WEBVTT

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Thank you so much.

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Wow, this is exciting.

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I can't wait to get a better
look at those costumes.

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Thank you all for coming.

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And thank those of you who
went to the extra trouble

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to dazzle us with some
history brought to life.

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I'm so excited.

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Bienvenidos, welcome, and
thank you to the Poetry Center

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for inviting me.

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I'm really thrilled to
have the opportunity

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to speak to you about my books.

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I loved reading since I was a
very small child and still do.

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I think of reading
as an adventure.

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And writing, I promise you--

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because I hope that you'll
all be writers, too,

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in whatever way you
choose to do it,

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whether it's just for
yourself or in school--

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writing is also an exploration.

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It's an adventure.

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Words can take us traveling
to any part of the world,

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any time in history.

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We can enter the minds and
emotions of real people,

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or imaginary
characters, animals,

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or even mythical creatures.

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We could enter the
mind of a tree.

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And we could write poems
in the voice of a tree.

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Since my mother is Cuban and
my father is from California,

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I tend to write
about the two places

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I know best and love most.

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So as a bicultural,
bilingual child,

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I didn't think of
myself as having wings.

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Travel between Cuba
and the US was simply

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a natural aspect of life.

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When I was a child, my
family flew back and forth

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between countries,
cultures, and languages.

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But I have to admit that I
wasn't always sure whether I

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belonged to either.

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In some ways I always
felt like an outsider.

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Now, as an adult, I think
of my two cultures as wings.

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I think of myself as a complete
person with two origins.

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I think of that hyphen, in
when Cuban-American-- if you

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say Cuban hyphen American,
or Mexican hyphen American,

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or Asian hyphen American, you
can see that as a separation

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or you can see it as a bridge.

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And I see it as a bridge, a way
of belonging to both cultures.

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And in my writing, I love
to fly back and forth.

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