Sandra Cisneros's 'Notes of a Native Daughter'

Published this week at Chicago is a look into Sandra Cisneros's early life in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood in the 1960s and 70s, along with the reasons why she left the city, a snub by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and excerpts from her most recent prose poem "Notes of a Native Daughter." In the poem, Cisneros describes the changes she's seen take place in Chicago over the course of some 30-odd years and concludes, "[...] Chicago’s changes do not mean better for people like my family.” More from Chicago:

Cisneros’s inspiration for the piece came after a run-in with Mayor Emanuel, who presented her with a Fifth Star award, which honors Chicago cultural forces, in 2015. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to have the ear of the mayor, I can tell him how I became who I am thanks to [Chicago’s] museums—how they’re the difference between me being a factory worker and writer.’ And he didn’t even listen to me. Just shut me down. I felt so bad that I walked out of the luncheon and sat down at Water Tower Place and wanted to cry.”

She swore off returning to Chicago after that—"It was just too painful,” she says—until friend and MacArthur grantee Hipolito “Paul" Roldán asked her to speak at a Hispanic Housing Development Corporation fundraiser this March. “There was a synchronicity there, and I couldn’t say no,” she says. “I was reading a lot of Baldwin and Algren, and wanted to write something [for the speech] that was my take, to make people understand: You think your trip to Chicago was beautiful? Try waiting for the bus.”

Head to Chicago to read on, including passages from "Notes of a Native Daughter."