Ana Castillo Quotes
When I hear that Jennifer Lopez is such a role model for Latinas, on the one hand I respect her for her business sense and I respect her for her ambition. But she's in the entertainment world. She's done it on her looks and very specifically on her anatomy. Madonna is also considered a great businesswoman and so is Yoko Ono. I feel if I had a young daughter right now, I would feel a little discouraged if that was my daughter's primary role model for success and for young people, for Latinas and Latinos.
Castillo, Ana. Interview by Frederick Luis Aldama. Spilling the Beans in Chicanolandia: Conversations with Writers and Artists. University of Texas Press, 2006.
Ana Castillo is a Chicana novelist, poet, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Considered one of the leading voices in Chicana experience, Castillo is known for her experimental style as a Latina novelist. Her works offer pungent and passionate socio-political comment that is based on established oral and literary traditions. Castillo's interest in race and gender issues can be traced throughout her writing career. Her novel Sapogonia was a 1990 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and her text So Far from God was a 1993 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is the editor of La Tolteca, an arts and literary magazine. Castillo held the first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University. She has attained a number of awards including a 1987 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for her first novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters, a Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry and in 1998 Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago.
