories allowed us all to do.
And please get out and vote and remember this story
when you are wondering who to vote for,
what kind of country you want us all to be living in.
So thank you.   [ Applause ]
[ Silence ]
>> I have described this event every year usually just picking one
word heartfelt.
For several months, it consists of emails and papers and forms
and phone calls and arrangements and logistics and hotels.
And then all of you come together in one room and it is a lovely thing.
So I thank you all for being a part of today and congratulations again
to Magaly, Carmen, Julia.
I wanted to comment where two of our members
of our committee Crystal Foster from Arizona and Jamie Naidoo,
University of Alabama, this was their last year on the committee.
They have been wonderful voices to have in
and among the many perspectives we have in determining the awards
and commended lists every year.   So thank you once again.
Hollis Rettiger, also not here was a student of Julia's
at Middlebury College, so she was also very disappointed not
to be with us today.
In addition to Denise, next year we have a new, another new member
of the committee Hope Crandall,
who is a school librarian Washington Elementary in Oregon.
So we will have some new faces for you next time around.
Just please enjoy the pastry and the coffee is still there.
We don't want to waste.   Thank you all for coming.
I also wanted to let you know there is some other literature back there.
Lyn brought some handouts back there you may want to look at
and also the [inaudible] luna play tonight from Venezuela.
They have their postcards as well.   Thank you all for being with us.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.