Puerto Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago sat down for an interview with Suzette Grillot of PBS station KGOU. Here is an excerpt. To read excerpts form the interview and a chapter from her novel Conquistadora follow the link below.

When Esmeralda Santiago arrived in New York City in the early 1960s, she was completely terrified.

“I always think of the trip from Puerto Rico to the United States as probably the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me,” Santiago says. “I was a rural girl. We lived out in the country. I had never seen television. We had no electricity or running water.”

The alienation Santiago felt informed her writing. That turmoil, and her love for the history of Puerto Rico and the voices of characters she heard in her dreams, became Santiago’s novel Conquistadora.

“My experience was a Puerto Rican who left Puerto Rico, came here and tried to understand this culture,” Santiago says. “The character of Ana Larragoity Cubillas is somebody who came from Spain to become Puerto Rican.”

Although the big city often felt like a “labyrinth” to Santiago, she benefited from the culture she was exposed to there.

“Art is all around us. Having grown up in New York I saw it– Kids singing on the corner a cappella, painting, yes it was vandalism but graffiti is kind of interesting and its an expression of the human spirit and that’s what artists do,” Santiago says. “I was changed by going to the museums in New York City and I was changed by the sculptures in the public spaces of the cities that I’ve traveled to.”

Santiago is a proponent of art’s ability to share insights and cause people to see new perspectives. She believes having an artistic outlet is indispensable for young creative people.

“I think also a young person particularly who is artistically inclined and doesn’t get the opportunity to express themselves is going to be a frustrated angry person,” Santiago says. “This is one of the reasons I encourage arts education for young people, because otherwise we are going to lose a lot of people that are going to be lost to their frustrations and anger and we can’t afford that.”

For the original report go to http://kgou.org/post/author-esmeralda-santiago-finds-identity-through-art