My Chicano Studies education was absolutely vital to me
because far from like being ethnocentric or making
me feel elevated about other cultures and races,
it showed me how connected I as a Mexican-American was
to the African-American experience,
Asian-American experience.
It showed me there's a Jewish blood in Mexico, Black blood,
all this beautiful, beautiful braidings going on in Latin
America and my backyard.
That's what my education in Chicano Studies showed me.
And that's been absolutely vital to me as a reader
because I searched out these different narratives,
these different histories that are kind of hidden.
So you should search them out.
And that was very important to me.
And I still carry that with me, that gratitude
for that education.
So whenever I receive emails or letters
from students from Arizona, California, Nevada, those are--
I put those first.
I respond to those first.
Because I remember being that kind of student
like hungry for this kind of information.
And I tell them, seek out this knowledge,
seek out these books because you'll be amazed
the connections you'll find.
You'll feel at one with everything else in the world.
It's an amazing sensation.