Original subtitles

x2

okay awesome okay so I'm just wondering um

Hello and welcome to the fourth annual Bronx Book Festival presented by The Bronx is Reading.

My name is Leah Clark. My pronouns are she and hers and I am one of the chairs for the Bronx

Book Festival kid lit committee. I'm thrilled to introduce this panel. You are tuning in to

Taking a Stand: Empowering Middle Grade Readers which will be moderated by Aida Salazar. Aida is

an award-winning author and arts activist whose writings for adults and children

explore issues of identity and social justice. She is the author of the middle grade verse novels,

The Moon Within, an International Latino Book Award Winner, Land of the Cranes,

and the biography picture book Jovita Wore Pants: The Story of a Revolutionary Fighter.

She is slated to co-edit with Yamile Saied Méndez, Calling the Moon, a middle grade

anthology on menstruation by writers of color. She is a founding member of Las Musas, a Latinx kidlit

debut author collective. And now I will turn it over to Aida to introduce our other panelists.

Hello everyone, thank you, thank you so much um for for having this. I just want to take um

a brief moment before we begin to um to just acknowledge the the the difficulty that this

world has um has experienced, our worlds have experienced, in the last year and and just a

gratitude, gratitude for the Ohlone people, from the people whose land I live on now um and and all

the indigenous people and the Black and and Asian and Latinx folks who are really, really struggling

these days um in this pandemic. So just wanted to send love and grounding in that in that gratitude.

So I am so excited to introduce to you uh Ernesto Cisneros who was born and raised in Santa Ana,

California where he still teaches. He holds an English degree from the University of California,

Irvine, a teaching credential from California State University, Long Beach,

as well as a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing from National University. As an author,

he believes in providing today’s youth with an honest depiction of characters with whom they can

identify. The real world is filled with amazing people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives.

His work strives to reflect that. Efrén Divided is his first book. And you can visit him online

at ernestocisneros.com. Welcome Ernesto, this is this beautiful book. Hold up your book.

Um and Jessica Kim writes about Asian American girls finding their way in the

world. Before she was an author, Jessica studied education at UC Berkeley and spent

ten years teaching third, fourth, and fifth grades in public schools. Like Yumi,

Jessica lives with her family in Southern California and can't get enough

Hot Cheetos, stand-up comedy, BTS, and Korean barbecue. Yum yum, welcome Jessica. Thank you,

thank you for having me. You're welcome. This is a beautiful book. All right. And last but not least,

Chrystal Giles is an own voices writer, with a strong focus on creating stories that bring the

hopes and hurdles of African American children to the mainstream children's book market. She

is a member of SCBWI and was selected as a 2018 We Need Diverse Books Mentee. One of Chrystal's poems

appears in the poetry anthology, Thanku: Poems of Gratitude. She lives with her family in Charlotte,

North Carolina. Welcome Chrystal. And this is her book. All right, so welcome welcome.

Um I fell and I recently read all of these books. Well I read actually um Efrén Divided quite some

time ago. I read it in arc form and I just fell in love with Efrén, but I also fell in love with Wes

and I also fell in love with Yumi, and my book, Land of the Cranes um, is is what we're going

to be talking about. All of these beautiful books and so I'm so happy about that today.

And so I'm going to kick us off with some questions um and I'm going to this first question

is going out to Jessica and Chrystal um. Both of you, and both of your books have a really, really

strong sense of place and they fight against and the fight against gentrification for marginalized

communities takes center stage. In Stand-up, Yumi Chang, it is Yumi's parents Korean barbecue

restaurant having to compete with other businesses changing in the area. And in Take Back the Block

um it is Wes's Kensington Oaks neighborhood against a big development company trying to

buy a property. So can you tell us why you chose these particular themes in your books? Why are

these issues vital to share with young readers? And you can um either, one of you can start.

I'd love to start, um so I set my book Stand-up, Yumi Chung, in Koreatown, Los Angeles where I used

to live and um Koreatown is a part of Los Angeles going through a lot of gentrification right now

and so uh families that have owned small businesses there for decades are having

to compete with all this money that's coming in from transnational corporations and these,

you know, flashy restaurants are coming up. And then now um families like Yumi's um that own

like you know the little mom and pop hole in the wall are having to kind of um find their

feet and kind of pivot and try to survive in this world. And so iIchose uh that setting

because this story is also about a girl in flux. So she is 11 years old and like a lot of 11 year

olds she is in middle school and she is a little shy and a little awkward and having a real tough

time making friends at her private snooty, private school where she goes. And so um while she's

kind of adapting to her new environment and she's also growing into her own passions and interests,

and in Yumi's case she's super into stand-up comedy, she's kind of redefining herself and

trying to figure out how to um compromise what she wants with what her immigrant Korean, Korean

immigrant parents want. And so it's this whole collision of things um that is happening inside

of her and I thought what better place to put this story than in Koreatown, Los Angeles where I

used to live that was also going through um just a collision of uh traditional and modern and old and

new and um money you know and all these different um factors that uh Yumi as an eleven-year-old has

no power um to change on her own, but it's through her um her whole journey of finding herself,

of being her authentic self, that actually saves the family business. So it was a perfect place and

I was so excited to write about the smells and sights of a place I consider one of my

hometowns. So I was very very excited to share my story. What about you, Chrystal?

I absolutely love that um. So just like you I got really um kind of caught up in the things

happening in my local community. I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina and it's where um

I was born and raised and I always looked at gentrification and displacement is like a big city

thing um. My first experience with it was actually like 10 years ago um, I was on a walking tour in

Harlem and I saw it firsthand. And then I came home to my city which is much smaller in terms

of population, but many of the communities that um I frequented as a young person and even areas

of town that I knew were totally changing. And I realized it's the same thing but just on a smaller

scale. And so um over the years I've just noticed that my local community is just changing so much

um. Just like Jessica mentioned, a lot of the mom and pop shops are gone um, particularly though

many of the housing communities lower income inner city um people are just being completely displaced

from their homes. And it really became an an issue that was like really burning and um worrisome to

me and it was causing um affordable housing crisis as well as um people um without homes you know. A

lot of housing insecurity. And so I wanted to look at what happened to um families and the children

when you're completely displaced from where you are and where you live. And so I thought about

this story um and it absolutely impacts young people and families and so I thought it was a

perfect story to really explore with middle grade um because I think at this age young people are so

aware and they understand they start to understand what's happening outside of their doorway and how

they can be of service. And so I thought it was perfect um. My main character Wes is a fashionable

kid and he's kind of cool and um his parents are activists and he's not interested at all. And so

I thought it would be an interesting story to take him out of kind of his bubble of fashion and cool

and pull him into what it's like to actually be of service to his community. So that's kind of the

starting point and why I thought it was a perfect place to um to explore. Yeah abso- absolutely.

I think in both in both both books um that very middle grade um uh sense of of of shelter

is is ruptured and in threatened and so it was it was so beautiful beautiful to to see

um.Aand and I know middle grade readers are going to just you know really really appreciate that

because they're going to be feel seen. Because you're right, um the housing crisis is really and

and the changes in gentrification is really really affecting so many people across the country so.

Um Ernesto you disappeared for a minute, but here you are, good. Um um so both of our books are are

close uh look really closely at the immigration at the criminalization of migration, in particular,

right um. And so in your book Efrén Divided, Efrén's sopermama, or super mom,

gets deported and um he's trying to get her back. And in my book Land of the Cranes, Betita's father

is deported and then she and her mother are fighting to be free from a detention center.

Very different, but still within the umbrella of this

of the immigration issue. So um can you tell me why it was important to write about

your particular aspect of of migration or the criminalization of migration? Yes no for sure

that that was definitely something that was on my mind uh when I was working on the book uh. What I

think one of the most important aspects I wanted to to focus on was on humanizing the families.

When you criminalize immigrants and we for example I've been thinking about this as of late and

I noticed that um there's a lot of articles online about like immigrant families

trying to struggling come across the border and actually dying and sometimes that would make

the mistakes of reading some of the comments and people in the comments would usually be something

along the lines of, oh well, that's what happens. They shouldn't be coming over,

you know, they're risking their families to come over. And they're no longer seeing them as humans

and I think that's really just very dangerous. So one of the things I wanted to do was to invite

people to to meet a family so they could actually get to know them a little better

and you know and see them as actual human beings and all. Growing up I I also didn't want people

just feeling like, can you imagine feeling you're living in a country where you feel like you're

not wanted? And just feeling like you're a second-class citizen and actually not even

a citizen at all uh. So I wanted to address this for all the kids who were also feeling like that

just like Efrén uh but above all I think I just really wanted them not to internalize. I want them

to see the beauty in their own culture um and I want everybody else to see the beauty, too,

and so after they read both their books I'm hoping that they'll they'll leave with the sense

of uh what an immigrant family really is like and hopefully have a little bit of empathy as well.

Yeah yeah I think for for me in the in the same way I was trying to to really um

expose expose the barbarity right that for me it's just unfathomable that we are

incarcerating children for a misdemeanor. It's a misdemeanor, it's a civil offense,

it's not even a criminal offense to be in the United States undocumented or without

authorization. And yet we've got these modern day concentration camps that are still pretty full,

are still pretty full even though we have had a change in administration. So I wanted to

point to the barbarity of that and and I think the way that that kids ask questions and they

uncover information that's new and and you know I think that they are so good at pointing

out injustice. They're like, that's not right. And because of their innocence innocence and because

of their kind of like very, very clear sense of a strong sense of of morality of them having a moral

compass, um uh I you know I wanted to explore that. And in in doing so from Betita's eyes,

this new very fresh um perspective at the barbarity, um I was hoping to um to kind of uh

I guess expand that beyond just middle grade readers. But I wanted families to to consider

this. And um and so yeah I think that that that's why I chose it because it's just it was just too

tragic for me um a situation. And I wrote it in 2018 um just as sanctuary cities, the Trump

administration was coming after sanctuary cities, and I'm formally undocumented. I was brought over

when I was a baby and I was raised in L.A. and and we didn't get our green cards 'til I was about 13

years old. So um I know very intimately what it is to fear la migra, to fear you know

being deported. I know I have plenty of family members who have been incarcerated because of

being undocumented or have been deported or have been lost on the way you know migrating to the

United States. So all of that kind of informed why um I wanted to to to write about this this

absurdity in criminalizing migration. And and I'll say one last thing about that is that

that I use the metaphor of the cranes, because cranes are these migratory birds and

and they have no borders. And why they migrate is because they want to have

or you know wellness. They want to be well, they want to be safe, they want food. And that's no

different from humans. And so I wanted to point that out in that ways as well. So

um anyway all right so you know in in in Yumi and in Wes and in Efrén and Betita,

we read characters who are intimately tied to their families and they rely on their strong

friendships so these qualities of course are found in many middle grade books. However I think what

is refreshing and powerful about our books is that they do so from BIPOC lens. So can you talk about

what new information you wanted to convey about the communities you're writing about?

Jessica, if you want to go ahead go for it? Sure um I'll talk a little bit about that.

So my book is a deep deeply a family story, so this story is about Yumi and like I said she's

11. And when you're 11, you're right at that age where you're kind of realizing for the first time

that some of the stuff that your family does is not some of the stuff that your friends families

are doing. And she is deeply embarrassed by some of the stuff that her parents do.

And um I think I can relate to that as a as a second generation American with immigrant parents

um. They weren't, they weren't like the huggy kissy like Full House experience, like that's not

their language of love. And sometimes love looks like a plate of cut fruit when you're studying

late at night and it's different it's a different dialect of love. And so Yumi because she's 11 and

she's starting to kind of consume um kind of the dominant ideas that society is telling her about

her family or where she comes from. She's starting to be a little embarrassed for parents. In the

very first chapter, she's sitting at a hair salon, she's getting her hair done, and she's feeling

so frustrated that she's uh and loves comedy, but her mom just doesn't understand her. And she wants

her to study and she doesn't understand why her parents can't just be like the other white parents

that she sees at school or on TV. And I think this whole book is almost a journey of Yumi discovering

herself, her roots, what her parents and what they've experienced and how that um

how their experiences kind of bleed into her life. And so in a sense this uh story while it

is about comedy and it is about this whole like um adventure of stealing someone's identity,

it's truly about her coming to kind of see her parents and kind of understand um and value

what they've been through as immigrants in this country and that it's not just them being you know

like obsessed with grades for no reason. There's a reason you know when you're immigrant in this

country with no education to lean on and you're working a blue collar job, paycheck to paycheck,

trying to feed your children. You're absolutely going to want to give them every advantage

of education. I wanted to show Yumi and I wanted to remind myself the beauty of that experience

and how blessed we are to have it. So uh what do I as a BIPOC person bring to this story? Like I've

seen versions of this story and I don't know if the creators were of the same marginalizations

of the characters, but often times like the story becomes like, oh Yumi proves to

her parents that she's this great comedian. And they go, I'm sorry, I should have known

you know. And then she gets this big win, but actually that's not Yumi's story. Yumi's parents

are still who they are at the end and Yumi comes to see that they were right, too, and that um not

it is kind of the blend of her two identities, that strong individual American you know

side also coupled with this very collective side of this family that uh you know really

comes together in crisis. And um the wisdom that they have of their own experiences that gives Yumi

this kind of like 360 view of herself and I think that's the real win. And she knows herself and

she knows her family and that they as a unit are growing together and changing together, too. So

I think that's a perspective that we can bring as people who um have lived this experience,

not just from the outside, but from our own deep love of our communities. So

I'm so excited about being on this panel and seeing all the other stories that celebrate that

same kind of tenderness. Yeah fantastic thank you thank you, Jessica. How about uh you Chrystal? um

Jessica, I so love what you said about the story not ending in like this perfect way. That

um Yumi was able to borrow some lessons from her parents and vice versa. I think in my

story Take Back the Block um I think there's a hopeful ending, but it's by no means perfect.

And I think um people of color tend to understand that it does not end in this perfect way

right. There's always this constant um push for more hope. So um I absolutely relate to that

um. Take Back the Block is for sure a community story. I think just the idea of trying to

keep your home and hold on to what's yours is automatically kind of like that community feel,

but what I love about um what i was able to create with The Oaks um, the neighborhood that um Wes is

fighting to keep whole, is that he grew up with these people. He grew up with his friends from

when they were very young and um over the course of the story I try to introduce a neighborhood in

a way that the reader is fighting for the story and and fighting for the neighborhood as well.

And so, as it kind of opens up you learn more and more about the history than on the neighborhood

and we learned that there's a really strong tie to Black excellence that is sometimes erased,

and particularly in this country. And um I can't give away all of it, but it's it's a it's a direct

tie to um Black communities in this country and how at times we were forced into a space

and there was white flight and um white people flew away from the spaces because Black people

occupied them. And then now there's a reverse of like, okay that area is um fashionable again,

right it's trendy, let's go back. And so there is this very weird um quite painful reality that um

the history of Black people in this country. And it's this constant displacement. It's not

like a one-time thing. And so that's one of the things that the community really really

um Wes learns that, that there is a true history in his community. And so I really wanted to

ground the story in that um. He also has these uh incredible cast of friends that grew up with him

and he learns that his family is unique in that they're secure and he has very supportive parents.

And he kind of envies one of his friends who kind of has a family that's a little bit more well off

and then at some times he pities one of his friends

who doesn't have as much as he does. And so Wes, throughout the story, also realizes that

um the community helps each other. And I think he struggles with that early on, but he eventually

gets it that it's truly a village. And we've got to um hold hands and be there for each other.

Uh well my book I like to consider my book an open garage book.

And meaning that I'd like to just open up the garage and everybody gets to walk, come on into

the home uh. That's the way you come into my house. And I wanted them not to not only to

see you know peeking through the window, because I feel like when you peek in through the window,

you gotta, you get a small sampling of what the house is like inside, but it's the clean part that

you know as we've been taking care of that we want to be seen uh. By thinking in terms of open garage

book, I feel like you see the messiness, too, and that's what I wanted people to see of the book,

too. So they could really get us a sense of who the family was. When I wrote the book I knew

I just wanted to to create it as authentically as I possibly could and I never really realized

it wasn't like I I've been hearing a lot of students and interacting with them about the book

how many different themes were in there and it seems like people there's a little bit for

for everybody and I think that's kind of the the beauty that the book doesn't really focus on

what's different with our families, it's focused more on similarities and what we have in common.

And so it's a book about friendship with David and Efrén who are come from different backgrounds,

but you know. They love each other for if you know. They acknowledge their differences,

but they they don't think, it's not an issue. It's something that they just they're like brothers uh.

There's an issue of siblings uh, there's so many kids out there right now who have younger siblings

who have to help out with them a little bit and take care of them and do take a little bit of the

parental role, too. There's uh the character of Lalo who's uh my attempt at breaking stereotypes.

There's a thought there's the relationship with the mom and the father. There's a little basically

it's a little bit of everything for everybody. So it's definitely a celebration of family.

And again it's also an attempt to to humanize the family,

but but to really again focus on what we have in common with everybody. I know I've I've spoken

with Jessica about this, how you could actually interchange our parents, the moms in our stories,

and I think they would work perfectly. And you know I mean how many of us have not haven't

been embarrassed by our moms you know while we're uh buying clothes for for ourselves um?

Sometimes Efrén I think sees his mom at the beginning as being overbearing and it's because

she wants to provide everything. That she feels bad she can't provide enough for him, so the

little she can do uh she does for him, and that comes in the way of food. And how many of us don't

have memories of our moms you know cooking special meals for us on our birthdays or when we're sick

right? Uh and so again it's focusing on we have in common and I think and it's been amazing because

people seem to uh connect with Efrén in so many different ways and in so many different aspects.

Yeah absolutely um I I love this conversation. I just love listening to you after spending so much

so much time with your books. It just it feels like um like, that world that you created Jessica

in in in Koreatown where there was a Salvadoran cook and called her Cipota and and you know

and the Mexican friend, and so like there's there's this kind of you know um uh I don't know,

like just kind of multicultural experience that I had this week, last week with the books and I

just absolutely adored. So anyway um all right so let's let's go on. The next and the next

question I have for you guys is is a question of of activism um. All of all of these characters um,

they take a stand. Either either it's in their personal lives or for the greater good in their

community. And in some cases both. Um can you tell us why it was important for your characters to

have this kind of agency, this power? Why did you hope to communicate to readers what their about

their, what did you hope to communicate to readers about your character's voice or their actions?

My book was more of a personal stand um. It's a deeply family story and there's

some community in there, but for her her biggest struggle was with herself. And so she

struggles with uh lack of confidence and so she says this terribly witty you know funny girl,

but she is so shy that she never says any of the jokes that live in her brain out loud. And

she you know runs away to the bathroom at lunch time because she's afraid that she will have no

one to sit with. And so a lot of the time she's self-rejecting and I think it has a lot to do with

the way that society celebrates a certain kind of girl. Like if you pick up a book or watch a show,

it's the spunky you know badass girl who's like uh you know kicking butt and like super courageous,

but what about the shy girls you know? What about the awkward girls? Like can are they not

heroes you know? Do they not have challenges or do they not do courageous to overcome them? And so I

really wanted to highlight you know kind of that marginalization um and kind of that very Western

view of what a hero is. And so Yumi um ends the story not terribly changed in how she acts. She

doesn't become super outgoing in the end. She's not like this hysterical person at the end.

She's still her, she's just more comfortable with who she is. And so I think um yeah in

a sense it is a very personal stand, but it could be also um seen as like um a way to kind

of overturn of stereotypes and the way people view us, especially Asian women are perceived to be you

know like who's favorite demure and like arigato you know like and it's like, hey that's not all of

us, you know? And don't put us in a box and we can be brilliant and brave in our own way? And uh yeah

for sure it's like rewriting a narrative. What was the the term that her sister called her?

Was that a term, no? I I I I'm I should know this because I wrote the book.

Sorry anyway but no I mean I think it is it's powerful it's a personal um agency right. This

this this power to to overcome um that stereotype was it's awesome it's brilliant.

How about you, Chrystal? Um I think right away I wanted um Wes to kind of be in the center of

his story um. When I came up with a general idea, I knew I wanted it to be um, a Black little boy

and oftentimes we don't always see um Black people in the center of their stories and then

also being the hero of the story. And so I knew I wanted that, but I also wanted to make sure

that it was um believable. And I knew I wanted it to be kind of an activism agency story, but what

Wes does is very different from how his mother does it um. She's a true community activist um.

It's in her histories and her blood. He does it a little bit differently. He runs away

at the beginning, he just darts away. So he he researches, he goes to the library, he studies,

he throws parties, he comes up with a different way to really show the love of his community.

And um you know when I started, I wrote this story in 2017 and I think

honestly even then I'm not sure people protesting and marching was as trendy as it feels now. And I

don't know if that's the proper word, but now I feel like um it's kind of a thing that families

go do and I think um particularly people of color have done that for generations. It is what um

civil rights is born on right, the whole activity of speaking out and and now it feels a bit more

trendy. And um it's great that everyone gets to come out in families and hold signs and all that,

but I wanted to make sure that I presented a way that you can talk about activism

that's full. And not everyone stands with signs, right, some people do the the background work

that you don't see. And it's community organizing and um it's organizing drives

and food jobs and clothing drives. And so we get to see Wes do all of these things

and um that eventually gives him the full picture of what it means to really um support and serve

your community. And those are the kind of things I did as a young person. I was always at some type

of drive or something like that and sometimes they were fun and sometimes I didn't want to be there.

But I think um it gave me this general idea that that is what service looks like. And

so I wanted Wes to get that and I didn't necessarily want it to be um in the trendy

sense that you hold a sign and you take selfies and that kind of thing. Mm-hmm yeah, Ernesto? Um

my um my approach was is very similar uh but to be honest I started writing Efrén Divided in

2016 during the elections and that year I had three of my students you know let me know that um

that they had lost uh, that a parent was taken away during the middle of the year.

And there was one particular uh, there was a boy who asked to speak to me after school and he

comes into my classroom. I'm not sure what was on his mind at the time he comes in. And he lets me

know that over the weekend they took his father away. And I was devastated because as a teacher

you kind of we all want to be able to offer some advice and to help kids and quite honestly I was

at a loss of words. And I didn't really know what I could do for this for this boy um. And so when

I was writing Efrén Divided, part of the message I wanted to do was, okay how, what message do I

have for this boy? Um and I wanted to, the thing I wanted to give him was hope. And and I wanted

to make sure the story was going to be believable, but you know going back to the whole um when you

write books uh with people of color, we don't always get that Disney ending that everybody

kind of gets in most books. It's a little bit different for us. And so I wanted to make sure

the book was realistic, but I also wanted to help the people. And I wanted, I didn't want him to

feel helpless. And so for all the kids like like who are going through situations like Efrén's,

I think the biggest thing I could do for them is let them know that they weren't alone

uh. In the book, Efrén takes on the burden of every, all the responsibilities that Amá had

before she was taken away. He puts, he places them on a shoulder. And um and I think that's

the message I want them to know, that you're not alone in this. That there are teachers out there,

there's counselors, there's a whole bunch of people in the community that are out there,

there's authors you know who are writing books about this. And and uh you know and we're trying

to help and we're trying to make a difference and I guess that's what it is. That there is a support

group for you out there. You're not by yourself and that you can make a difference, too. Yeah

that's beautiful. Well for for me in Land of the Cranes, Betita is a poet. She learns how to draw

pictures and accompany them with poems and she calls them picture poems or crane poems. And she

has this practice from school and inside the detention center, she teaches others

how to do these picture poems. And those go viral and that helps change um the situation inside this

detention center along with a hunger strike and other things. So it's a very sad story,

it's a very sad story, um but but in that I wanted children to understand

that that they have agency through the arts. That they can write, they can draw pictures, they can

you know organize um hunger strikes or any kind of uh in community um

to to you know make a change a positive change and and towards liberation and freedom

and justice. So I was definitely trying to show readers that they have not only um ideas, but they

have power in their voice and their creative um endeavors, whatever that may be. And so

um that was that was the hope with with uh Land of the Cranes um. I think we still have time to talk

about craft can we talk about craft a little bit is that okay I love I love to talk about craft.

And as BIPOC, we never get asked about craft. So let's talk about craft um because writing

books like these are um it it requires a certain skill set. So Jessica I'll start with you um.

In your book, which is hilarious, it's so full of comedy, it's folded in so wonderfully

um, can you tell us what kind of research you had to do to get this element to be pitch perfect? Oh,

thank you. I'm so honored to hear that um I don't always hear that. It's really good to hear that

because I am not a comedian. I am just a writer and uh originally, I mean this story was always

about that second generation experience. So in the first form it was actually a YA novel in the very,

very first iteration. And it was a young adult novel with this teenager, this girl her name was

Minji and she wanted to be a chef and she lies and goes to culinary school instead of college

and it was like this whole thing that I queried, and you know ultimately got rejected. And so

it didn't make it. It didn't see the light of day um, but uh I got some feedback from a literary

agent who challenged me to see it as a middle grade novel. He said ,you know your voice is

reading a little young and I was like, could it be that I taught third, fourth, and fifth grade

for ten years and I have two tweens at home? I don't know, like I don't know what I was doing in

YA in the first place, but anyway um. As I kind of re-uh imagined the story, I still wanted that that

that clash. I still wanted her to confront her her two sides of who she is. But then I kind of

couldn't do the chef thing with 11. It just didn't quite work. And so um the question became, what is

the Asian parent's worst nightmare? And it's like for your kids to be comedian um. Yes at the time

uh Ali Wong was huge and on Netflix. I went to go see her. I got tickets to see her live here

in San Diego and I was just floored. I'm like, I think I'm older than Ali Wong, but I was like

in tears at the end being like, I want to be like Ali when I grow up because she was just so

fully authentically herself. She wasn't catering to anybody and she was just being herself. And

I always just kind of wondere, months afterwards like, what was she like as a child. And it kind of

birthed this whole um new idea which turned into Stand-up, Yumi Chung. So comedy was a big part

of it. But I'm not a comedian and so I had to do a lot of research. Comedy is done really through

a lot of voice and face and like there's a whole lot to it, but words on a page, it's it's really

difficult to get those big laughs that uh same way. So it took many drafts and for even 'til the

very end, it was like "funny thing here" you know, like "joke here" parentheses. I'll figure it out

later. And so we would have to just like rehash and I have actually, you could see it behind me in

my notebooks, and one of them is filled with jokes that never made it in the book. So it's definitely

lots of trial and error um and so uh hopefully I made some readers laugh a few times. But even if I

didn't, I don't really care as long as I made you feel like you're you know Yumi and her family then

I would say missioned accomplished, so yeah. Thank you, absolutely absolutely mission accomplished,

so funny. Um all right so um Chrystal and Ernesto, you both wrote Black and Brown boys and right

now Black and Brown boys nationally are being demonized and they have the highest incarceration

rates um. And so you both wrote, Chrystal, you wrote Wes and Ernesto, you wrote Efrén in such

sensitive and with such depths. I I really loved both those boys so so much. And I want to know,

what was your greatest challenge in writing them so beautifully vis-a-vis what we see in the media?

Um you know I have a, I have a son and um he's five, so he's not quite in the middle

grade age range, but he's a Black boy and unfortunately he's already um experienced

bias and um what I would absolutely call racism. And so that's a tough tough thing. And so

I think the best thing we can do is make um Black and Brown boys feel full and realized.

And I wanted to do that on the page. And so I layered Wes, um and it took many many edits

for him to feel full. And so I wanted him to, first he was very stylish and a little

bit selfish and a little bit arrogant, and then um he's kind of nerdy because he likes puzzles.

He also is cool um, he also has a little bit of jealousness um. And so all of these layers

are what Black boys don't always get the benefit of right? Like we're complex then

we're layered and our children are, too. We also we usually get this singular narrative

and it is often a negative singular narrative. And we don't get a chance to make mistakes and

mess up over and over. Because that's what young people, do they mess up. And I wanted him to have

an arc where he's not the greatest kid in the beginning in terms of um being self-aware

and he's a little arrogant, but he gets it. And so I wanted to layer him and that was challenging

at times because um it takes a while to build a character that feels complex. But we are complex.

And we we should get the benefit of being complex. So um I love when people tell me he feels real

because that's like that's all I wanted. I wanted him to feel like a kid you know who has a really

cool haircut and really cool sneakers and all of those things that um are important to young boys,

but then I also wanted him to feel real enough that you'll accept him, too. So yeah

well there was there was a preciousness about the way his family treated him you know because

he was an only child. And that that also felt very special and um also how Kari was treated

and and brought in you know because the so that the idea of family and taking care of

their young Black boys was not just about their internal family, but kind of an extended family.

Which I thought was really beautiful and I'm actually getting a little bit emotional because

because I think that that's such a necessary part of of kind of like the general healing

that we need um to show our youth. Um these kind of so. I'm glad you said that. Kari,

Kari is in my heart. He touched me um in the same way that Wes did and um

many times part of the story got edited out and I kept putting it back in. And so um that that

is what I think community is, particularly um communities of color. We bring people in

and Kari's story was one that Wes learned from and oftentimes not enough readers, and the book hasn't

been out long, but not enough readers connect that. But I find that readers of color connected

and that's so important to me because I love him so much and I love his story and I think

um his story isn't one that's always told because it's less glamorous or he's less likable um.

So. But no less valuable. Absolutely. Valuable and has as much potential as. Absolutely precious,

yes yes. Yeah for sure. Ernesto, what about you? Efrén is just uh I just he's a love,

he's just a big big heart. So how how did you, what was your biggest challenge in writing him?

Um, so um the biggest challenge was well, first of all I wanted to make sure my character was

accessible to everybody. That was really difficult to be honest. This is a really tricky question for

me to answer because for 14 years I always uh I was always being rejected for for uh by editors,

and the same, I was always hearing the same thing: we don't connect with your

character. And I wasn't sure as an author if it's because my character was a Latino boy

and they just weren't connecting for that reason and I always questioned myself. Am I, is it,

isn't it my job to make sure people connect to the characters? And so I felt my I I was kind of,

I wasn't sure how to approach it um. And not that I have an answer um, but what I decided

to d,o because this book wasn't really made to be published, it was just for myself and for my

students in my classroom, it wasn't that wasn't the purpose of it um. I just wrote the way it was

so I kind of embodied I took a little bit of my son's personality and he's such a kind person and

I was telling my kids the only requirement I have of them is that they be they grow up to become

good people. And that's it, and I will be proud of them no matter what else they do with their lives.

As long as you're good people. You you I'm going to be more than happy um. He's a good role model.

Thank you, but I I definitely I mean there were things that that I struggled with um. I usually

used to work right in the first pers- first person point of view and for reference to make

them a little bit more accessible, I actually had to go down to the to go change it over to

a third-person point of view uh. So we don't get to hear him speak exactly like he does, like he

normally would. We also don't get to hear the mom speak all the Spanish as she would. So there's

certain things that we had you know we have to do to change it uh. The people if if the other mom in

the story spoke exclusively in Spanish, I think that would not they wouldn't work for the story.

Um so there's a lot of little things that are that are kind of tricky uh. I just discovered the other

day that um when my my one of my my characters she says that the mom used to make delicious mole,

but mole in English, reads like mole. And so I I didn't catch that

until somebody brought it up and they're like, you eat moles? And and I was like wait what?

uh so it you know, it's tricky uh writing a character like this was definitely um

I just tried to channel my son and I kept asking myself, what would my son do?

And also as a teacher I've known so many kids are so amazing and see the boys

sometimes see the boys and they have their arms around each other. And they and they lack

that toxic masculinity sometimes and we we never really talk about how sensitive boys can be, too,

um. And I've seen enough of that too and that was my son and I just wanted to bring in all the

the the best parts of them. Uh not to say that they're perfect. I also wanted to make him have

his flaws, but I that that was worrisome too. I'm like, what happens if I make him you know

too flawed? And I know that as a writer we want our characters to grow, but I had to also limit

that because I was thinking, this is a kid of color, I have to be careful how unlikable I make them too.

It was definitely a balancing act, but at the end of the day every time I had a question in my mind

I just pretty much ask myself, well what what would my son do in in this situation?

Which is really hard to do because I'm a method writer so I always just embody whoever

whatever the characters are and I try and feel what they're feeling at that moment.

And I gotta tell you, tormenting the way I tormented Efrén in the story

was tormenting my son, and and and that was really painful, and I really struggled with it.

And same with Amá and all the other characters . It was the most difficult book I've ever written for

sure. Yeah yeah you know so you said something that that kind of made me realize that you know you

all have mentioned, that none of our books have this very cute tight bow at the end and super

super happy. Like in the Land of the Cranes I'm uh, Betita's family is essentially, they voluntarily

um deport, they self-deport, um and so she doesn't get to stay in you know in her home where

and so, but so I was thinking about how we all have these like not perfect endings and and how often a

lot of our work uh because we're writing from communities who are historically marginalized,

the the there is a personal um challenge, but the world will always see us as "other." We'll see is

this Black or Asian or Brown you know and Latinx and and you can't you can't take that off you know,

like you know you you walk with that reality. It's in our voices, it's in our faces and it's our skin

right. So anyway I just and in some ways you know you have to kind of empathize with your characters

and not like you know like not treat them too too badly because our kids have it tough you know. And

and it's it's not usually, and so like to make them flawed, incredibly flawed, is hard, because the world

is hard on them you know, but and it's not for no fault of their own. So anyway I it was just a

thought that I was thinking about um and you know. I wanted to share a little bit of of craft around

Land of the Cranes if I may um. I wrote it in verse. My book is a novel in verse and it's basically um

a string of poems tied together from a beginning to end. And um and I wrote it because Betita is a

poet. And she um and so I wanted to kind of mimic that. And when I first wrote the the first 30 pages

um, she came as a poet like without a doubt and and her world view and and I had a lot of

of I wouldn't say fun, but yeah it's a little bit of fun writing into that poetry and in the

way that children um right you know are naturally wordsmiths right if you look. There's this um this

poet Piri Thomas who is now gone, but he's afr- uh Puerto Rican and he he said every child is

born a poet. And I really believe this. I think kids have this really funky way of looking and looking

at the world and saying things. If you if you have children you know they say things so cute and you

don't ever want them to change the way they say because they invent language and so I kind of like

really um monopolized on on that aspect of poetry. And then also of course the the

metaphor of the crane and the migration of all species that that is so natural.

Um anyway well I we have to wrap up um and this has been so lovely uh to to spend time with you,

but before we go, I want to ask you one final question um. I want to know if you have a message,

what message um, if you had one message to give to your readers, what would that be?

I'll start really quick. I'm going to answer that question, too, but um

I'm a method writer also and I was so tortured and I felt so bad for Yumi that I gave her a dog.

Like halfway through the story a dog appeared. And I was like, she needs somebody. It's just too rough.

She's all alone. So anyway I gave her a dog um and uh if I were to give a message to my readers, it's

just that simply you are enough, as you are. You are enough and I'm getting a little emotional um,

the community that you come from, your parents, who you are. It is beautiful and

precious and even if other people are telling you otherwise you need to know for yourself.

Now I'm getting emotional. I heard it, I heard it. That's a message for me, too.

Chrystal? Um you know I I think I would say that um your voice matters,

um your community matters, your issues matter, the things that um you're passionate about, you

get to use your voice to speak up about, um if it matters to you. You get to say it out loud.

I think oftentimes um only certain things are brought to the forefront. So we get we

should be able to talk about um our joys, our sorrows, our hopes and hurdles and all of it. So

um I I guess I would just say use your voice, speak up, speak out, um and your voice matters.

Thank you um for me I think it would be that

for kids like Efrén, I just want them to know that they're not alone and that you have a community

uh to lean on and that there's a lot of people out here uh wanting to help you and to give you

offer support uh and you don't have to take on the burden by yourself. And that there is. Yeah.

And for me I would say um that if you look at Betita, who was able to find a way to use her

poetry and her art in the most difficult of circumstances, that you too can find a way to

lift yourself out of that darkness um with with your light. So um so that's what my message would

be. Ah big breath. This has been so emotional and so beautiful. I've had um a tremendous amount of

you know just amazement and love and respect for everything that you

all have have brought to the middle grade space and literature. Thank you so much um

and thank you to the Bronx Book Festival for having this conversation.

It was my honor to to moderate. Thank you so much everyone and I hope you stay safe and blessed.