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" The stupidity of militarized fences between two worlds is a metaphor for all the things that divide us as human beings. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

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" A lot of our family was undocumented. My mom and dad were both super conservative. My dad had a green card; my mom was an Eisenhower Republican who did not approve of all the 'illegal people.' "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" The concept of a literature of witness - of bearing witness - has embedded in it the need for action. One must not simply hide in the shadows and type; one must also stand in the light. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" Writing went from being a calling to being a job. Business ruined things. It became like making sausages in a sausage factory. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I've been told not to tour down in Mexico. I am too well-known now. The kidnappers may think that my publisher will pay a ransom. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" People think of me as a political writer, but I don't think of myself that way. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I often say poetry was my first love. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" It became really important to me if I was going to write 'Hummingbird's Daughter' to try to do honor to women. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" We want to ascribe a kind of tragic grimness to people, but people are funny. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" To me, writing is prayer. I pray all the time. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" The French-Cajun culture is similar to mine - they're Catholic, they play accordions, and they eat hot chiles. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I'm interested in the eternal soul. That's what I write about. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" When I was a little boy in Tijuana, it was wonderland. We left when I was probably four - I was dying of tuberculosis. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I don't like to see people get kicked around. You have to stand up for them. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I saw 'The War Wagon' with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, but it was dubbed into German. And it had Japanese subtitles and then this little strip with some Spanish words, and I've never forgotten that weird image. It was so magical and funky. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" Spanish was my first language. Honestly, I learned to first speak in Spanish, not English, because my poor mother had to go to San Diego every day to work and then come back. And she would come home when I was an infant long after I was asleep. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I used to approach writing like a football game. If I went out there and aggressively saw more, I'd know more, and I'd capture more, and I'd write better. Hut, hut, hut: First down and haiku! "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" With a name like Luis Alberto Urrea, it's political no matter what I do. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I love books with titles like, 'How Do You Spank a Porcupine?,' 'Arnie, the Darling Starling,' or 'The Bat in My Pocket.' "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I'm a theological writer mistaken for a political writer. My theme is grace versus karma. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I used to work with a relief group that took care of the people in the dump. We took them food and water and medicine and built homes and took them to church services, whatever was needed. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" A great Chicano forebear of mine in writing is Rolando Hinojosa-Smith. He was writing good border mysteries for Chicano readers back in the '80s and '90s. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I am actually a 'Seven Samurai' fan. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I missed the Wilco phenom while busy obsessing over rock en Espanol. So imagine my surprise when I found myself at O'Hare getting on a plane with my Chi-town homeboy, Jeff Tweedy. I loved the guy right away and loved his family. How odd to know somebody before you listen to them. I don't know if that's bad or good. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" When I was doing missionary work when I was younger, which started this obsession of mine with the literature of witness, I was a translator for a missionary group, and I spent years in a Tijuana dump. People were really thrown by the fact that the Mexican poor, many of them pureblood indigenous people, seemed happy. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

Indigenous People

" I have often said I come from a family of unreliable narrators. I tend to believe their struggles with racism, identity, nationality do dovetail with my motivation to write. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I believe God is a poet; every religion in our history was made of poems and songs, and not a few of them had books attached. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I was torn between the Americanness my mom wanted for me and the Mexicanness my father wanted - they were wrestling for cultural influence over me. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" Masculinity is kind of a toxic curse, isn't it? The expectations of it were hard on me. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" I'm always trying to, using literature, subvert people's responses. "

Luis Alberto Urrea

" We're all funny. Humor unites us. "

Luis Alberto Urrea