Texas Highways – September 2019

Illustration: Douglas Jones SEPTEMBER 2019 103

L

ast spring, the writer Sandra Cisneros returned to San

Antonio to meet with her accountant, address some

computer issues, and have her mother’s fur hat pro-

fessionally cleaned. Cisneros has lived in San Miguel

de Allende, Mexico, since 2013, but she resided in San Antonio

for most of the 29 years prior, living in the King William Dis-

trict, where she stirred controversy for painting her Victorian

cottage periwinkle. Her visit coincided with Fiesta San Antonio,

and Cisneros appeared on the float “March To Your Own Drum-

mer”—a fitting theme. “I think I can quote Fidel Castro here,”

she says. ‘“History will absolve me.’”

In 1984, the same year her lauded debut novel The House

on Mango Street was published, Cisneros moved from Chicago

to San Antonio to serve as literature director at the Guadalupe

Cultural Arts Center. She drew on her Texas experiences in her

writing and, while in San Antonio, also founded the Macondo

SPEAKING OF TEXAS | SANDRA CISNEROS

“I think

everybody,

every young

person, should

be given a

grant to travel

to a place

where you

don’t speak

the language.”

Her Own Drummer

Author Sandra Cisneros on fearlessness—in travel, writing, and Texas

By Michael Hoinski

Writers Workshop, dedicated to

community-building and social change.

Cisneros’ works—in 2015, she released

a career-spanning essay collection A

House of My Own—have earned her

high honors, including the MacArthur

Fellowship, a Texas Medal of the Arts,

and during her spring visit, a Texas

Institute of Letters Lifetime Achieve-

ment Award.

Q: How are writing and traveling alike?

A: I think that reading is traveling. Read-

ing happened to me because I was trying

to get out of Chicago. I was trying to get

out of my neighborhood. I was trying to