>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> So I am delighted to
be here with you today
to celebrate an amazing
writer, Meg Medina.
Three words sum up Meg's book,
and they all start with F --
but not that F-word --
fierce, funny, and fabulous.
In her novels and picture
books Meg writes
about strong girls
in tough situations.
And her books are a
triumph of the spirit.
Critics call Meg's writing
heartfelt and truthful.
Meg sped into the children's
book world
with a lively picture book,
Tia Isa Wants a Car.
This book won the Ezra Jack
Keats New Writers Medal in 2012.
This auspicious debut was
followed by the novels Milagros:
Girl from Far Away and The
Girl Who Can Silence the Wind.
And she also has a picture
book coming out next year,
the delicious-sounding
Mango, Abuela, and Me.
Meg's novel Yaqui Delgado Wants
to Kick Your Ass was
published last year.
And it immediately found a huge
following for its wrenching,
realistic portrayal
of girl bullying.
But the main character, Piddy
Sanchez is more than a victim.
Meg's nuanced writing brings Piddy
and her larger world to vivid life.
The novel won the American
Library Association's Belpre Medal
and the Cybils Fiction Award and
was included on many, many top ten
and state readers' choice lists.
Meg herself is just like her
books: Fierce, funny, and fabulous.
When she isn't writing, Meg is
busy with community projects
that support girls, Latino
youth, and/or literacy.
These projects all speak deeply
to her Cuban-American roots.
This year she was named one of CNN's
ten visionary women in America.
So please join me in welcoming
this fantastic -- another F --
fantastic author, Meg Medina.
[ Applause ]
>> Meg Medina: Wow.
Buenas tardes.
I put myself on a ledge
this afternoon;
I didn't prepare anything
written, I just have bulleted lists
so that it would force
me to just talk.
I write books for kids
of all ages --
picture books, middle
grade, and young adult.
And people ask me about that a lot.
Like, "How is it that
you decide what kind
of book you're going to write?"
or "What do you like better about
writing picture book or YA, etc?"
And I always think of another
writer who I really admire,
Sandra Cisneros, who wrote
The House on Mango Street.
She also wrote a book called
Woman Hollering Creek.
And she has an essay in
there called Eleven.
And in it she says that inside
of us, no matter the age we are,
we're every age we were before also.
So inside this person that
you're look at right now,
there's 30-year-old Meg,
there's 25-year-old Meg,
there's 10-year-old Meg,
5-year-old Meg, 12-year-old Meg --
they're all in there and they
come out at different times.
When I was writing Yaqui
Delgado, high school Meg emerged.
I'm going to start, I guess, by
telling you how I start a book,
which is not with an
outline -- ever.
I only ever start with a character
and a rough idea of her age.
I write about young women because
I think young women are amazing.
And I love watching young women find
their voice and being resilient.
So I just follow them around.
I start sometimes with
an external problem.
So I'll say something like
okay, [inaudible] Sanchez, 17,
she lives in Queens
-- what's the problem?
And then I realize maybe
she's fallen in love
with the wrong person;
or her father's died;
or she can't stand her
mother; or in this case she's
in the crosshairs of a bully.
But that's only one tiny problem.
Think of your own life -- do
your problems come to you one
at a time in an orderly fashion?
Wouldn't that be nice?
No, they heap on when
you're least able to hold
onto them and sort them out.
And so I do that same mean thing
to my characters: I heap things on.
And as she's solving them, as I'm
following her around in the writing,
what she reveals to me is
what's really bothering her.
All of us have those places in our
experience that have been painful
or embarrassing, those moments
that are so uncomfortable
that when we think of them, we
do this -- we push them down,
we try not to think about them.
Guess what?
As a writer, that's
where your book is.
You have to go into that, you
have to roll up your sleeves
and really face the things that
made you deeply uncomfortable,
the times when you disappointed
your parents and yourself,
the times where people were
not there for you or the times
that you were not there for others.
And you have to tell that
story really honestly.
And that's pretty much how this
story of Yaqui Delgado Wants
to Kick Your Ass came about.
When I was 13 at this point
in the life of this book --
I've told this story a lot -- but
when I was 13 someone came up to me
in the schoolyard of junior high
school in '89 and said to me,
"So-and-so's going
to kick your ass."
And I said, "Who's that?"
I had no idea.
But I spent the next two years of
junior high school really afraid.
And what afraid looks like
when you're 13, 14, and 15,
it looks like a self-attack
because I stopped liking school;
I stopped going to school; I started
to hang out with people of my age
and older who were leading
me into ever-darker corners;
I started to smoke; I started to
let boys touch me; I just started
to become somebody that would have
made my mother's hair stand straight
on end.
And I survived that and
tried to forget that.
But years later, when I had
the chance to write a story
for an anthology about
girls at a turning point,
guess what memory kept
tapping me on the shoulder?
It wasn't a good turning point.
But life is full of, you know,
good turning points and lousy ones.
And so I decided that I was
going to tell that story.
It is a story about bullying,
but I hope that it's also a story
about more than bullying.
I didn't ever sit down and say, "You
know, bullying is a massive problem
in today's schools -- and it is --
so I think I'll write
a book about that."
That's not how I approached it.
I approached it that I
wanted to write this story
about [inaudible] -- Piddy -- a
girl who finds herself targeted
for no reason that she can think of.
And I wanted it to be about how
she gets herself out of this hole.
And the thing that I came to mostly
is that her culture, her family,
and her sense of self were the
only things that could save her.
So I thought I'd read you
three paragraphs from the book.
I think that will be enough to give
you a flavor if you want to hear.
This is the point that I'm
bringing you in on the book:
Somebody's just told her, "Yaqui
Delgado's going to kick your ass,"
and she has no idea who this is.
Sound familiar?
So here it is, we're
in the lunch room now.
Okay? "It's Darlene Jackson who
explains the trouble I'm really in.
She's a student aid
in the guidance office
and she knows all about
Yaqui Delgado.
'She was suspended last
year for fighting.'
We're in the lunch room so Darlene
has to shout for me to hear her.
'Twice.' I've only known
Darlene for a few weeks,
but already I can tell
she loves drama --
especially if she has
a front row seat
and it's somebody else's
catastrophe.
Her mother is one of those nosy PTA
types, too, so Darlene always seems
to know whose parents are getting
divorced, who failed last semester,
what teacher's going to be
fired at the end of the year.
Don't ask me how, but
that little spy even knew
that our science teacher's
husband had dumped her.
Before Miss O'Donnell got past
her swollen eyes to teach us
about Newton's laws last week,
the whole class knew her
love life is in shambles.
Darlene pushes up her glasses
and tells me the whole rumor,
'Yaqui Delgado hates you.
She says you're stuck
up for somebody
that just showed up
here out of nowhere.
And she wants to know who
the hell you think you are,
shaking your ass the way you do.'
Darlene lowers her voice,
'She even called you a skank.
Sorry.' I'm stunned.
'I shake my ass?'
Darlene studies her
egg salad sandwich
for a second, 'Definitely, yes.'
Interesting.
I've only had an ass for about
six months and now it seems
to have a mind of its own."
So that's what Piddy sounds like.
[Applause] That's what
she sounded like to me.
And so the story is about bullying.
It's about this bully who is
bullying her for something stupid
like you shake your ass or --
but you could be bullied
for everything, right?
Anybody's who's in high school can
tell you that, you can be bullied
for being unattractive or for being
too attractive; for having no money,
for having a lot of money; for
being very smart or not very smart.
It doesn't matter.
What matters is what makes
the bully uncomfortable --
that becomes the currency.
But I wrote a book about
a girl at a turning point
and I was writing about
culture as well.
Because one of the questions that
Piddy has is "Who am I as a Latina?"
She is not your stereotypical
Latina,
and we have a lot of stereotypes.
Look at TV.
Look at Modern Family.
I love that show, I
laugh at that show.
But if we're talking about
representations of Latinos,
what do we have a stereotype, right?
The enormously sexy Sofia Vergara.
Who is just another incarnation of
the incredibly sexy Charo of 1970s.
Does anybody remember her?
She used to go around on
the Merv Griffin show going
"Coochie, coochie."
Remember her?
Okay. All right.
So that's kind of a problem.
Right? We have that stereotype.
We have the stereotype of the
undocumented person sometimes.
We have the stereotype of
people with a certain skin tone,
with a certain hair color, with
a certain sound to their voice.
And they're all stereotypes.
Right? Because Latinos are
every kind of race and religion.
They come from many,
many different countries.
And Piddy is really trying
to answer the same question
that I had when I was 14.
You know, my mother
was really moral lady.
She wore, like -- just
like Ma in this novel --
she wore cotton underwear,
she wanted me to work hard,
she didn't want me to be
"una cualquiera in la calle,"
which means some "street
elf" or whatever.
But I was wondering when I was
a teenager, when I was looking
at all the tougher girls
in my junior high school --
which was a lot like Rita
Williams-Garcia's junior high school
-- like, we're both Latina.
Am I Latina enough?
What does it mean to be a Latina?
And I gave that same
question to [inaudible].
I write Latino families because
there's a lot of us but not
in books as it turns out.
I don't know if you can
see that I'm wearing the
"We Need Diverse Books" button.
If any of you have -- yay -- if
any of you followed that campaign,
I urge you to continue to follow
We Need Diverse Books and to ask
for them at Barnes and Noble,
at your indie bookstore,
at your library, and please,
look for books by authors --
not in Latinos case, not just
during Hispanic Heritage Month
which is now, right, but all year.
Because really, what we're
talking about is books that are
about the universal experience of
growing up just with another lens.
Another thing for to you think about
is that I just read in NBC Latino
that this is the first year
that in American public
schools the students will be --
a majority of the students
will be collectively minority,
meaning that if you put all of
the minorities student together
as a block, all of those
different ethnicities and so on,
we'll have more of them
than white students.
This is a first time
in public education.
And what I think is beautiful about
that is that it's an opportunity
for us to really encourage
literature that gets us talking
to each other about the American
story, that if you just turn around
and look at yourselves right now,
you can see that we're everything.
And we need stories from every point
of view to understand each other.
As I write, I think the
hardest thing in writing
for teenagers is writing honestly.
And the teens in the audience
can probably attest to this.
Here's a phrase I particularly love,
"This is the best time of your life.
You have no responsibilities.
You should be happy.
Wait until you get to be my age,
then it will really be hell."
You know, those kinds of things.
Okay. So I always think when
I hear these things, like,
"Do you not remember
what it actually is
to be 15 years old and
to be 16 years old?
To feel so isolated, to be
targeted, to be learning
about friendships, about love?
Do you not remember, in addition
to all of the stress at schools
and tests and everything
else put on kids?"
So when I write for teens,
there's a piece of me
because I have three children --
they're all in their 20s now --
there's this piece that
wants to sanitize things.
There's this little voice
inside me that says, "Oh,
don't let the character do that.
That would just --
such a bad decision.
No. She's going to do
this other thing instead."
Invariably when I do
that, it stinks.
Because what matters in a book --
especially when you're writing
a book for young people --
is that you want to honor the
people who are reading it.
You want them to come to these
pages and in those private moments
when they're interacting
with the story
and they're asking themselves,
"Who am I in this book?
What would I do in this situation?
Why is this sad?
How does this sound like
what's happening to me?"
like, you want them to feel
understood; you want them to feel
like there's nothing shameful about
the experience of being human,
and growing up, and
making a mistake.
So that's probably the biggest
fight I have inside of myself,
when I want to sanitize the teens.
The other thing on the other side
of that is that I try not to flatten
out characters into stereotypes.
For example, a lot of YA
novels parents are dead
or criminally stupid.
Right? And I think that there
are criminally stupid adults
in the lives of children
sometimes, but I also think
that there are wonderful adults
in the lives of children sometimes
and we should allow them to be
in these books and to exist.
I try not to flatten
out mean characters
into twirling mustache kind of kids
-- this ultra, ultra mean girl,
or the empty headed jock, etc.
-- because the people I know,
the teens that I look at
are really deeper than that.
There is no such thing
as the wonderful,
completely wonderful person.
As anybody knows, you know, it's as
easy for the A student teacher's pet
to be a bully as the really,
you know, typical-looking,
you know, thug kind of bully.
So I try to create characters that
are realistic to their experience.
So what did I learn
in writing Yaqui?
I wrote this story
sometimes remembering things
that I didn't want to remember.
I wrote this story sometimes
feeling very sad and very ashamed
for moments in my own life.
And then the book published
and out it went with this title
that I'm sure you'll
have questions about.
I learned that you should
never underestimate the power
of your lousy experiences
in life, people.
You can recycle this
into amazing joy.
I learned that this book offers
connection to kids invariably,
and it might happen here today.
I'll finish speaking and somebody
will come over to me and say,
"Meg, I remember my bully.
Her name was Sally
Johnson blah-blah-blah.
And she did this to me."
And they remember it,
like, into the last detail.
Ask yourself this: Do you
remember somebody who was horrible
to you when you were young?
You could probably think
of the exact moments
and the exact things they did.
And sometimes when those experiences
were very long-lasting and damaging,
I could still see on the person's
face the pain of that experience.
So it's an enormous honor for me
that this book gives kids a way
to think about themselves, gives
kids a way to feel connected
and less isolated about
their own situation.
I learned also to trust my editor,
who gave this book the title.
I did not have this as the
title, I can assure you.
I was living with my mother at
the time, who was 86 years old.
And the thought of saying, "Mom,
guess what my new book is called?"
I just couldn't see it.
And I worried for the librarians
also, like, how would they say
to their principal, "Mr. Johnson,
we'd like to invite the author
of Yaqui Delgado Wants
to Kick Your Ass."
You know, I just thought it would
be a problem, and it was sort of.
I did get disinvited to a school in
Virginia on the basis of the title.
It does happen that sometimes
librarians discreetly put the book
somewhere where the big,
glaring title won't offend.
But my editor asked
me this one question
and it shifted everything for me.
She said, "How many
years have passed
since someone said
that line to you?"
And I said, "Well, I was 13.
So, you know, it's like 40 years
have gone by almost that --
since someone said that to me."
She said, "Why do you remember it?"
I said, "Because it
was so aggressive.
Because it changed everything
for several years afterward.
Because I was frightened."
And she looked at me
and she said, "So, Meg,
who are you writing this book for?
Are you writing this
book for the PTA,
for the moms, for the librarians?
Or are you writing this book for
the girls who are too afraid to go
to the restroom during
the school day
because their Yaqui
Delgado is there?"
And I wrote for them.
So if I'm disinvited, if
people feel like the word
"ass" is crass, the
book's not for you.
The book's for the girls.
[ Applause ]
>> Meg Medina: Okay.
So [inaudible], here's
what I'm going to do.
I'm going to tell you two
things and then I'm going
to open the floor to questions.
So if you have questions for me, if
you could come to these microphones,
that would really help me hear you.
If you're in the situation that
you're being bullied, right,
you might want to check
out something called the
You Will Rise blogspot.
It's a collection of artwork, dance,
music, visual arts done by students
who have experienced bullying.
And on this site it's just sort of
an expression about the experience
and how you can sort
of rise above it.
I found it really moving.
I think art is an amazing,
untapped source.
So if you can, I'd go there.
And the other place is on the
PACER Anti-Bullying Foundation.
They have documents; they have
strategies; they list your rights;
they have all kinds of
helpful information for you
to really combat this
in your own life.
What I would say to anybody
who's in the crosshairs
of a bully right now is that
silence really isn't your friend
on this one.
And as frightening as it
is to confide something
that feels embarrassing, I
really urge you to do so.
It doesn't have to be your parent.
It doesn't have to
be the school dean.
But there's someone --
some adult, some friend,
some parent of a friend
-- who can help you.
Please speak up.
Okay. Preguntas -- questions.
Hi.
>> [Inaudible] oh, there you go.
Since we're in Washington, D.C.,
I figured this best place to ask:
What are your thoughts on Supreme
Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
and her "Wise Latina"
description of herself?
I think that some people
probably, you know,
made some remarks about it.
But just wanted to get your
perspective on her choice of words.
>> Meg Medina: You're going
to have to forgive me.
Say that again but
slower and louder for me.
>> Sure. Since we're in Washington,
D.C. I figured this would
be the best place to ask
about Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor and her choice
of her description
as a "Wise Latina."
Some people made some remarks
about her choice of words,
and I wanted to know what yours
are about her self-description.
>> Meg Medina: About Sonia
Sotomayor and the "Wise Latina"?
>> Yes.
>> Meg Medina: First of all, I feel
really connected to Sonia Sotomayor
because she struggles with
her Espanol sometimes.
Okay? So I was born here,
my family was born in --
everybody was born in Cuba.
Even my husband was born in
Cuba -- Javier -- who is here.
And my mother was always
worried I would say what we say
in Spanish, "un disparate," right?
That means, like, you translate
something in some crazy stupid way
and you sound completely
ignorant and not
like the fine person you're
supposed to be etc., etc.,
etc. So I heard Sonia
Sotomayor on Jorge Ramos' show.
And she was struggling with
some stuff, just the way I was.
And so I was, like, "If Sonia
Sotomayor has this problem,
I'm okay, too."
I think she is a wise Latina.
I love that she's here in my
time as a Supreme Court Justice,
as a counterbalance for the
face of all types of Latinas,
all different ways
of being a Latina.
Sure you can be sexy, you can be
J.Lo, sure you can write a book.
Sure you can be the
Supreme Court Justice.
I adore her.
I think she's wonderful.
>> So this is more of a comment.
I'm a middle school librarian.
And the year before Yaqui came
out, the same situation happened
at my school where a new girl came
in, was said that she was looking
at another girl's boyfriend,
got beaten up for it.
So the next year when
Yaqui came out,
I was so glad to be
able to buy five copies.
Book talked them in the class
where this girl's friends were.
I didn't see those books
for the next three months
because they all passed them around.
So I want to thank
you for writing books
that my kids can see themselves in.
And if you ever get a cancellation,
please come to my middle school.
We'd love to have you.
[ Foreign Language ]
>> Meg Medina: Thank you so much.
I really appreciate that comment.
Because when you're disinvited,
even though I thought it was a
silly reason to disinvite me --
the word "ass," you know, I just --
I mean, really, let's just
talk about this for a second.
What bully just stops at saying
"I'm going to kick your ass"?
It's really a much more
colorful description
of what's going to happen to you.
So I thought it was a silly thing,
but it was still embarrassing to me
because it felt like
what they were saying
and what they actually did say is
that I didn't reflect the moral
standards of the community and that
in some way what I had produced
was harmful to children.
I'm a mother.
I was a teacher for many years.
I write for children.
Children have been at the
center of my life always.
And so it was a very
painful experience for me.
It ended up working out because
it got the book more press.
But still, it was embarrassing.
So thank you very much
for letting me know.
I really appreciate it.
Yes?
>> First of all, thank
you for a terrific talk.
It was really illuminating
in many ways.
I'm really glad that you raised
the diverse book movement,
and I think that's really important.
Along with that discussion, though,
there's been some speculation
about whether writers should try
to write outside of their culture.
And I was wondering what
your thoughts are about this.
>> Meg Medina: You know, it's
such a slippery slope, isn't it?
And I think Gene did a
great job yesterday at --
Gene Luen Yang -- last
night at the gala.
He was saying to us that in
the first draft you're allowed
to have your misconceptions,
your stereotypes, and so on.
But what he doesn't want
to do is quote unquote
"forbid" people outside of
a particular ethnic group
from writing that ethnic group.
That's not a deal-breaker for me.
Laura Resau who wrote
The Queen of Water,
I think is an excellent
example of a woman
who isn't Latina writing
really powerfully
about a Latina experience.
I think it requires tact,
it requires research,
it requires respect.
And the respect is that you
offer this to beta readers --
to people who read
and give you response
so that you are getting it right.
You know, I can't sit here and say
that I recommend years and years
of research, although
that would be great.
But it does require
extra work on your part.
Please don't just slap on a name
like Maria and throw a pinata
and a few beans in there
and say, "We're good to go."
You know? Like, it's deeper.
It's deeper.
And that's what you want
to get right, the nuance
and the universality
of the experience.
>> Thank you.
>> So I actually unfortunately
have never heard
of your book until today.
Your title was what
caught my attention,
and so that's why I'm here.
And so I'm going to read it
even though I'm not a teenager.
But my question to you
is: Any idea what happened
to Yaqui Delgado in your life?
>> Meg Medina: Oh, you know what?
I've had fantasies [laughter]
and they all include prison.
>> And I think that as teenagers
we probably all have one story
of some type of bullying.
And personally, I would
just like to know
where they're at in their life now.
And I don't say it in a way
to, like, go back and rub it
in their face, "Look where I'm at
now," but it's just -- it just --
I've always thought where
are all these bullies
that were bullying us as teenagers?
So just wondering if you
know where Yaqui's at?
>> Meg Medina: I don't know what
happened to my Yaqui Delgado.
But as I said, I have fantasies.
And as a writer, the beautiful part
is that I have this weapon, right?
I can make anything happen
to anybody I want to.
So that's sort of cathartic.
The truth is that sometimes
bullies have qualities
that will serve them well in life:
They're charismatic sometimes,
they're able to get people
to do what they want.
So think business leaders, think,
you know, there are some places
where some of the characteristics
of an assertive person are
powerful ones and good ones.
The real question is: Can we
help kids develop conscience;
can we help kids develop empathy;
can we help them develop restraint
so that they have that pause between
what they want to say that in
that moment and how
it's going to land?
Because honestly, I wonder
if the girl who came up to me
in the schoolyard had any
idea that those five words
or whatever would change
my life the way they did.
>> Thank you.
>> Meg Medina: Okay.
I think we're on overtime, right?
Do I have time for
one more question?
I'm so sorry, but I'll
be here if you want
to ask me and we can talk then.
Muchisimas gracias.
It was so fun to be with you today.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us the loc.gov.