The National Book Festival is an annual literary festival held in Washington, D.C. in the United States ; it is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress , and was founded by Laura Bush and James H. Billington in 2001.
140-720: In 1995, the First Lady of Texas Laura Bush (a librarian ) founded the Texas Book Festival with Mary Margaret Farabee and support of Robert S. Martin , then Director and Librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and other volunteers. The goal of the festival was to honor Texas authors, promote the joys of reading, and benefit the state's public libraries. The first Texas Book Festival took place in November 1996. As First Lady of
280-414: A USA Today / CBS / Gallup poll recorded her approval rating at 82 percent and disapproval at 13 percent. That places Bush as one of the most popular first ladies. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, "She is more popular, and more welcome, in many parts of the country than the president ... In races where the moderates are in the most trouble, Laura Bush is the one who can do
420-581: A BA in English, to work as an administrative assistant. Prior to this job, she worked in Pilsen and Little Village, predominately Mexican neighborhoods, in Chicago, and teaching high school dropouts at Latino Youth High School . In addition to being an author and poet, Cisneros has held various academic and teaching positions. In 1978, after finishing her MFA degree, she taught former high-school dropouts at
560-769: A Master of Science degree in Library Science from the University of Texas at Austin . She was soon employed as a librarian at the Kashmere Gardens Branch at the Houston Public Library . The following year, she moved back to Austin and took another job as a librarian in the Austin Independent School District school Dawson Elementary until 1977. She reflected on her employment experiences to
700-500: A July 2004 interview, Teresa Heinz , wife of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry , said, "Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job—I mean, since she's been grown up." Heinz later apologized for the remark, stating that she had forgotten that Laura Bush was a teacher and librarian prior to her marriage. Bush stated that she forgave her while insisting her apology
840-466: A Mexican" and "Woman Hollering Creek", the female protagonists grapple with these "Mexican icons of sexuality and motherhood that, internalized, seem to impose on them a limited and even negative definition of their own identities as women". The protagonist in "Never Marry a Mexican" is haunted by the myth of la Malinche, who is considered a whore and a traitor, and defies la Malinche's passive sexuality with her own aggressive one. In "Woman Hollering Creek"
980-550: A campaign speech." She soon relented and gave her first stump speech for him in 1978 on the courthouse steps in Muleshoe, Texas . After narrowly winning the primary , he lost the general election. Bush attended the inauguration of her father-in-law George H. W. Bush as Ronald Reagan 's vice-president in January 1981, after Reagan won the 1980 United States presidential election . She credited her father-in-law's election to
1120-426: A centuries-old Mexican/Southwestern folktale, is "a proud young girl [who] marries above her station and is so enraged when her husband takes a mistress of his own class that she drowns their children in the river". She dies grief-stricken by the edge of the river after she is unable to retrieve her children and it is claimed that she can be heard wailing for them in the sound of the wind and water. These entities, from
1260-601: A college recruiter and as an arts administrator. Cisneros currently resides in San Miguel de Allende , a city in central Mexico, but for years, she lived and wrote in San Antonio, Texas, in her briefly controversial "Mexican-pink" home, with "many creatures little and large." In 1990, when Pilar E. Rodríguez Aranda asked Cisneros, in an interview for the Americas Review, why she has never married or started
1400-503: A distinctive rhythm and attitude. Cisneros's fiction comes in various forms—as novels, poems, and short stories—by which she challenges both social conventions, with her "celebratory breaking of sexual taboos and trespassing across the restrictions that limit the lives and experiences of Chicanas", and literary ones, with her "bold experimentation with literary voice and her development of a hybrid form that weaves poetry into prose". Published in 1991, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories
1540-449: A family, Cisneros replied, "I've never seen a marriage that is as happy as my living alone. My writing is my child, and I don't want anything to come between us." She has elaborated, elsewhere, that she enjoys living alone, because it gives her time to think and write. In the introduction to the third edition of Gloria E. Anzaldúa 's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza , Cisneros wrote: "It's why I moved from Illinois to Texas. So that
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#17327811027361680-591: A group of Anglo-American boys while awaiting her friend Sally at the fairground. She feels stricken and powerless after this, but above all betrayed; not only by Sally, who was not there for her, but "by all the women who ever failed to contradict the romantic mythology of love and sex". Cisneros illustrates how this romantic mythology, fueled by popular culture, is often at odds with reality in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories , where multiple references to romantic telenovelas obsessively watched by
1820-633: A group of children in 2003, saying, "I worked as a teacher and librarian and I learned how important reading is in school and in life." Bush met her husband in July 1977 when mutual friends Joe and Jan O'Neill invited them to a backyard barbecue at their home. He proposed to her at the end of September and they were married on November 5 of that year, the day after her 31st birthday, at the First United Methodist Church in Midland,
1960-501: A little red dress can save lives." She has undertaken a signature personal element of traveling around the country and talking to women at hospital and community events featuring the experiences of women who live, or had lived, with the condition. This outreach was credited with directly saving the life of at least one woman who went to the hospital after experiencing symptoms of a heart attack after hearing her message. With her predecessor, former First Lady Nancy Reagan , Bush dedicated
2100-416: A lot about the possibility for Chicano literature to become more widely recognized. Cisneros spoke of her success and what it meant for Chicana literature, in an interview on National Public Radio on 19 September 1991: I think I can't be happy if I'm the only one that's getting published by Random House when I know there are such magnificent writers – both Latinos and Latinas, both Chicanos and Chicanas – in
2240-616: A lot of difficult challenges right now in the United States ;... All of those decisions that the President has to make surrounding each one of these very difficult challenges are hard. They're hard decisions to make. And of course some people are unhappy about what some of those decisions are. But I think people know that he is doing what he thinks is right for the United States, that he's doing what he – especially in
2380-477: A mainstream publisher. In 1989, The House on Mango Street , which was originally published by the small Hispanic publishing company Arte Público Press , was reissued in a second edition by Vintage Press ; and in 1991, Woman Hollering Creek was published by Random House . As Ganz observes, previously, only male Chicano authors had successfully made the crossover from smaller publishers. That Cisneros had garnered enough attention to be taken on by Vintage Press said
2520-437: A narrator to mediate between the characters and the reader; they are instead composed of textual fragments or conversations "overheard" by the reader. For example, "Little Miracles, Kept Promises" is composed of fictional notes asking for the blessings of patron saints, and "The Marlboro Man" transcribes a gossiping telephone conversation between two female characters. Works by Cisneros can appear simple at first reading, but this
2660-898: A narrow definition of womanhood and a subservient position to men. A recurrent theme in Cisneros's work is the triad of figures that writer and theorist Gloria Anzaldúa has referred to as "Our Mothers": the Virgen de Guadalupe , La Malinche and La Llorona . These symbolic figures are of great importance to identity politics and popular culture in Mexico and the southwest United States, and have been used, argues theorist Norma Alarcón , as reference points "for controlling, interpreting, or visualizing women" in Mexican-American culture. Many theorists, including Jacqueline Doyle, Jean Wyatt, Emma Perez and Cordelia Candelaria , have argued that
2800-456: A negotiation with fixed gender ideals is at least possible". Even though Cisneros does not explicitly locate her stories and novels on the Mexico-U.S. border, Sadowski-Smith identifies the concept as perhaps Cisneros's most salient theme due to the constant border crossings, both real and metaphorical, of characters in all of her works. The House on Mango Street takes place in Chicago where
2940-472: A pediatric reading program; and Ready to Read, an early childhood educational program. She raised money for public libraries through her establishment of the Texas Book Festival , in 1995. She established the First Lady's Family Literacy Initiative, which encouraged families to read together. Bush further established "Rainbow Rooms" across the state, in an effort to provide emergency services for neglected or abused children. Through this, she promoted
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#17327811027363080-487: A president to deliver the weekly presidential radio address. She used the opportunity to discuss the plight of women in Afghanistan leading up to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan , saying "The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists." Her husband was originally to give the address but he felt that she should do it; she later recalled, "At that moment, it was not that I found my voice. Instead, it
3220-713: A result of her many trips abroad where she witnessed how literacy benefited children in poorer nations. On July 28, 2008, she visited Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina , where she met with superintendent Connie Backlund and the Friends of Carl Sandburg Home's President Linda Holt as well as various students from Boys and Girls Club of Henderson County, North Carolina . On October 3, 2008, she visited Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum where she praised her works such as Farmer Boy , These Happy Golden Years and Little House on
3360-554: A room of his/her own for the process of emotional, intellectual and spiritual introspection." Cisneros founded the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation in 1999. Named in memory of her father, the foundation "has awarded over $ 75,500 to writers born in Texas, writing about Texas, or living in Texas since 2007". Its intention is to honor Cisneros's father's memory by showcasing writers who are as proud of their craft as Alfredo
3500-501: A single formal event, Laura worked for women's and children's causes including health, education, and literacy . She implemented four major initiatives: Take Time For Kids, an awareness campaign to educate parents and caregivers on parenting; family literacy, through cooperation with the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy , she urged Texas communities to establish family literacy programs; Reach Out and Read,
3640-561: A small workshop that took place in Cisneros's kitchen. The Macondo Writers Workshop , which has since become an annual event, brings together writers "working on geographic, cultural, economic, social and spiritual borders" and has grown from 15 participants to over 120 participants in the first 9 years. Currently working out of Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, the Macondo Foundation makes awards such as
3780-430: A way that does not interrupt the flow of the text. She enjoys manipulating the two languages, creating new expressions in English by literally translating Spanish phrases. In the same book, Cisneros writes: "And at the next full moon, I gave light, Tía Chucha holding up our handsome, strong-lunged boy." Previous sentences inform the reader that a baby is being born, but only a Spanish speaker will notice that "I gave light"
3920-421: A writing style that was purposely opposite that of her classmates, realizing that instead of being something to be ashamed of, her own cultural environment was a source of inspiration. From then on, she would write of her "neighbors, the people [she] saw, the poverty that the women had gone through." Cisneros says of this moment: So to me it began there, and that's when I intentionally started writing about all
4060-825: Is queer , the latter of which is a theme she alludes to in her work. At a ceremony in September 2016 was awarded a 2015 National Medal of Arts . In 2019, PEN America awarded her the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. In 2023, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation named her as the year's winner of the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award . Sandra Cisneros received fellowships from
4200-420: Is a collection of twenty-two short stories that form a collage of narrative techniques, each serving to engage and affect the reader in a different way. Cisneros alternates between first person, third person, and stream-of-consciousness narrative modes, and ranges from brief impressionistic vignettes to longer event-driven stories, and from highly poetic language to brutally frank realist language. Some stories lack
4340-455: Is a literal translation of the Spanish "dí a luz" which means "I gave birth." Cisneros joins other Hispanic-American US writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa , Piri Thomas , Giannina Braschi , Gustavo Pérez Firmat , and Junot Díaz , who create playful linguistic hybrids of Spanish and English. Cisneros noted on this process: "All of a sudden, something happens to the English, something really new
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4480-405: Is about growing up", to "it's about a Chicana's growing up", to "it is a critique of patriarchal structures and exclusionary practices". Cisneros's writing is rich not only for its symbolism and imagery, deemed by critic Deborah L Madsen to be "both technically and aesthetically accomplished", but also for its social commentary and power to "evoke highly personal responses". this helped her achieve
4620-400: Is accessible for both Anglo- and Mexican-Americans, alike, since it is free from anger or accusation, presenting the issues (such as Chicana identity and gender inequalities) in an approachable way. Cisneros's writing has been influential in shaping both Chicana and feminist literature. Quintana sees her fiction as a form of social commentary, contributing to a literary tradition that resembles
4760-569: Is also credited with creating a national initiative called "Ready to Read, Ready to Learn", which promotes reading at a young age. To promote American patriotic heritage in schools, she helped launch the National Anthem Project . In 2006, Bush and media executives worked together to provide a $ 500,000 grant for school libraries along the Gulf Coast which had been devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Immediately following
4900-444: Is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel, The House on Mango Street (1983), and her subsequent short story collection, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). Her work experiments with literary forms that investigate emerging subject positions, which Cisneros, herself, attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell. She
5040-416: Is deceptive. She invites the reader to move beyond the text by recognizing larger social processes within the microcosm of everyday life: the phone conversation in "The Marlboro Man" is not merely idle gossip, but a text that allows the reader to dig into the characters' psyches and analyze their cultural influences. Literary critics have noted how Cisneros tackles complex theoretical and social issues through
5180-929: Is fine for ourselves instead of what our culture says." Cisneros shows how Chicanas, like women of many other ethnicities, internalize these norms starting at a young age, through informal education by family members and popular culture. In The House on Mango Street , for example, a group of girl characters speculate about what function a woman's hips have: "They're good for holding a baby when you're cooking, Rachel says ... You need them to dance, says Lucy ... You gotta know how to walk with hips, practice you know." Traditional female roles, such as childrearing, cooking, and attracting male attention, are understood by Cisneros's characters to be their biological destiny. However, when they reach adolescence and womanhood, they must reconcile their expectations about love and sex with their own experiences of disillusionment, confusion and anguish. Esperanza describes her "sexual initiation"—an assault by
5320-429: Is happening, a new spice is added to the English language." Spanish always has a role in Cisneros's work, even when she writes in English. As she discovered, after writing The House on Mango Street primarily in English, "the syntax, the sensibility, the diminutives, the way of looking at inanimate objects" were all characteristic of Spanish. For Cisneros, Spanish brings to her work not only colorful expressions, but also
5460-406: Is of particular interest to Cisneros is the home. As literary critics Deborah L. Madsen and Ramón Saldívar have described, the home can be an oppressive place for Chicanas, where they are subjugated to the will of male heads-of-household, or in the case of their own home, it can be an empowering place, where they can act autonomously and express themselves, creatively. In The House on Mango Street,
5600-531: Is that the male-dominated society in which they live denies them this place. Critics such as Jacqueline Doyle and Felicia J. Cruz have compared this theme in Cisneros's work to one of the key concepts in Virginia Woolf 's famous essay " A Room of One's Own ", that "a woman must have money and a room of her own, if she is to write fiction," or, put another way, "economic security" and personal liberty are necessary for "artistic production." Cisneros explores
5740-534: Is the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, was awarded one of 25 new Ford Foundation Art of Change fellowships in 2017, and is regarded as a key figure in Chicano literature . Cisneros' early life provided many experiences that she later drew on, as a writer: she grew up as the only daughter in a family of six brothers, which often made her feel isolated, and
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5880-674: Is treated like a rock star on the campaign trail – with local Republicans lining up for photographs and autographs – as she criss-crosses the country to help candidates." Bush relied on a strategy of praising the Republican candidate for their achievements and attending events alongside them. In September 2008, Bush spoke during the first night of the 2008 Republican National Convention , her joint appearance with Cindy McCain geared toward raising hurricane relief funds for victims of Hurricane Gustav . Laura Bush's approval ratings have consistently ranked very high. In January 2006,
6020-420: Is true, for example, of her 1987 volume of poetry My Wicked, Wicked Ways . According to Madsen, Cisneros refers to herself as "wicked" for having "reappropriated, taken control of, her own sexuality and the articulation of it – a power forbidden to women under patriarchy". Through these poems she aims to represent "the reality of female sexuality" so that women readers will recognize the "divisive effects" of
6160-721: Is “why my writing is always dealing with sexuality and wickedness.” While attending the Workshop, Cisneros discovered how the particular social position she occupied gave her writing a unique potential, recalling "It wasn't as if I didn't know who I was. I knew I was a Mexican woman. But I didn't think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalance, in my life, whereas it had everything to do with it! My race, my gender, and my class! And it didn't make sense, until that moment, sitting in that seminar. That's when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn't write about." She conformed to American literary canons and adopted
6300-579: The Latino Youth High School in Chicago. The 1984 publication of The House on Mango Street secured her a succession of writer-in-residence posts at universities in the United States, teaching creative writing at institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan . She was, subsequently, a writer-in-residence at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. Cisneros has also worked as
6440-629: The Library of Congress to launch the annual National Book Festival . More than 60 organizations that promote reading, literacy, and libraries—including the National Basketball Association participated. Bush served as Honorary Chair from 2001 to 2008. In January 2002, Bush testified before the Senate Committee on Education, asking for higher teachers' salaries and better training for Head Start programs. She
6580-652: The Macondo Writers Workshop , which provides socially conscious workshops for writers, and in 2000, she founded the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation, which awards talented writers connected to Texas. Cisneros currently resides in Mexico. Cisneros was born in Chicago , Illinois on December 20, 1954, to a family of Mexican heritage, the third of seven children. The only surviving daughter, she considered herself
6720-893: The National Endowment for the Arts in 1981 and 1988, and in 1985 was presented with the American Book Award by the Before Columbus Foundation for The House on Mango Street . Subsequently, she received a Frank Dobie Artists Fellowship, and came first and second in the Segundo Concurso Nacional del Cuento Chicano, sponsored by the University of Arizona. She has further received the Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award,
6860-600: The September 11 attacks , Bush was taken to inside the White House and placed in an underground bunker, later being met by her husband, who had returned to Washington from Florida. Two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Bush inaugurated a music concert at the Kennedy Center , organized to raise funds for families of the victims. Though she received applause, she returned the compliment to members of
7000-532: The September 11, 2001 attacks , Bush spoke regarding America's children: "We need to reassure our children that they are safe in their homes and schools. We need to reassure them that many people love them and care for them, and that while there are some bad people in the world, there are many more good people." The following day, she composed open letters to America's families, focusing on elementary and middle school students, which she distributed through state education officials. She took an interest in mitigating
7140-1102: The U.S. Capitol and the National Mall . A new addition to the Festival was the Pavilion of the States which highlighted regional books. The 2003 National Book Festival attracted a crowd of more than 60,000 to the National Mall. Two new pavilions, Home & Family and Poetry, were added to the event. The 2008 National Book Festival attracted a crowd of more than 120,000 visitors and about 70 well known authors, illustrators and poets. Participating authors included: Tiki Barber , Mary Brigid Barrett, Jan Brett , Geraldine Brooks , Sandra Brown , Dan Chiasson , Eleanor Clift , Philippa Gregory , Steven Kellogg , Katherine Paterson , Salman Rushdie , Bob Schieffer , Jon Scieszka , Alexander McCall Smith , R. L. Stine , and Gordon S. Wood . Laura Bush served as honorary chair of
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#17327811027367280-655: The University of Texas at Austin , she was employed as a librarian. Bush met her future husband, George W. Bush, in 1977, and they were married later that year. The couple had twin daughters in 1981. Bush's political involvement began during her marriage. She campaigned with her husband during his unsuccessful 1978 run for the United States Congress , and later for his successful Texas gubernatorial campaign. As First Lady of Texas, Bush implemented many initiatives focused on health, education, and literacy . In 1999–2000, she aided her husband in campaigning for
7420-405: The war on terror , what he thinks he is obligated to do for the people in the United States, and that is to protect them ... When his polls were really high they weren't on the front page." During the January 2005 second inauguration ceremonies for her husband, Laura Bush was looked highly upon by People magazine, The Washington Post , and others for her elegance and fashion sense. At
7560-467: The "image of the border has become fully meaningful not only when we consider it as a physical line but when we decenter it and liberate it from the notion of space to encompass notions of sex, class, gender, ethnicity, identity, and community." Cisneros frequently divorces the border from its strictly geographic meaning, using it metaphorically to explore how Chicana identity is an amalgamation of both Mexican and Anglo-American cultures. The border represents
7700-623: The "odd number, in a set of men.” Cisneros's great-grandfather had played the piano for the Mexican president and was from a wealthy background, but he gambled away his family's fortune. Her paternal grandfather, Enrique, was a veteran of the Mexican Revolution , and he used what money he had saved to give her father, Alfredo Cisneros de Moral, the opportunity to go to college. However, after failing classes, due to what Cisneros called his "lack of interest" in studying, Alfredo ran away to
7840-658: The Adopt-a-Caseworker Program to provide support for Child Protective Services . She used her position to advocate Alzheimer's disease and breast cancer awareness as well. Her husband announced his campaign for President of the United States in mid-1999, something that she agreed to. She did say, however, that she had never dreamed that he would run for office. The Bush campaign worked to assure voters that as First Lady, she would not seek to emulate then-First Lady Hillary Clinton , who had faced controversy for leading several policy initiatives from within
7980-700: The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN Center West Award for best fiction, and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award for Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories . This book was selected as the noteworthy book of the year by both The New York Times and The American Library Journal , and an anthology of erotic poetry, Loose Woman , won the Mountain & Plains Booksellers' Award. Cisneros
8120-588: The Casa Azul Residency Program. The Residency Program provides writers with a furnished room and office in the Casa Azul, a blue house across the street from where Cisneros lives in San Antonio, which is also the headquarters of the Macondo Foundation. In creating this program, Cisneros "imagined the Casa as a space where Macondistas could retreat from the distractions of everyday life and have
8260-636: The Chicana/o characters' Mexican roots and the (im)migration between the two countries, the recurrence of overlapping pre-Columbian, mestizo and Southwestern Chicano myths, and the portrayal of Chicanas/os as "straddling two or three cultures." Payant makes use of Gloria Anzaldúa's concept of living "on the borderlands" to describe the experience of Cisneros's Chicana characters who, in addition to their struggle to overcome patriarchal constructs of their gender and sexual identity, must negotiate linguistic and cultural boundaries. Cisneros practices Buddhism and
8400-730: The First Ladies Red Dress Collection at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in May 2005. It is an exhibit containing red suits worn by former First Ladies Lady Bird Johnson , Betty Ford , Rosalynn Carter , Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush , Hillary Clinton , and Laura Bush meant to raise awareness by highlighting America's first ladies. She has participated in fashion shows displaying red dresses worn on celebrities as well. Bush's mother, Jenna Welch,
8540-565: The Gloria E. Anzaldúa Milagro Award honoring the memory of Anzaldúa, a fellow Chicana writer who died in 2004, by providing Chicano writers with support when they are in need of some time to heal their "body, heart or spirit" and the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award which was created in memory of Sandra Cisneros's mother. Macondo offers services to member writers such as health insurance and the opportunity to participate in
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#17327811027368680-703: The Library Affiliates each choose a book to celebrate at the Book Festival in the Library’s Roadmap to Reading. Lists of "Great Reads from Great Places" since 2002 are available at the Center for the Book website. Each year the Festival commissions an artist to design an event poster. Laura Bush Laura Lane Bush ( née Welch ; born November 4, 1946) is an American educator who
8820-729: The Library of Congress and on the east lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The event featured more than 60 award-winning authors, illustrators and storytellers from across the country, including Stephen Ambrose , Natalie Babbitt , Robin Cook , Billy Collins , Sue Grafton , Larry L. King , David Levering Lewis , David McCullough , Walter Mosley , Katherine Patterson , Richard Peck , Gary Soto , and Scott Turow . Additional activities included book-signings, musical performances, storytelling, panel discussions, demonstrations of illustration and new technologies. Fifteen NBA players attended as representatives of
8960-492: The Macondo Foundation and the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. The Macondo Foundation, which is named after the town in Gabriel García Márquez 's book One Hundred Years of Solitude , "works with dedicated and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change." Officially incorporated in 2006, the foundation began in 1998 as
9100-459: The National Basketball Association's national reading campaign, "Read to Achieve." The first National Book Fair attracted between 25,000 and 30,000 visitors. The Center for the Book provides "Great Reads from Great Places" book lists. The 2002 Festival featured more than 70 authors, illustrators and storytellers from across the country and hosted more than 45,000 visitors on the West Lawn of
9240-488: The Prairie , the last of which she had felt an association with as a child. During the same Laura Ingalls Wilder's estate visit, she said that she read her books to her daughters and gave the writer Save America's Treasures grant. On September 11, 2001, Bush had been hosting her in-laws George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush at the White House and was scheduled to give a testimony to Congress on education. Instead, during
9380-467: The San Antonio phone book; "she leafs through the listings for a last name, then repeats the process, for a first name." By mixing and matching, she is assured that she is not appropriating anyone's real name or real story, but at the same time, her versions of characters and stories are believable. Cisneros once found herself so immersed in the characters of her book Woman Hollering Creek that they began to infiltrate her subconscious mind. Once, while she
9520-492: The U.S. whose books are not published by mainstream presses or whom the mainstream isn't even aware of. And, you know, if my success means that other presses will take a second look at these writers ... and publish them in larger numbers, then our ship will come in. As a pioneer Chicana author, Cisneros filled a void, by bringing to the fore a genre that had previously been at the margins of mainstream literature. With her first novel, The House on Mango Street , she moved away from
9660-402: The United States , Laura Bush worked with Librarian of Congress James H. Billington to create the National Book Festival. At a news conference announcing the inaugural event, Billington said: "We must all try, in every way we can, to send the message that reading is critical to our lives and to the life of our nation." The first National Book Festival took place on September 8, 2001, at
9800-458: The United States, in an effort to escape his father's anger. While roaming the southern United States with his brother, Alfredo visited Chicago, where he met Elvira Cordero Anguiano. After getting married, the pair settled in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods. Cisneros's biographer, Robin Ganz, writes that she acknowledges her mother's family came came from a very humble background, tracing its roots back to Guanajuato , Mexico, while her father's
9940-444: The White House despite being unelected. When asked who she would be like out of the past First Ladies, she insisted it would be herself. In July, she delivered a keynote address to the delegates at the 2000 Republican National Convention, which put her on the national stage. In December 2000, her husband resigned as Governor of Texas to prepare for his inauguration as President of the United States in January 2001. As First Lady, Bush
10080-768: The accident report released by the city of Midland in 2000, in response to an open-records request, she was not charged in the incident. In 2000 Laura Bush's spokesman said, "It was a very tragic accident that deeply affected the families and was very painful for all involved, including the community at large." In her book Spoken from the Heart , she said that the crash caused her to lose her faith "for many, many years". She attended James Bowie Elementary School, San Jacinto Junior High School, and Robert E. Lee High School in Midland. She graduated from Lee in 1964 and went on to attend Southern Methodist University in Dallas where she
10220-483: The annual National Book Festival in 2001. She encouraged education on a worldwide scale. She also advanced women's causes through The Heart Truth and Susan G. Komen for the Cure organizations. She represented the United States during her foreign trips, which tended to focus on HIV/AIDS and malaria awareness. She is the oldest living former First Lady, following the death of Rosalynn Carter in 2023. Laura Lane Welch
10360-760: The attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house." According to Saldívar, this statement of Esperanza's alludes to "the necessity for a decent living space" that is fundamental to all people, despite the different oppressions they face. As Madsen has described, Cisneros's "effort to negotiate a cross-cultural identity is complicated by the need to challenge the deeply rooted patriarchal values of both Mexican and American cultures." The lives of all Cisneros's female characters are affected by how femininity and female sexuality are defined within this patriarchal value system and they must struggle to rework these definitions. As Cisneros has said: "There's always this balancing act, we've got to define what we think
10500-401: The audience and added that although the event was tragic, Americans had deepened their appreciation "of life itself, how fragile it can be, what a gift it is and how much we need each other". Senator Ted Kennedy , who introduced Bush at the event, praised her and said he knew his late brother, President John F. Kennedy , would also be proud of her. Bush believes the September 11 attacks ignited
10640-504: The building or the buildings falling." Later in her tenure, she was honored by the United Nations, as the body named her honorary ambassador for the United Nations' Decade of Literacy. In this position, she announced that she would host a Conference on Global Literacy. The conference, held in September 2006, encouraged a constant effort to promote literacy and highlighted many successful literacy programs. She coordinated this as
10780-474: The campaign trail, including in battleground states such as Florida. She advocated for his re-election in a speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention , and was credited with having raised $ 15 million for her husband's campaign as well as the Republican Party while still succeeding in keeping a separate schedule that allowed for her to tend to the traditional duties she had as First Lady. In
10920-558: The city streets, Cisneros wrote to convey the lives of people she identified with. Literary critic Jacqueline Doyle has described Cisneros's passion for hearing the personal stories that people tell and her commitment to expressing the voices of marginalized people through her work, such as the "thousands of silent women,” whose struggles are portrayed in The House on Mango Street . Five years after receiving her MFA, she returned to Loyola University-Chicago, where she had previously earned
11060-472: The compound is where Bush family gatherings have been held for nearly 100 years. Bush became the First Lady of Texas when her husband was elected as the Governor of Texas and served as first lady of that state from January 17, 1995, to December 21, 2000. When asked about her interest in politics, she responded "It doesn't drive me." Though during her years in the Governor's Mansion , she did not hold
11200-472: The condition. She serves in the honorary position of ambassador for the program leading the federal government's effort to give women a "wake up call" about the risk of heart disease. She commented on the disease: "Like many women, I assumed heart disease was a man's disease and cancer was what we would fear the most. Yet heart disease kills more women in our country than all forms of cancer combined. When it comes to heart disease, education, prevention, and even
11340-555: The constant migration of her family, between Mexico and the United States, instilled in her the sense of "always straddling two countries but not belonging to either culture." Cisneros' work deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, facing the misogynist attitudes present in both these cultures, and experiencing poverty. For her insightful social critique and powerful prose style, Cisneros has achieved recognition far beyond Chicano and Latino communities, to
11480-509: The country in 2002 for that year's midterm elections, attending and hosting fundraisers as well as giving speeches. Opponents deemed this as the Bush administration "working against women's rights issues and using women to do their dirty work" and partly a test for Bush on how well she could campaign for her husband in the impending two years when he sought re-election. During the 2004 election cycle, Bush made joint appearances with her husband on
11620-406: The emotional effects of the attacks on children, particularly the disturbing images repeatedly replayed on television. On the one-year anniversary, she encouraged parents to instead read to their children, and perhaps light a candle in memoriam, saying, "Don't let your children see the images, especially on September 11, when you know it'll probably be on television again and again – the plane hitting
11760-401: The everyday experiences of people who are neither fully from one place nor the other; at times the border is fluid and two cultures can coexist harmoniously within a single person, but at other times it is rigid and there is an acute tension between them. Literary critic Katherine Payant has analyzed the border metaphor in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories , which manifests in references to
11900-400: The extent that The House on Mango Street has been translated worldwide and is taught in U.S. classrooms as a coming-of-age novel . Cisneros has held a variety of professional positions, working as a teacher, a counselor, a college recruiter, a poet-in-the-schools, and an arts administrator, and she has maintained a strong commitment to community and literary causes. In 1998, she established
12040-511: The female characters are juxtaposed with the abuse and poverty they face in their own lives. When Cisneros addresses the subject of female sexuality, she often portrays negative scenarios in which men exert control over women through control over their sexuality, and explores the gap she perceives between the real sexual experiences of women and their idealized representation in popular culture. However, Cisneros also describes female sexuality in extremely positive terms, especially in her poetry. This
12180-633: The festival from 2001 through 2008. In 2009 Barack Obama and Michelle Obama served as honorary co-chairs. After 12 years on the National Mall, the National Book Festival moved indoors to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in 2014. More than 200,000 people attended the 2013 National Book Festival and, following that event, the National Park Service implemented new protocols and requirements to avoid damage to
12320-796: The festival-goers would be better served by moving it into the convention center." The move indoors allowed the Festival to expand into night-time events, cookbook demonstrations, and screenings of film adaptations of books. The Literary Director at the Library of Congress is Clay Smith. Highlights of all the past festivals beginning in 2001 are at the Library of Congress website. The 2024 National Book Festival will take place on August 24. Main Stage speakers include Sandra Cisneros , James S.A. Corey , Doris Kearns Goodwin , Max Greenfield , Tamron Hall , Abby Jimenez , Casey McQuiston , James McBride , James Patterson , Lish Steiling and Rebecca Yarros . Many events will be live-streamed. Every year since 2002,
12460-515: The gender identity of Mexican and Chicana women is complexly constructed in reference to these three figures. La Virgen de Guadalupe, a Catholic icon of the manifestation of the Virgin Mary in the Americas, is revered in Mexico as a "nurturing and inspiring mother and maiden". La Malinche, the indigenous mistress and intermediary of conquistador Hernán Cortés , has according to Wyatt "become
12600-421: The gentle and pure Virgen de Guadalupe, to the violated and treacherous la Malinche, to the eternally grieving la Llorona give rise to a "fragmentary subjectivity" often experienced by Chicanas, and their need to come to terms with them, renegotiate them on their own terms, or reject them altogether. The three "Mothers" come out most clearly in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories . In the stories "Never Marry
12740-465: The grass on the National Mall. Stephen Lorenzetti, the Park Service's deputy superintendent for planning at the National Mall and Memorial Parks , said: "There are new procedures to make sure that the grass survives. This can make it more expensive for events to take place.... We worked closely with the library to allow the festival to continue at a reasonable cost. We showed them how they might use
12880-549: The harshest criticism that could be bestowed upon her was that she was boring. She disagreed with Fox News ' Chris Wallace in 2006 when Wallace asked why the American people were beginning to lose confidence in President Bush, saying, "Well, I don't think they are. And I don't really believe those polls. I travel around the country, I see people, I see their response to my husband, I see their response to me. There are
13020-451: The inauguration she wore a winter white cashmere dress and matching coat designed by Oscar de la Renta . Following the inauguration were the inaugural galas, to which Bush wore a pale, aqua lace gown, sprinkled with crystals, with long sleeves in a silver blue mist. The tulle gown was also designed for her by de la Renta. According to The Washington Post , "[I]t made her look radiant and glamorous." During her husband's second term , Bush
13160-529: The inspiration for Cisneros' novel The House on Mango Street . For high school, Cisneros attended Josephinum Academy , a small Catholic all-girls school. Here, she found an ally in a high-school teacher who helped her to write poems about the Vietnam War . Although Cisneros had written her first poem around the age of ten, with her teacher's encouragement, she became known for her writing throughout her high-school years. In high school, she wrote poetry and
13300-600: The interest in the way Afghan women were treated. Another of her signature issues were those relating to the health and well-being of women. She established the Women's Health and Wellness Initiative and became involved with two major campaigns. Bush first became involved with The Heart Truth awareness campaign in 2003. It is an organization established by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to raise awareness about heart disease in women, and how to prevent
13440-508: The isolated one. Her feelings of exclusion from the family were exacerbated by her father, who referred to his "seis hijos y una hija" ("six sons and one daughter") rather than his "siete hijos" ("seven children"). Ganz notes that Cisneros's childhood loneliness was instrumental in shaping her later passion for writing. Cisneros' one strong female influence was her mother, Elvira, who was a voracious reader and more enlightened and socially conscious than her father. According to Ganz, although Elvira
13580-494: The issue of place in relation not only to gender but also to class. As Saldívar has noted, "Aside from the personal requirement of a gendered woman's space, Esperanza recognizes the collective requirements of the working poor and the homeless, as well." He refers to Esperanza's determination not to forget her working-class roots, once she obtains her dream house, and to open her doors to those who are less fortunate. Esperanza says "Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I'll offer them
13720-562: The meaning or improves the rhythm of the passage. However, where possible, she constructs sentences, so non-Spanish speakers can infer the meaning of Spanish words, from their context. In Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories Cisneros writes: "La Gritona. Such a funny name for such a lovely arroyo . But that's what they called the creek that ran behind the house." Even if the English-speaking reader does not initially know that arroyo means creek , Cisneros soon translates it in
13860-419: The most good." Jude Ellison Sady Doyle reasoned that Bush was hard to dislike due to her adopting "the least partisan causes" such as literacy and breast cancer, which would attract the support of most Americans and her coming off as a "mild, polite, ordinary woman who might go to church with your mother, or organize suburban potlucks". Doyle furthered that her statements were never enough to offend others and
14000-476: The narrator lives, and in Mexico City where she visits extended family. Caramelo primarily takes place in those settings as well, but part of the book details the narrator's experiences as a teenager in San Antonio, TX. Various characters in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories also make trips to Mexico to reunite with family members. However, to quote literary critics Jesús Benito and Ana María Manzanas,
14140-445: The night of November 6, 1963, two days after her 17th birthday, Laura Bush ran a stop sign and struck another car, killing its driver. The victim was her close friend and classmate Michael Dutton Douglas. By some accounts, Douglas had been Bush's boyfriend at one time, but she stated that he was not her boyfriend at that time but rather a very close friend. Bush and her passenger, both 17, were treated for minor injuries. According to
14280-399: The norms that dictate how women and men ought to think and behave are culturally determined and thus distinct for different cultural groups. Through her works, Cisneros conveys the experiences of Chicanas confronting the "deeply rooted patriarchal values" of Mexican culture through interactions not only with Mexican fathers, but the broader community which exerts pressure upon them to conform to
14420-492: The perception, held by many Chicana feminists, that they would be guilty of betraying their people, like La Malinche, if they attempt to define their femininity in more "Anglo" terms. Through her work, Cisneros critiques the pressures Chicanas face to suppress their sexuality or channel it into socially acceptable forms so as to not be labeled "Malinchista[s] ... corrupted by gringa influences which threaten to splinter [their] people". The third figure, La Llorona, who derives from
14560-656: The person he is today." Bush traveled to Kuwait in April 1993, accompanying her in-laws as well as brothers-in-law Jeb and Marvin Bush after former president Bush was invited to return to the Middle East for the first time since his presidency. Several times a year, Bush and her husband travel to their sprawling family estate, the Bush compound , better known as Walker's Point. Located in Kennebunkport , Maine ,
14700-429: The poem." She feels discontented and trapped in her family home, and she witnesses other women in the same position. According to Saldívar, Cisneros communicates, through this character, that a woman needs her own place, in order to realize her full potential—a home which is not a site of patriarchal violence, but instead "a site of poetic self-creation." One source of conflict and grief, for Cisneros's Chicana characters,
14840-620: The poetic style that was common in Chicana literature, at the time, and she began to define a "distinctive Chicana literary space,” challenging familiar literary forms and addressing subjects such as gender inequality and the marginalization of cultural minorities. According to literary critic Alvina E Quintana, The House on Mango Street is a book that has reached beyond the Chicano and Latino literary communities and is, now, read by people of all ethnicities. Quintana states that Cisneros's writing
14980-487: The presidency in a number of ways, such as delivering a keynote address at the 2000 Republican National Convention , which gained her national attention. She became first lady after her husband was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2001. Polled by The Gallup Organization as one of the most popular first ladies, Bush was involved in national and global concerns during her tenure. She continued to advance her trademark interests of education and literacy by establishing
15120-401: The protagonist reinvents the la Llorona myth when she decides to take charge of her own future, and that of her children, and discovers that the grito of the myth, which is the Spanish word for the sound made by la Llorona, can be interpreted as a "joyous holler" rather than a grieving wail. It is the borderland, that symbolic middle ground between two cultures, which "offers a space where such
15260-605: The relatives and family would allow me the liberty to disappear into myself. To reinvent myself, if I had to. As Latinas, we have to.". Cisneros' writing is often influenced by her personal experiences and by observations of many of the people in her community. She once confided to other writers, at a conference in Santa Fe, that she writes down "snippets of dialogue or monologue—records of conversations she hears, wherever she goes." These snippets are then mixed and matched, to create her stories. Names for her characters often come from
15400-483: The representative of a female sexuality at once passive, "rapeable," and always already guilty of betrayal". Cisneros describes the problematic dichotomy of the virgin and the whore presented by these two figures: "We're raised in a Mexican culture that has two role models: La Malinche and la Virgen de Guadalupe. And you know that's a hard route to go, one or the other, there's no in-betweens." Madsen has noted that these 'good' and 'bad' archetypes are further complicated by
15540-621: The same church in which she had been baptized . The couple honeymooned in Cozumel , Mexico. George W. Bush detailed his choice to marry Laura as the "best decision of [his] life". Laura, an only child, said she gained "brothers and sisters and wonderful in-laws" who all accepted her after she wed George W. Bush. The year after their marriage, the couple began campaigning for George W. Bush's 1978 Congressional candidacy. According to George Bush, when he asked her to marry him, she had said, "Yes. But only if you promise me that I'll never have to make
15680-511: The stereotypes that they are expected to conform to, and "discover the potential for joy in their bodies that is denied them". Cisneros breaks the boundary between what is a socially acceptable way for women to act and speak and what is not, using language and imagery that have a "boisterous humor" and "extrovert energy" and are even at times "deliberately shocking". Not all readers appreciate this "shocking" quality of some of Cisneros's work. Both female and male readers have criticized Cisneros for
15820-458: The things in my culture that were different from them—the poems that are these city voices—the first part of Wicked Wicked ways —and the stories in House on Mango Street . I think it's ironic that at the moment when I was practically leaving an institution of learning, I began realizing in which ways institutions had failed me. Drawing on Mexican and Southwestern popular culture and conversations in
15960-437: The transgressive meaning of the gesture", thinking that she was merely being lewd for shock value, and questioned her legitimacy as a feminist. Cisneros's initial response to this was dismay, but then she reports thinking "Wait a second, where's your sense of humor? And why can't a feminist be sexy?" The challenges faced by Cisneros's characters on account of their gender cannot be understood in isolation from their culture, for
16100-448: The vehicle of apparently simple characters and situations. For example, Ramón Saldívar observes that The House on Mango Street "represents from the simplicity of childhood vision the enormously complex process of the construction of the gendered subject". In the same vein, Felicia J. Cruz describes how each individual will interact differently with Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories , thus eliciting such varied reader responses as "it
16240-715: The vice presidency with giving her and her husband national exposure. The Bushes had tried to conceive for three years, but pregnancy did not happen easily. On November 25, 1981, Laura Bush gave birth to fraternal twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna . The twins were born five weeks early by an emergency Caesarean section in Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas , as Laura had developed life-threatening pre-eclampsia (toxemia). George W. Bush credited his wife with his decision to stop drinking in 1986. She reflected that she thought her husband "was drinking too much" amid her knowing it
16380-453: The walkways and the roadways. But in the end, the library decided that it was more affordable to move to a different venue. We respect their decision." Jennifer Gavin, project manager of the Library of Congress National Book Festival, confirmed the reason for the change of venue, saying: "We spent months working with the Park Service to see if we could make this work.... But when we looked at the costs — and they were considerable — we decided that
16520-433: The way she taught. When Cisneros describes the aspirations and struggles of Chicanas, the theme of place often emerges. Place refers not only to her novels' geographic locations, but also to the positions her characters hold, within their social context. Chicanas frequently occupy Anglo-dominated and male-dominated places, where they are subject to a variety of oppressive and prejudicial behaviors; one of these places that
16660-463: The ways she celebrates her sexuality, such as the suggestive photograph of herself on the My Wicked, Wicked Ways cover (3rd Woman Press, 1987). Cisneros says of this photo: "The cover is of a woman appropriating her own sexuality. In some ways, that's also why it's wicked: the scene is trespassing that boundary by saying 'I defy you. I'm going to tell my own story.'" Some readers "failed to perceive
16800-438: The work of contemporary cultural anthropologists, in its attempt to authentically represent the cultural experience of a group of people, and acknowledges Cisneros's contribution to Chicana feminist aesthetics , by bringing women to the center as empowered protagonists, in much of her work. Cisneros often incorporates Spanish into her English writing, using Spanish, instead of English, where she feels that Spanish better conveys
16940-538: The work of the Komen Foundation ... more women and men are beating breast cancer and beating the odds." She used her position to gain international support for the foundation through the Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research of the Americas, an initiative that unites experts from the United States, Brazil , Costa Rica and Mexico. In November 2001, she became the first person other than
17080-424: The world," and Ganz referred to her "wide range of experience" as a "double-edged sword." Cisneros's ability to speak two languages and to write about her two cultures gives her a unique position from where she is able to tell not just her story, but also, the stories of those around her. Cisneros has been instrumental in building a strong community in San Antonio among other artists and writers through her work with
17220-428: The young protagonist, Esperanza, longs to have her own house: "Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after." An aspiring writer, Esperanza yearns for "a space for myself to go, clean as paper before
17360-494: Was a little girl, my mother would read stories to me. I have loved books and going to the library ever since. In the summer, I liked to spend afternoons reading in the library. I enjoyed the Little House on the Prairie and Little Women books, and many others ... Reading gives you enjoyment throughout your life." Bush has also credited her second grade teacher, Charlene Gnagy, for inspiring her interest in education. On
17500-571: Was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta . She graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree in education. After graduating from SMU, she began her career as a school teacher at Longfellow Elementary School in the Dallas Independent School District . She then taught for three years at John F. Kennedy Elementary School, a Houston Independent School District school in Houston , until 1972. In 1973, Bush attained
17640-405: Was as if my voice found me." Her words summarized one of the goals and moral rationales of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and it became one of the more famous speeches of his administration. In May 2002, she made a speech to the people of Afghanistan through Radio Liberty . In March 2005, she made the first of three trips to that country as First Lady. Bush campaigned for Republicans around
17780-502: Was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola University Chicago , in 1976, and she received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa , in 1978. At Loyola, she had an affair with a professor that she calls a “secret life [from] when I was a junior through Iowa that tormented me and that I wrote about, in my poetry.” She describes the abusive relationship as “very damaging to me” and
17920-588: Was born on November 4, 1946, at Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, Texas , the only child of Harold Bruce Welch and Jenna Louise ( née Hawkins) Welch. She is of English, French, and Swiss ancestry. Her father was a house builder and later successful real estate developer, while her mother worked as the bookkeeper for her father's business. Early on, her parents encouraged her to read, leading to what would become her love of reading. She said, "I learned [how important reading is] at home from my mother. When I
18060-458: Was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 78. She endured surgery and had no further signs of cancer. Laura Bush has become a breast cancer activist on her mother's behalf through her involvement in the Susan G. Komen for the Cure . She applauded the foundation's efforts in eliminating cancer and said, "A few short years ago, a diagnosis of breast cancer left little hope of recovery. But thanks to
18200-480: Was involved in issues of concern to children and women, both nationally and internationally. Her major initiatives included education and women's health. Early into the administration, Bush made it known that she would focus much of her attention on education. This included recruiting highly qualified teachers to ensure that young children would be taught well. She also focused on early child development. In 2001, to promote reading and education, she partnered with
18340-750: Was more involved in foreign matters. She traveled to numerous countries as a representative of the United States. As First Lady, she took five goodwill trips to Africa. The purpose of these has mostly been to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and malaria as part of the Bush administration's initiative to address the global epidemics, but Bush has also stressed the need for education and greater opportunities for women. She has taken many other trips to other countries to promote and gain support for President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief; these countries include Zambia (2007), Mozambique (2007), Mali (2007), Senegal (2007), and Haiti (2008). Sandra Cisneros Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954)
18480-494: Was much more "admirable". Taking work as an upholsterer to support his family, Cisneros's father began "a compulsive circular migration between Chicago and Mexico City that became the dominating pattern of Cisneros' childhood." Their family was constantly moving between the two cities, which necessitated their finding new places to live, as well as schools for the children. Eventually, the instability caused Cisneros's six brothers to pair off in twos, leaving her to define herself, as
18620-411: Was not his desired way of living. Approaching him, she related that her father had been alcoholic and it was not a pattern she wished to repeat in their family. She is also credited with having a stabilizing effect on his private life. According to People magazine reporter Jane Simms Podesta, "She is the steel in his back. She is a civilizing influence on him. I think she built him, in many ways, into
18760-566: Was of his craft as an upholsterer. Cisneros co-founded with Bryce Milligan the Annual Texas Small Bookfair, the forerunner to the Inter-American Bookfair. Literary critic Claudia Sadowski-Smith has called Cisneros "perhaps the most famous Chicana writer", and Cisneros has been acknowledged as a pioneer in her literary field as the first female Mexican-American writer to have her work published by
18900-683: Was recognized by the State University of New York, receiving an honorary doctorate from Purchase in 1993 and a MacArthur fellowship in 1995. In 2003, Caramelo was highly regarded by several journals including The New York Times , the Los Angeles Times , the San Francisco Chronicle , the Chicago Tribune , and The Seattle Times , which led to her Premio Napoli Award in 2005; the novel also
19040-470: Was the first lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009 as the wife of George W. Bush , the 43rd president of the United States. Bush was previously the first lady of Texas from 1995 to 2000 when her husband was governor. Born in Midland, Texas , Bush graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in education , and took a job as a second grade teacher. After attaining her master's degree in library science at
19180-422: Was the literary magazine editor, but according to Cisneros, herself, she did not really start writing until her first creative writing class in college, in 1974. After that, it took a while to find her own voice. She explains, "I rejected what was at hand and emulated the voices of the poets I admired in books: big male voices like James Wright and Richard Hugo and Theodore Roethke , all wrong for me." Cisneros
19320-479: Was too dependent on her husband and too restricted in her opportunities to fulfill her own potential, she ensured her daughter would not suffer from the same disadvantages as she did. Her Khara family made a down payment on their own home in Humboldt Park , a predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood on Chicago's West Side , when she was eleven years old. This neighborhood and its characters would later become
19460-429: Was unnecessary, citing her understanding of the "trick questions" asked by the media. Bush was a participant in the 2006 midterm elections, beginning her campaigning in April. Though her poll numbers had decreased from an 80% approval rating, they still superseded that of President Bush, whose approval rating was only praised by a third of Americans. Ed Henry of CNN noted Bush's popularity, writing, "The first lady
19600-530: Was writing the story "Eyes of Zapata," she awoke "in the middle of the night, convinced, for the moment, that she was Ines, the young bride of the Mexican revolutionary. Her dream conversation with Zapata then became those characters' dialogue in her story." Her biculturalism and bilingualism are also very important aspects of her writing. Cisneros was quoted by Robin Ganz as saying that she is grateful to have "twice as many words to pick from ... two ways of looking at
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