Villaseñor's Healing Words
Melinda Palacio -- November 20, 2005
When he's not writing, Victor Villaseñor is speaking about the healing power of story, peacemaking, and accessing your genius. The author of eight books gave the Leonardo Dorantes Memorial Lecture on November 9 at the Santa Barbara's Garvin Theatre.
The Leonardo Dorantes Memorial Lecture was established in honor of Leonardo Dorantes who died tragically in downtown Santa Barbara. In a hate crime, the 19-year-old Dorantes was murdered by a teenage boys in 1990. Dorantes, a native of Mexico, spoke English fluently and was much admired by faculty and fellow students, such as Margarita del Campo, now a Spanish teacher at Santa Barbara City College where she first met Dorantes when they were ESL students together.
Best-selling author Villaseñor was a natural selection for the Dorantes Memorial Lecture. He shared his story of his personal miracle and how he turned the rage boiling within him into something positive continues to inspire new generations of young writers. "To jump into the world of miracles, I'm going to start with stories," said Villaseñor, "stories are the healing things that keep us together."
The first miracle he spoke about happened to his great grandfather who was forced to join the Mexican army and fight the Yaqui Indians. His great grandfather turned to see a little girl, illuminated by the sun with her hair on fire. His commanding officer ordered him to shoot the little girl, he shot the officer instead. When he told his wife they had to change their names and flee the country, his wife resented the little girl her husband had brought home. The wife experienced the next miracle; it was a vision from an angel who told her that little girl had saved her husband and not the other way around. She named the Indian child Guadalupe. Guadalupe is the grandmother who raised Villaseñor. Her life story is depicted in Rain of Gold. "She told me I was a five pointed walking star," said the 65-year- old writer from Carlsbad. Guadalupe's story was so important to Villaseñor that he mortgaged his mother's house to buy back the rights to the book after his publisher insisted on marketing the true story as fiction.
Villaseñor went to school in the era of English-only. His teacher's discriminated against him and beat him for speaking Spanish, the only language he knew. Being dyslexic didn't help matters either--he was labeled stupid by his teachers. When he was a junior in high school, he decided to go back to Mexico. There he discovered that Mexicans, as a race, as a label, are not stupid. "You realize there is only one race, the human race," he said, "You're going to change forever after this talk."
He discovered, jazz, James Joyce and the magic of books through a friend who read to him because he didn't know how to read. In Wyoming, his own miracle happened. While hunting, he came upon a beautiful antelope, so beautiful, he couldn't kill it. He had a vision, and from that, a goal. He vowed to become a writer and made a commitment to write. After producing 9 novels, 65 short stories and receiving 265 rejections, he sold his first novel, Macho. "It took me 16 years to write Rain of Gold and 8 years to write Thirteen Senses".
Villaseñor ended his moving talk with his creed. "There ain't no bad people. When you reach into yourself and bring in that inner voice and access genius, you know there is only one race, the human race."