WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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Thank you, Ben.

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Thank you everyone.

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This is my Phil Donahue moment.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Ben did agree to
answer a few questions.

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But I have the microphone
here, so patience

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while I run to you so
that everyone in the room

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can hear the question.

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That'd be great.

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Just a couple of them.

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Ben's books are for sale
here from the bookstore.

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Thank you for coming.

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Kentucky Club included, and he's
happy to sign them certainly

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after our questions,
our Q and A. Anyone?

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Don't be shy.

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I did want to say
something about this story

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and why I wrote it and it's
because Juarez and the drugs

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and the drug discourse
in our country

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is all in the newspapers,
and they're all nonfiction.

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And I'm not a reporter.

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I'm a writer.

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And I wanted to write
about people who do drugs

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and who sell them because
they're real people.

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They're not animals.

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And they're not and
they're not even that mean.

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They're just people who do this
and they make a living on it.

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And it's terrible.

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It's terrible.

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But no more terrible
than people who are

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like Halliburton who
make a living on selling

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guns and ammunition for wars.

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And those people even
hurt more people, frankly.

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And so I just wanted to
write from the perspective

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of a human being, of a family,
of a man, who sells drugs

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from the perspective of--

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and that's what I do.

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I create these characters
who are in this world.

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because I feel close to
the ground on this living,

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in El Paso.

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And I think all my stories
come out of that space.

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See the hands coming over here.

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[LAUGHS]

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Look at this.

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They come.

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This has very little to
do with the story itself.

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But if I'm not
mistaken, El Paso is

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rated as one of the safest
cities in the United States.

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Yet, Juarez is one of the most
dangerous places in the world.

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How does that
happen or is that--

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That is absolutely correct.

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And El Paso has been rated
for a city of its size

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as one of the safest
cities in the United States

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for the last 15 years.

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So it's not like an outlier.

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It's not like just one year.

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It's a really, really safe city.

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The DA actually is a
good friend of mine

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and I ask them about, what
are your theories about that?

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One of them is that El
Pasoans, generally speaking,

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are not very violent people.

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They're not.

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And I don't think
people in Juarez

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are either, frankly,
on some level.

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But when you have a corrupt
social system and a system

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that, a judicial system
that is totally broken,

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it creates social chaos.

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It really does.

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And that's part of
the problem in Juarez.

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People can attribute all of
the violence to the drug wars,

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but nobody knows that.

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Nobody knows.

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Two percent of the crimes
are actually investigated.

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So how can a public
official tell you

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that we are the
violence in Juarez is

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attributable to the drug wars?

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Now obviously, a
good part of it is.

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But when you create that
kind of social chaos,

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you can go off someone.

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You can do that.

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In my first story, I write
about a man who disappears

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and it's a mistaken identity.

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He may be collateral damage,
but he's dead nonetheless.

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And that happens.

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I have friends of mine
who have lost friends

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and they weren't
involved in drugs at all.

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And so it's a system
that has to be fixed,

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has to be addressed in order
for kind of a social normalcy

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to return.

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And I don't see that happening.

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And that is the one thing
about the United States,

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say what you will.

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But we have a judicial system
that more or less works.

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It's not perfect.

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But it more or less works.

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And that also helps us not to
have a social chaos as well.

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I read that you curated a show
with the photographer Julián

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Cadorna.

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And I was wondering if you often
collaborate with other artists.

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I do.

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And I love to collaborate
with other artists.

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I collaborate often with
the artist James Drake.

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I don't know if you're
familiar with his work.

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And Julián Cardona,
I was particularly,

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I really have always
loved his work.

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And they call him,
a lot of people

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consider him a journalist,
a photojournalist.

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And I always considered
him an artist

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because I loved his work.

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And I was given the opportunity.

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There was a gallery in New York.

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And I don't remember the name
of the gallery right now;

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it's been a while.

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And they ask writers
to curate the show.

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And the rules are
this: the artists

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you pick can't have had a show.

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He couldn't have been in
a big major show at all.

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So my hands were
a little bit tied

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because you like artists
but you realize, oh, yeah,

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but they've had this big show.

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Or they've been
in this big show.

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And with Julián, because
he wasn't considered

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a photographer in the
artist sense, I picked him.

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And we, together, Julián and I,
went through all of his work.

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And then we picked.

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And we did a narrative
of it and we set it up.

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And it was really a
beautiful experience.

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And he's still doing
fantastic work in Juarez.

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He is an amazing photographer.

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As payback to me he gave
me one of his photographs,

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which I treasure.

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Because the photograph is
actually taken here in Arizona.

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There's a group that
was working and finding

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people in the desert
who were crossing

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and they saved
this one young man

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and he was eating
his first meal.

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And the photograph is
of the young man's hands

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as he's holding
this plate of food

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in the black and
white photograph.

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And I look at it
every single day.

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And I think it's so
beautiful and it reminds me

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of everything we have:
food, water, safety.

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And I look at it and
it's probably to me to me

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it's a very holy photograph.

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So I'm glad you
asked me about that.

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Yes.

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Hi.

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I've always lived
in border towns

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and I loved your book
because the dialogue

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felt very familiar and honest.

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And I was just wondering
beyond the concept of Spanglish

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how you think about the
nature and flavor of language

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on the border?

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I think that because
I lived on the border

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and because I lived it
between two languages I always

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felt it made me fall in
love with language, period.

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Because I was like,
wow, look at that word.

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And then sometimes
I even now, there's

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a word I have and
it's in Spanish

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and I can't think of like
what's the word in English?

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You know.

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And there's certain words that
don't exist in English at all.

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There's a word
that comes to mind.

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Velados.

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There's no concept in
English for that word.

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I can explain it because it
comes from a religious context.

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Vela is a candle so
that often people

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will pray all night like for
[INAUDIBLE] de Guadalupe or one

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of those big events and
they'll pray all night.

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And so they're tired.

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So that comes from
the candle, Vela.

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And so they haven't
slept all night.

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So they're velados.

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And so now it
doesn't necessarily

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have to have a religious
context anymore.

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I can explain the concept but
there is no word in English.

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And sometimes it's the
other way around as well.

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And also because my father
was, I loved the way he spoke.

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He manipulated language.

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He really felt more
comfortable with Spanish

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but he didn't speak a
really correct Spanish.

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He didn't do that.

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And my grandfather would
be furious with him.

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He just hated the way that
my father spoke Spanish.

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And a lot of Mexicans
really hate the way

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that we pochos in the United
States manipulate the language.

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We destroy the beauty
of the Spanish language.

00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:14.326 align:middle line:90%
But you how would they?

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[LAUGHTER]

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They want a border.

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And my father would say,
in Spanish you say--

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in English you say, the
telephone is ringing.

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In Spanish you'd say,
está sonando teléfono.

00:10:26.990 --> 00:10:30.025 align:middle line:84%
My father would say,
está ringando telefono.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I thought that was beautiful.

00:10:35.660 --> 00:10:38.430 align:middle line:90%
I love that kind of stuff.

00:10:38.430 --> 00:10:41.540 align:middle line:84%
And even though, because
I'm an educated man,

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I grew up on the border
listening to Spanglish,

00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:50.660 align:middle line:84%
when I went to school I
learned correct Spanish.

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I learned how to read it and
I learned how to write it.

00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:57.290 align:middle line:84%
And I was very proud of myself
that I could do it correctly.

00:10:57.290 --> 00:10:59.780 align:middle line:84%
But I was still in love
with the border slang.

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It's just like, I don't know.

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It's just like so fucking cool.

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You know?

00:11:06.420 --> 00:11:06.965 align:middle line:90%
It's great.

00:11:06.965 --> 00:11:09.440 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:11.930 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to check you
out for one more question.

00:11:11.930 --> 00:11:14.540 align:middle line:84%
One over here and
then like I said,

00:11:14.540 --> 00:11:18.020 align:middle line:84%
there are books available
for purchase and for signing.

00:11:18.020 --> 00:11:21.830 align:middle line:84%
And as you can tell from
Ben's lovely energy,

00:11:21.830 --> 00:11:24.480 align:middle line:84%
he's more than happy to speak
with you at the table right

00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:24.980 align:middle line:90%
after.

00:11:24.980 --> 00:11:30.560 align:middle line:90%


00:11:30.560 --> 00:11:32.945 align:middle line:84%
You've written several
young adult novels.

00:11:32.945 --> 00:11:37.690 align:middle line:90%


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When you think of the
audience that you're

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writing for what inspires you
to write for that audience?

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You know, I never think of an
audience when I write a book.

00:11:49.700 --> 00:11:50.420 align:middle line:90%
I just don't.

00:11:50.420 --> 00:11:51.770 align:middle line:90%
I can't.

00:11:51.770 --> 00:11:53.030 align:middle line:90%
I can't.

00:11:53.030 --> 00:11:58.700 align:middle line:84%
A part of it was that when
I first started writing,

00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:03.260 align:middle line:84%
I'm really a mama's boy and
my mom was a really good,

00:12:03.260 --> 00:12:05.930 align:middle line:90%
nice, sweet Catholic lady.

00:12:05.930 --> 00:12:09.890 align:middle line:84%
And I would have my mom sitting
on my shoulder right here.

00:12:09.890 --> 00:12:12.830 align:middle line:84%
And I thought like,
I can't do this.

00:12:12.830 --> 00:12:13.748 align:middle line:90%
I just feel bad.

00:12:13.748 --> 00:12:14.540 align:middle line:90%
I just feel guilty.

00:12:14.540 --> 00:12:17.210 align:middle line:84%
My mom would not, she's
not going to like this.

00:12:17.210 --> 00:12:19.070 align:middle line:84%
Of course she did
love my writing.

00:12:19.070 --> 00:12:23.000 align:middle line:84%
She just said, she just told me
like, you really like to cuss.

00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:24.620 align:middle line:84%
And I said no mom,
I really don't.

00:12:24.620 --> 00:12:25.970 align:middle line:90%
My characters like to cuss.

00:12:25.970 --> 00:12:28.610 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:31.640 align:middle line:84%
So I can't really think
of an audience that way

00:12:31.640 --> 00:12:34.220 align:middle line:84%
because it kind of
really gets in the way.

00:12:34.220 --> 00:12:35.090 align:middle line:90%
I can't.

00:12:35.090 --> 00:12:39.680 align:middle line:84%
So what I do is I just
write to the boy in me.

00:12:39.680 --> 00:12:43.600 align:middle line:84%
I write, I mean, there's
a lot of boy in me.

00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.280 align:middle line:84%
And my friends will
tell you, that Ben's

00:12:46.280 --> 00:12:49.080 align:middle line:84%
that's kind of an
adolescent in a lot of ways.

00:12:49.080 --> 00:12:52.670 align:middle line:84%
So it's kind of easy for
me to write to that boy

00:12:52.670 --> 00:12:54.560 align:middle line:90%
or out of that space.

00:12:54.560 --> 00:12:57.740 align:middle line:84%
And I love, and it's
great because what

00:12:57.740 --> 00:13:01.070 align:middle line:84%
happens is having
been an adolescent

00:13:01.070 --> 00:13:06.200 align:middle line:84%
and having really screwed up my
adolescence, as many of us did,

00:13:06.200 --> 00:13:10.790 align:middle line:84%
then I can create a character
that I wanted to be.

00:13:10.790 --> 00:13:15.920 align:middle line:84%
All my adolescent teenage boys,
that's who I wanted to be.

00:13:15.920 --> 00:13:19.650 align:middle line:84%
And I can create them and
I can be them for a while.

00:13:19.650 --> 00:13:22.580 align:middle line:84%
And then, of course,
they're much better looking

00:13:22.580 --> 00:13:24.590 align:middle line:84%
and they're all
much more gracious

00:13:24.590 --> 00:13:26.090 align:middle line:84%
and they're smarter
than I ever was.

00:13:26.090 --> 00:13:27.680 align:middle line:90%
But that's OK.

00:13:27.680 --> 00:13:28.370 align:middle line:90%
It's fun.

00:13:28.370 --> 00:13:30.740 align:middle line:84%
It's and it's and
it's not hard for me.

00:13:30.740 --> 00:13:32.780 align:middle line:90%
It really isn't hard.

00:13:32.780 --> 00:13:34.720 align:middle line:90%
Not at all.

00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:37.550 align:middle line:90%
You also had a question.

00:13:37.550 --> 00:13:40.000 align:middle line:84%
I know you struggled with
a lot of lines in your life

00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:46.540 align:middle line:84%
as you lived on the border
and other cultural changes

00:13:46.540 --> 00:13:47.797 align:middle line:90%
and just who you are.

00:13:47.797 --> 00:13:51.085 align:middle line:84%
So identity politics, do
you find yourself being

00:13:51.085 --> 00:13:52.210 align:middle line:90%
called the writer of color?

00:13:52.210 --> 00:13:56.440 align:middle line:90%


00:13:56.440 --> 00:13:58.390 align:middle line:90%
This is how I'll answer that.

00:13:58.390 --> 00:13:59.920 align:middle line:90%
I don't.

00:13:59.920 --> 00:14:01.503 align:middle line:84%
I've always considered
myself, I've

00:14:01.503 --> 00:14:02.920 align:middle line:84%
always been very
proud of the fact

00:14:02.920 --> 00:14:04.690 align:middle line:90%
that I was Mexican-American.

00:14:04.690 --> 00:14:10.270 align:middle line:84%
And I'm very proud of the fact
of being a son of a people who

00:14:10.270 --> 00:14:14.350 align:middle line:84%
have never been properly thanked
for making this country great,

00:14:14.350 --> 00:14:15.370 align:middle line:90%
frankly.

00:14:15.370 --> 00:14:17.440 align:middle line:90%
And I'm very proud of that.

00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.480 align:middle line:84%
And I'm very proud of
my parents I'm very

00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:22.450 align:middle line:90%
proud of being my mother's son.

00:14:22.450 --> 00:14:27.160 align:middle line:84%
But that said, you know when
you go out into the world,

00:14:27.160 --> 00:14:29.260 align:middle line:90%
you're going to get labeled.

00:14:29.260 --> 00:14:31.190 align:middle line:84%
And you just kind
of deal with it.

00:14:31.190 --> 00:14:32.620 align:middle line:90%
You negotiate those places.

00:14:32.620 --> 00:14:36.830 align:middle line:84%
When I won the Pen
Faulkner, El Paso Times:

00:14:36.830 --> 00:14:39.560 align:middle line:84%
"El Paso Writer
Wins Pen Faulkner."

00:14:39.560 --> 00:14:45.830 align:middle line:84%
The Dallas Morning News: "First
Texan Wins Pen Faulkner."

00:14:45.830 --> 00:14:49.355 align:middle line:84%
Out Magazine in New York:
"Gay Man Wins Pen Faulkner."

00:14:49.355 --> 00:14:51.170 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:14:51.170 --> 00:14:54.380 align:middle line:84%
And all of the Latino
outlets in the country,

00:14:54.380 --> 00:14:59.030 align:middle line:84%
"First Latino to
Win Pen Faulkner."

00:14:59.030 --> 00:15:00.320 align:middle line:90%
I don't mind.

00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:01.550 align:middle line:90%
You know why?

00:15:01.550 --> 00:15:03.770 align:middle line:84%
Because look at all those
communities that love me.

00:15:03.770 --> 00:15:05.990 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:15:05.990 --> 00:15:07.580 align:middle line:90%
That's very cool, actually.

00:15:07.580 --> 00:15:09.410 align:middle line:84%
So you know, I'm kind
of grateful for that.

00:15:09.410 --> 00:15:12.260 align:middle line:84%
Because there's a group of
people that are claiming you.

00:15:12.260 --> 00:15:15.200 align:middle line:84%
And I think that's beautiful
and I think that's lovely.

00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:17.060 align:middle line:84%
And I don't think
that we can live

00:15:17.060 --> 00:15:21.912 align:middle line:84%
without those kinds of
negotiations in our identities

00:15:21.912 --> 00:15:23.120 align:middle line:90%
in the world that we live in.

00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:24.260 align:middle line:90%
It would be nice.

00:15:24.260 --> 00:15:27.710 align:middle line:84%
It would be nice that I would
say, well, I'm just a man.

00:15:27.710 --> 00:15:30.680 align:middle line:84%
You know, I don't
live in that world.

00:15:30.680 --> 00:15:33.210 align:middle line:90%
It matters that I'm gay.

00:15:33.210 --> 00:15:34.640 align:middle line:90%
And it matters that I'm Latino.

00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:37.270 align:middle line:90%
And I live in that world.

00:15:37.270 --> 00:15:42.380 align:middle line:84%
And so I would live
in it and bathe in it.

00:15:42.380 --> 00:15:46.305 align:middle line:90%
And it's not always easy.

00:15:46.305 --> 00:15:47.180 align:middle line:90%
But I'm good with it.

00:15:47.180 --> 00:15:50.600 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:51.200 align:middle line:90%
Thank you.

00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:51.350 align:middle line:90%
Gracias.

00:15:51.350 --> 00:15:52.183 align:middle line:90%
Thank you very much.

00:15:52.183 --> 00:15:55.480 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:57.000 align:middle line:90%