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Award winning poet and
author Santiago “Jimmy” Baca shared snippets of his
tragic life and how he went from being incarcerated in an
Arizona prison for drug charges to a bestselling author and
activist.
“I write, that is what I
do,” he said casually to an audience of 30 people at
Cleveland Public Library’s ‘Writers & Readers Series’ on
Sept. 24, 2011. He captivated their attention with humorous yet
heart-breaking anecdotes from his life and by reading segments
of his poetry.
Born in New Mexico to
Indo-Mexican parents, Baca’s life is tales of tragedies
interwoven into lessons that ooze from his prose. Thomas
Corrigan, president of the Library Board of Trustees, said
Baca’s writing, “Contribute to the understanding of mankind.”
Baca’s parents were
murdered when he was five, his grandmother blind from diabetes
and grandfather dying from cancer had to release custody of him
and his siblings to an orphanage. He would run away repeatedly
to his grandmother; “The beatings didn’t mean anything because I
wanted to be with my grandmother,” he said.
He shared his struggle to
belong and being despised by whites, and blacks for being
Mexican, “The Chicanos would beat me for not being Chicano
enough.” Bruised from multiple beatings he was intrigued to
find himself turning purple, and in the excitement ran to his
friend and proclaimed he too was turning black—“He told me: ‘You
can’t be beaten black, you have to be born black’ – It was the
worst thing anyone had ever said to me; I couldn’t escape the
one thing I wanted to be most, which was being me.”
Baca found the one tool
that transformed him while in jail—reading. He fought to
earn his GED and in prison penned his first book. Fellow inmates
turned to him to read and write their letters. An interaction
with a notoriously dangerous inmate first sparked the power of
education. “He said to me, ‘How can a Mexican know what’s in a
white man’s heart,’ and I realized language is the most powerful
weapon man can have.” He realized the only way to transform him
was through literacy, and he has taken this message across the
nation and world to libraries, universities, and prisons,
conducting workshops.
He has received numerous
awards—a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship, Pushcart
Prize, International Hispanic Heritage Award, Southwest Book
Award, and the Cornelius P. Turner GED Award.
He said librarians are his
role models, especially since they were the only professionals
to stand up to the injustice of the Patriot Act. A movie
based on Baca’s life is currently in the works. His documentary
‘Lost Voices’ which features his journey to prisons to teach
inmates the power of poetry is shown in high schools around the
nation.
He is always amazed and
grateful for the joy he has found among tremendous sorrow in his
life and said he prefers the life of isolation—“I like being
alone.”
Felton Thomas Jr.,
Director at CPL, said the library’s mission is to keep the
public engaged in learning and the vast collection of foreign
language and cultural literature is a vital treasure for
Clevelanders to enrich themselves. “The heart of our mission is
to inspire reading and bring the greatest writers here,” he
said. Thomas said the library is keeping up with the
revitalization of downtown Cleveland with renovations and
expansion of its own at the Louis Stokes branch.
To learn more about the
programs and authors scheduled for the Writers & Readers
Series visit: www.cpl.org
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