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 Read Quote
I’m a theological writer mistaken for a political writer. My theme is grace versus karma. Luis Alberto Urrea Read Quote
The stupidity of militarized fences between two worlds is a metaphor for all the things that divide us as human beings. Luis Alberto Urrea Read Quote
Poetry is how I feed the soul, and it’s how I fire the furnace of writing. Luis Alberto Urrea Read Quote
Many of us writers tour like a literary Bachman Turner Overdrive. We ain’t pretty, but we’re on the road. Many of us wish we were rock stars anyway. For my part, I live in my iPod. The musicians there are my constant companions on the road. Luis Alberto Urrea Read Quote
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 Read Quote
My dad looked like Errol Flynn, and I think my mom thought she was moving into a hacienda, but they lived on a dirt street in Tijuana, a house jammed with relatives, nobody speaking English. She didn’t know a word of Spanish. She grew up well and was appalled and humiliated, terrified of anyone ethnic. Luis Alberto Urrea Read Quote
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 Read Quote
Way back when I was working at the dump, I saw that, even when living among the trash, that some people would decide to choose joy in their lives. Luis Alberto Urrea Read Quote
