Roberto Germán [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to Our Classroom. This afternoon I am joined by Jasmine Mendez, bestselling Dominican American poet, translator, playwright, audiobook narrator, award winning author of several books for children and young adults and adults in general, including middle grade novel Inverse, Aniana Del Mar Jumps In, which received the 2024 Pura Belpre Honor Award. And this is the book we're going to be discussing today. Welcome, Jasmine.
Jasminne Mendez [00:00:43]:
Hello. Hello. How are.
Roberto Germán [00:00:46]:
Well, I'm well. Glad that we could connect. Curious to learn more about you. Curious to learn more about your book. I came across it recently because Lorena is writing a guide for your book.
Jasminne Mendez [00:01:03]:
Oh, nice. Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:01:05]:
And so it caught my attention and I reached out to your publisher and I said, hey, man, I'd love to have her on the podcast. What do you think? It told me to reach out. And here you are. And thank you for responding so promptly.
Jasminne Mendez [00:01:19]:
For sure. Yeah, no, I love the work that you all are doing. And as a former full time educator, I'm still in the classroom, but not full time. I definitely understand and advocate for multicultural books and learning and instruction. And so I'm here for all of it. So I'm just glad that you guys reached out and want to have this conversation with me.
Roberto Germán [00:01:40]:
Dope, dope, dope. And you're in the classroom part time or are you in the classroom doing author visits? Tell me, in what capacity are you in the classroom?
Jasminne Mendez [00:01:48]:
Yeah, a little bit of both. So I do teach part time, actually. My husband's high school. It's a high school for the visual and performing arts here in Houston. So they have a creative writing department specifically where the students study creative writing all four years of high school. Like, that's their track that they're focused on. And so I go twice a week and teach some writing workshops, which has been really fun to be with those high school students. I also teach while I was teaching.
Jasminne Mendez [00:02:12]:
I finished up that workshop with writers in the schools in Houston, which I've done for many years, again, teaching creative writing lessons that was with second graders. So I'm usually in the elementary school classroom when I teach with writers in the schools. And then, yeah, I'm also out at libraries and schools and universities doing school visits, talking just about my different books and works in progress and things like that. So I definitely still play. Like, it's a huge part of my life still being in the classroom in that capacity as a writer, which is really awesome.
Roberto Germán [00:02:39]:
Yes. I noticed you were doing some school visits because I was doing my research, you know what I'm saying? I got to know who's coming at my platform and where they're moving out in these streets.
Jasminne Mendez [00:02:49]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:02:50]:
And I got my hat on. I got my DR hat on, you know what I'm saying? Trying to make you feel welcome.
Jasminne Mendez [00:02:58]:
Thank you.
Roberto Germán [00:02:58]:
Shout out to my guy, Jackson Garcia, Hollywood Jack, for the hat. Appreciate you. And we'll talk about culture, your culture, Dominican culture, a little bit on. I got a particular question about that, but I'm sure it's going to come out as we discuss your book. So let's go ahead and get into it. Your novel and verse, anyana del ma jumps in. It explores themes of chronic illness and disability. What inspired you to get into this topic, and why did you choose to tell Ani's story through poetry?
Jasminne Mendez [00:03:31]:
Yeah, no, I get this question a lot. There is an author's note in the back of the book that talks a little bit more about my connection to Ani's story. At 22, I myself was diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease, scleroderma, which it attacks a lot of the major organs, the skin, the bones, the joints. And then later, about five years later, I was diagnosed with lupus. So I have multiple chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases myself that I've been living with for over 15 years now. And so anytime I approach a project and I've looked at my writing in this way for a long time, it's a quote that's on my website is that I think about Toni Morrison's quote that says, if there's a book you want to read that hasn't been written, then you must write it. And so that is how I lead into all of my projects. And I thought as a young woman, having been diagnosed with a chronic illness at 22, I struggled to find books and stories that related to my own.
Jasminne Mendez [00:04:24]:
There weren't even really that many community websites up like there are now. Right? There's a lot of community groups, a lot of social media websites and accounts that are for folks with chronic illness and autoimmune disease. But back in 2006, seven, it was scarce. There wasn't a whole lot out there, especially not for, like, women of color, Black women, Latina women. I mean, it was just a desert landscape out there. Oftentimes, the books that I would find were about white women with cancer, cancer diagnoses, which are all valid, good stories that are needed out in the world. But it just didn't feel like it fully related to my own experience. So then, in having moved to sort of writing for children during the pandemic, I was driving around.
Jasminne Mendez [00:05:03]:
I think like picking up groceries one day. My daughter was in this moana watching phase over and over and over and over. She was watching the movie regularly. She's about two and a half at the time, and the refrain of that song, and it's a quote at the beginning of the book. I wish I could be the perfect daughter, but I come back to the water, just kept circulating in my head, and I literally just got this idea for a story while driving in the car. What if you wrote a middle grade book about a young girl with chronic illness who wants to swim, but she can't? And that was just the impetus for the story right then and there and then thinking about what are the things that cause her not to be able to be in the water? And so in thinking about wanting to write a book that doesn't exist that I would have wanted to read, this is Ani's story sort of came to me, right? And so I chose juvenile arthritis and chronic illness because it mirrored a lot of my own experience with the way that my illnesses sort of attacked my body with the joints and the bones and the inflammation, the fatigue. And so I knew that there were young people out there in the world that had this illness, that have this illness, that live and manage this disease on the daily. And thinking as from my research, there really weren't any books that tackled this illness that talked about it and that had a main character with it.
Jasminne Mendez [00:06:21]:
From my research, I think there definitely are some out there. I just wasn't able to kind of pinpoint or find one that really spoke to a young Afro Latina with a chronic illness. Trying to navigate how this changes her body and the idea of swimming in the water is just something that's always been very close and personal to me. During my own journey towards managing my illness, swimming became a godsend. It was where I felt just, like, lightweight and free and zero pain. A lot of the time when I was in the water, either doing water aerobics or just swimming or floating, sometimes all I could do was float. And so I wanted Ani to have that connection and have that same sort of response to the water, but also show her before she becomes ill and before she's diagnosed. Right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:07:07]:
So we can see her, really, what her connection is to that water and how much she loves it, and then kind of how that changes how her relationship to the water evolves post diagnosis. A lot of it does is inspired by my own experience with chronic illness. But definitely things are fictionalized.
Roberto Germán [00:07:24]:
Yeah, it's interesting because in the past few months now, I've come across two books that deal with chronic illness, two books in which swimming is somewhat of a central theme and family dynamics. And prior to this, I can't necessarily recall coming across a book that addressed all of these different themes, and definitely not a book that characterizes women of color dealing with chronic illnesses and disease or whatnot. And so I noticed that Natalia Sylvester, author of Breathe and Count Back from Ten, and someone I recently interviewed wrote a blurb for your book. What are the parallels that you notice between your book and her book?
Jasminne Mendez [00:08:12]:
Yeah, I mean, right off the bat. Right. Like you mentioned, they're both young Latina young women, young Latina women who are managing and struggling with and trying to live in a body that is kind of working against them and that is hard to move within the world. Right. I know Natalia's book. It's about hip dysplasia, and she wanting to be this mermaid, this real life mermaid at this park in Florida. And I have Natalia's book. I've read Natalia's book.
Jasminne Mendez [00:08:40]:
She and know we text constantly. We're always checking in on each other, so we're besties, which is nice when you get to have your friends blurb your work. And so, yeah, they both have a connection to the water. They feel, I think, more alive and free and more themselves in the water and have that connection to it, while also having to navigate kind of these family dynamics of what their parents think they should be doing. Right. Trying to kind of show and have independence and bodily autonomy. I think one of the big things that both my main character and Natalia's main character share is this idea of, it's my body. Don't I get a say in what happens to it? Right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:09:19]:
And I think that is such an important message to send to young girls and to young people out there in general. Right. We should have control over what happens to our body, even when we have parents that think they know what's best or they want to do what's best for us, especially if it concerns, like, a health issue or a disability or a chronic illness. But being able to say, hey, I should be a part of this conversation about what happens to me and what my limitations are. Like, I know my body better than anyone because I'm living in this body every single day. And so I think this idea of finding your voice and being able to speak up for yourself and ask for what you need and stand up for what your body needs and to have control over that is really what's at the core of both of these books and, yeah, just young girls kind of like coming of age in a body, right. That is changing. That is different.
Jasminne Mendez [00:10:10]:
That is not the quote unquote norm. And what does that look like and feel like and how do you navigate those changes?
Roberto Germán [00:10:18]:
It's fascinating to look at not just the parallels but also look at the differences. And one of the difference in your book is the style, right? The writing style in which you approached it and using novel and verse and using poetry. And as a poet myself, I'd love to hear you talk more about that.
Jasminne Mendez [00:10:41]:
For sure. Yeah, you asked that earlier. Sorry, I went on a different tangent. But yeah, I am, like I say, by trade, first and foremost a poet. That's where I started my quote unquote writing career. And I say that because I've been writing poetry since I was about, oh my gosh, like 6th, 7th grade. Does that really count? I don't know, but okay, it counts. All the angsty, teen angsty things in my journal about identity and mother daughter relationships and crushes and boys and school and just sort of all of that, my own coming of age, right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:11:15]:
Sort of poems. And so I actually fell in love with literature. I mean, I've always read books, I've always loved books and just been an avid reader my whole life. But I will say that really falling in love with words first came with Edgar Allan Poe. Poet. The Raven is a tried and true classic, but also the first time I encountered the works of Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes. And I talk about this a lot because it was the first time that I had seen writers who looked like me. And it was 6th and 7th grade English class that my teachers introduced Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes.
Jasminne Mendez [00:11:48]:
And it was poetry that felt accessible, that felt real, that felt like the way that the people around me spoke, but that made me feel things that I don't think I had felt when reading a know or reading poetry in that way. And so I was inspired by their work to start writing my own poetry. And that went along through high school and through college. I was always writing. I got into spoken word and slam poetry in college, did a lot of open mics, did the slam scene for a while, have always really been, I never thought actually that I would write like a novel. I was like, I don't write fiction. My life is complicated enough. Why I got to go around making up stories like, nah, that ain't me.
Jasminne Mendez [00:12:25]:
But then I fell into reading novels in verse, right? I think the first one I read was probably a lot of what folks read for the first time Elizabeth Acevedo's The Poet X. And then from there, I was hooked. I was like, there's got to be more books out there like this. What is this genre? And I started just consuming, just reading all the novels and verse that I could find, while also my sort of rebellious side being like, but I will never do that because that's what people expect me to do, and I don't want to do that, right? Like, I'm not going to fit into this norm. And then when I came with this idea that literally just kind of popped into my head one day for any. I just knew it had to be a novel and verse. I was like, because it's a story that is such an internal journey and there's so much she's dealing with in her body. And knowing that one of the best ways to get readers to really experience what Anya is experiencing is through poetry, with thinking about that economy of language.
Jasminne Mendez [00:13:20]:
Like, how can I say the most with the least amount of words, right? And so knowing that the white space and then the concrete poems that are in there, the shape poems, can help you really just kind of feel it more, right? Because you have less words. And so every word matters. And so, again, just having been a poet, as the start of my writing career and always leaning into poetry in all of my writing, I definitely felt like Ani's story just naturally was going to be a novel. Because, again, poetry, I think, gets to the root of feeling. And this book is so much about what she's feeling, emotionally, physically, mentally, and sort of all those waves, no pun intended, all those waves of emotion that she goes through in the book. I think it just felt naturally like I couldn't conceive of the book in any other format. Rather than a novel and verse. I'm being fully transparent.
Jasminne Mendez [00:14:19]:
I question my abilities as a prose writer. I think it was safe for me to go with poetry.
Roberto Germán [00:14:27]:
Well, we're glad you did. Glad you did because you produced a beautiful work and I want to stick with the notion of feelings here. I want to take a moment to read an excerpt from your book and then have you respond and share what comes to mind and what you feel at this moment. Pride. Papi calls and when I am able to take the phone away from Mati, I tell Papi, I miss you and I can't wait for you to come home. Papi says, I am proud of you. Not just saving Mati, but for who you are, for the young lady you're becoming, for the brave, for the strong and brave warrior woman who I know will always live up to her name.
Jasminne Mendez [00:15:21]:
It's so interesting and kind of emotional to hear a man read that poem, because I've only ever heard it in my voice. And to kind of have that voice of that masculine voice and energy share those words kind of got me emotional just thinking about my own father and how it took him almost 35 years to say those words. I'm proud of you. Even though I knew my whole life that he was. It just wasn't something. He's a Dominican man, and he's a Dominican man, so he's not very expressive with his emotions. Not the stereotype, but at least my father, he's not the most expressive, right? He's like, I fed you. I closed you.
Jasminne Mendez [00:16:05]:
You were good. You know, I loved you, all right? I went to all your shows. I go to your poetry readings. You know, I'm proud of you.
Roberto Germán [00:16:11]:
That reminds me of Denzel in Fences, the character he played in Fences because he played the father. And there's a very intense scene between the father and the son because he didn't allow the son to play football, I think it was. And they had this baseball whatever it was. And he's telling them, like, my job ain't to like you. My job is to do this. And he's naming all these things that for him is like, yo, this is how I show you that I love you, right? Which. It's fascinating, right? For the poets. For the poets in the room who have to find ways to leverage the economy of words and say a lot with a little bit of space and less words, but also bring you into that space of feeling.
Roberto Germán [00:17:16]:
And one of the reasons I identified this piece to read, because there were others. And I'm like, yeah, this is dope. This is dope. But this is the mother's voice. This is Ani's voice. I'm like, nah, we got to bring it to the father. It has to be Papi's voice.
Jasminne Mendez [00:17:34]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:17:35]:
One. Because I felt this would happen without even knowing you and knowing your context. I just felt, right. Male voice with the male character, it's going to do a little bit more. But it was also that I read that, and I'm like, oh, I feel something. Because it made me think about my father, who passed away on the 13th of this month, two years ago, a Dominican man. We have these parallels, and it was getting me thinking. It was stirring some emotions in me, and I was like, wow, let's lean into this a little bit.
Jasminne Mendez [00:18:28]:
Yeah. So for me, one of the questions, too, that I get a lot from all kinds of readers, young, old, from different places, right. Is thinking about how I came up with Ani, how Ani is similar or different to me, and how our experiences are similar or different to mine. And one of the things, including with Papi's character, that I really wanted to try to do is create thinking about my own family, right, first off. And their response to my chronic illness. When I was first diagnosed, because I was diagnosed fairly young, I was 22, barely out of college, just, like, just about to graduate college. And so I was still very much under the eye of my parents, right? That's just kind of how I was. I was very independent.
Jasminne Mendez [00:19:08]:
But once I got diagnosed, it was like I suddenly became a child again. And they were at my house all the time, and they were at my doctor's appointments, and they were wanting to know what was going on. But again, as I mentioned earlier, my dad, not a very emotive person, but I know he loves me. I know he's proud, right? And so when writing Aniana, I started to think about the ways in which she and her parents could have qualities that maybe I didn't get. Or could be the kind of people that I wished I would have had at certain times in my life, right? Or that I didn't have, right? Because mommy is not the best at times, right. In this story with Aniana. And while my mom is religious, she's not at all like Aniana's mom. Not to that extreme, but with her father, right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:19:52]:
I think that there are so many depictions in literature of just absent fathers, unemotive fathers, just toxic masculinity, like, all of these things. And I was like, no, I want to do the opposite of that. I want her to have the strongest bond with her dad. And I want him to be her number one cheerleader and advocate. Even if at times you're, like, questioning, like, come on, dad, what are we doing here? Right. You have moments where you kind of question his reasonings, right? But I wanted that relationship to be so strong and for him to not be afraid to say these things. I wanted her to feel her father's pride and love for her always, regardless, right? Even if at times it was a little shaky or uncertain. Or if he had sort of his own ideas of who and what she should be, right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:20:36]:
Like all parents do, I think. But again, it took me 35 years to hear my dad verbalize those words. And I didn't want Ani to wait that long, right. I wanted her to have that moment in the book at that age. Right. Because I can only imagine if twelve year old me, 13 year old me had heard my father say that. I don't know that it would have changed much necessarily, because I still went and did all the things I wanted to do in my life. But I think emotionally it would have created maybe a different kind of a bond with my dad and that kind of a thing.
Jasminne Mendez [00:21:08]:
And so, yeah, I wanted this Dominican father to be maybe a little more modern. Right. And to be able to share his feelings and to tell ani these things that I think she needed to hear and wanted to hear for sure. But, yeah, just hearing you read it, I was like, oh, my heart.
Roberto Germán [00:21:27]:
How do you think writing poetry, literature can help, for lack of better terms, soften men who do reinforce those stereotypes?
Jasminne Mendez [00:21:46]:
Yeah. I mean, I think. I hope that what it does, or what at least I'm trying to do, is show them for their full selves, their full, whole humanity, right? And even in creating these characters, I think early on, one of the traps that I fell into, at least with mommy, was like, she was all bad. And the. My editor came in and said, nobody in this world. Well, I mean, that's debatable, but most people in this world aren't either all bad or all good. Right? They have qualities of both, right? No one is fully villain or victim, which is another way that one of my mentors wrote it. And so thinking about what are the ways in which we can depict specifically Dominican male characters or, like, bipoc male characters in literature and in books, in ways that show them as fully human.
Jasminne Mendez [00:22:28]:
They cry, they feel, they laugh, they experience joy, they dance, they love. Maybe they do get angry and throw something, but they also can forgive and ask for forgiveness and show a softer side because they do all have that. Whether or not I've seen that in my dad, I can guarantee you my mom has. Right. He may not show that to the outside world. My parents have been married 40 plus years, so she's seen that. I know she has. Right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:22:51]:
And so how can we bring that to the light, right. The things that we keep in the dark, how can we bring those softer sides, their full humanity to the page so that taking it back to multicultural classroom. So that when I as a teacher, am teaching young Black boys, young Dominican boys, young afro Latino boys, boys of color, right. I am not immediately, like, get in the corner, go to the office. What is wrong with you? Yelling at them or criticizing or wanting to punish them because they're behaving in a way that is contrary to sort of, like, what I expect or the ways in which we deem is appropriate. Right. In a classroom. Right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:23:30]:
But that I approach them with empathy and understanding and compassion and figure out, like, what's actually going on here, or is it something that I'm doing that isn't meeting your needs that I can change. Right. And I think that having these books and these characters and having more books with more young Black boys, young Black men being shown in their full humanity is only going to help us just communicate and be kind and show compassion to them and to each other. Like, in the world.
Roberto Germán [00:24:01]:
Yeah. Let's stick with culture and identity and family. Your work explores Dominican American identity. In what ways does Ani's cultural background influence her experiences, perceptions, and particularly in relation to her illness and passion for swimming?
Jasminne Mendez [00:24:22]:
Yeah, I think it's not necessarily stated directly, but I do think that her connection, at least for me, when I was writing her, her connection to the water comes from a place of ancestral joy, comes from a place of having those roots to the island. Right. Her grandmothers and great grandmothers and everybody sort of being close to and near the water and that energy.
Roberto Germán [00:24:42]:
A particular area, is there a particular area that you were thinking about? So, for example, I think about the water. I think about Dominican Republic. I think about two places. I think about where my father's from, Haina, but I think about Samana. When I think about the water and the beach, I think about Samana because it's a peninsula and that's where my mother's from. So was there a particular area there that you were thinking about or just in general the island?
Jasminne Mendez [00:25:06]:
Yeah. For me in general, it's the island. I mean, when I think of DR I think Santo Domingo because that's just like where my parents live and where my parents are from. I've seen a lot more of the island since they moved back. And I try to go once a year and I've seen lots of different places. But, yeah, particularly, you know, I'm thinking of, like, the sea wall, which know, I parallel the.
Jasminne Mendez [00:25:24]:
DR To Galveston quite a bit. And so Galveston and Santo Domingo both have, like, a giant sea wall that's there. And then you're literally, like, driving and the water's right there. It's like, right there, the ocean. Right. So in my mind, that's usually what I'm referencing when I talk about the DR
Jasminne Mendez [00:25:42]:
But also her mom is from a campo, which is sort of an unnamed campo that she talks about in the book that gets flooded out by a hurricane. And that was one of the parallels, too, right. Between the two islands is that they both experience these hurricanes. And in the book, there isn't a physical hurricane that happens, but there are emotional. It works as a metaphor throughout the book is this idea of hurricanes. And I think that I wanted that idea of a storm in the body and in their emotional sort of sphere, again, to be a connection to these islands and how mommy and Ani kind of become islands to themselves when they're sort of not talking for a little while. Right, right.
Roberto Germán [00:26:20]:
You had that piece. I think it ends with, like, drifting apart, if I remember correctly. That really struck so.
Jasminne Mendez [00:26:29]:
And I think that also sort of some of these beliefs that I don't think are specific or necessarily unique to the Dominican Republic, but I think in some of our cultures, this idea of, well, if you're sick, it's because you did something wrong or Jesus is punishing you or there's a reason. Right. Like, you did something to deserve this. And so myself, having grappled with those feelings of guilt and shame when I was first diagnosed, like, what did I do? Did I not eat enough vegetables? Was I in the sun too much? Did I rub karma the wrong way? Was I a bad kid when I was young? I had to kind of just debunk all of that for myself. I did bring some of that into the book as well, through mommy's character and things like that. And just ani kind of questioning know, is it because I lied that this is happening to me? Right. And I do think some of know is cultural and again, not specific to Dominican culture per se, but it's definitely something that I think sort of hangs in the air and hangs over us when we talk about illness or that illness is something that we don't want to talk about. Right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:27:33]:
We don't talk about being sick or needing mental health services or therapy or things like that. And so I did approach some of those topics with that lens of just my own cultural experience, having dealt with illness in my own family. Yeah. And I did want to have her Dominican culture be a part of who she was, but it wasn't sort of the thing that caused her trauma or strife. It is. It's just a Dominican family living in Galveston. Right? They eat arocampoyo and totones and listen to merengue and bachata in the car. But it's not sort of like this.
Jasminne Mendez [00:28:09]:
It's not a negative. It's just part of who she think, you know, I wanted the illness to take center stage in this.
Roberto Germán [00:28:17]:
Interesting. You know, on many fronts and especially setting wise. Right. Dominican family living in. In. We lived in Austin for seven. You know, I have some context to being in Texas, and certainly one of the context is that there's not a lot of Dominicans there, me and my cousins, it was hard to find some really green platanos, like a lot of yellow ones around. I'm like, where the green ones at? Yes, I'm sure.
Roberto Germán [00:28:51]:
But it's certainly, at least for us, while we were there, it gave us an opportunity to lean into other cultures, particularly mexican culture. And then Texas has a culture in and of itself, of course, and in all these cities, their own respective cultures. But to think how. How those islands can drift apart and then the work that needs to be done to try to maintain those islands side by side. Right. And in this case, where I'm thinking about Ani and her mother and the tensions that exist and the notion of reconciliation and obviously young lady developing, evolving, growing into her identity. But then thinking from a parent perspective, and I'm a parent, I got three young kids. And so I know that we're going to face some of these issues at some point.
Roberto Germán [00:29:53]:
Right. Like seeing things differently and the notion of control versus independence or what I think is right. Versus what my child thinks is right. So there's much there to unpack and much there to carry. Pleased that you explored these themes, because it certainly helps us, the readers, be able to lean into it from all these different perspectives. Right. I could really examine this as a parent, but I could also examine it as a child and put myself in those shoes when I was a kid, could examine it as somebody who's Dominican American and what that feels like to grow up in the United States of America. But my household is very much Dominican in terms of how we live it out and my heritage and how that plays out.
Roberto Germán [00:30:47]:
So the duality of all of it. Yeah. Beautiful stuff.
Jasminne Mendez [00:30:52]:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you're not the first to say that, and I appreciate that in the sense of I've had multiple parents reach out to me and say, I read this book, read your book with my child, and it gave us both such good things to talk about and to share. I've had parents that they themselves were diagnosed with juvenile arthritis as a kid and then decided to share this book with their child to help them better understand, kind of like what mommy or daddy is going through and. Same thing. Yeah. Just to be able to have those conversations or see yourself in any one of sort of the characters shoes at some point and open up that dialogue.
Jasminne Mendez [00:31:26]:
I mean, here at home, she's too young, so I haven't read it with her yet, but I think I will with my daughter. She's only five, but we know my characters as real people. She's like, oh, anya. Like, I like. Like, she talks about, like, she's like, a real been. It's been fun to kind of have that here at my own house. And, yeah, like you said, just. Just thinking about as a parent.
Jasminne Mendez [00:31:47]:
Right. Like, control versus independence and autonomy and then sort of all of those things and allowing your kids to fail and make mistakes and having to kind of sit back and be like, all right, yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:31:59]:
And that's not an easy thing, at least for me. I'll speak for myself. I understand it, and I think it's probably easier for me to do when I was functioning as a basketball coach or as a classroom teacher, as a principal. But now with these kids that are, like, fully my responsibility that I'm raising, we got to share this household every day, and I got to see you through all these stages of life. Yeah. Sometimes just giving them all that room to stumble and fall flat could be a difficult thing to witness, even though I know in many cases, it's the right thing to do.
Jasminne Mendez [00:32:43]:
Right. Yeah. And, yeah. Just let them know that you're there to hold them. Right. And to kind of guide them back to the right path should they stray as best possible.
Roberto Germán [00:32:53]:
Right. Sometimes. And sometimes I'm not holding them correctly or sometimes I'm not guiding them on the right path. We make mistakes.
Jasminne Mendez [00:33:06]:
Yes. We are human, too. Parents are people.
Roberto Germán [00:33:08]:
Parent is hard, man. Parent is hard. It's hard work. It's hard work.
Jasminne Mendez [00:33:13]:
If you're doing it right. It is.
Roberto Germán [00:33:14]:
God bless all of us parents. Listen, if you had an opportunity to have lunch with any author, poet, author that writes novel and verse, I switched it up on you.
Jasminne Mendez [00:33:35]:
Oh. I was like, that's not where the question was going. Okay.
Roberto Germán [00:33:39]:
I maintain room for flexibility.
Jasminne Mendez [00:33:42]:
That one's easy. That one's easy.
Roberto Germán [00:33:43]:
And given that I am the creator and the host of this show, I make these executive decisions without running to buy anybody. But, yeah, if you had an opportunity to have lunch with any poet author that writes novel and verse, dead or alive, who would it be? And why?
Jasminne Mendez [00:34:01]:
Easy? Jacqueline Woodson. 100%, 20 times over. Yeah. No, because she's a genius. I love everything she writes. Inverse or not inverse. And I just think that she is really good at her craft. She is a really wonderful storyteller.
Jasminne Mendez [00:34:21]:
She gets it. This idea of poetry and language and the economy of language. And she really knows which I struggle with getting into the heart and the head of her characters. You really feel like you are listening to this just emotional, intense, and beautiful internal dialogue and monologue with all of her stories, all of her characters, even when just the very little, there's not a lot of action, but you're just in the head of these characters, like, going through their emotional states. And so I would just love to sit, and, I mean, we don't even have to say anything. I just want to sit in her presence and hope that through osmosis, some of her genius gets inside of me, because when the Pura Belpre award honor was announced, she actually said, congrats on my instagram. And I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was like, oh, my God.
Jasminne Mendez [00:35:11]:
Jacqueline Woodson commented on my Instagram. So, yeah, that would be a dream. I'm hoping I get to meet her one day. I missed the chance. She was in town in Houston for her last book release, and the bookstore needed someone last minute to be in conversation with her. And as she was coming into Houston, I was flying out to New York, and so I had to turn it down. I was so mad. I was so sad.
Jasminne Mendez [00:35:34]:
But one day, the stars will align.
Roberto Germán [00:35:37]:
Things happen. Things happen. But that's a good first. I think that's the first time I've had somebody mention Jacqueline Woodson as the person that they would have lunch with. Maybe second.
Jasminne Mendez [00:35:50]:
Well, you change it up to me, because originally my answer was Maya Angelou or Toni Morrison, but you said novel inverse. So I said, okay, jacqueline, I'm pretty.
Roberto Germán [00:35:59]:
Sure that both Maya Angelo and Toni Morrison have come up. So, you know, sometimes I got to mix it up in order to get what I need. That's right. So to those that are listening, what is the message of encouragement you want to offer them?
Jasminne Mendez [00:36:21]:
Like, in general?
Roberto Germán [00:36:24]:
Yes.
Jasminne Mendez [00:36:24]:
There's a lot of ways this could go.
Roberto Germán [00:36:28]:
Well, we'll see. We're about to find out where it's going to go.
Jasminne Mendez [00:36:31]:
Yeah. A message of encouragement. I used to not believe this, but then I decided that I was going to believe it, and it's actually true. And I think that if you really pursue and follow your passions and your dreams, good things will happen. I don't necessarily mean financial success always, but I do think that good things will start to manifest and open up for you in life. And so for anyone out there who's, like, unsure or is just kind of in the weeds of pursuing that passion right now, keep going, keep trying. Find your people. I think that's important to have community when you're trying to pursue these passions, because in the end, if it's really your purpose, good things will happen.
Jasminne Mendez [00:37:21]:
And so I wholeheartedly believe that with every fiber of my being, because I've seen it happen in my own life. And I encourage you to just keep following and pursuing those passions and those dreams. Tune out the haters and the noise and go, right.
Roberto Germán [00:37:37]:
That's right. So where can folks follow you? Because my sense is that there's going to be a number of people that are going to want to jump in with Aniana. Where can they follow you? Where can they purchase your book? How can they support.
Jasminne Mendez [00:37:53]:
Yes, yes, you can follow me @jasminnemendez Jasminnemendez on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter on Facebook. I'm kind of on there, but not so much. But, yeah, it's definitely on Instagram. At Jasminne Mendez, you can also go to my website to purchase books or any bookshop.org website. And my website's my full name, jasminnemendez.com. And yeah, you have links and access to all my published works, including Anya del Mar jumps in, which is also available in Spanish. Aniana del Mar Savienta.
Roberto Germán [00:38:28]:
That's right.
Jasminne Mendez [00:38:29]:
Out now. And so, yes, any of those, you can follow me on socials, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and check my stuff out on my website.
Roberto Germán [00:38:38]:
Bueno, Jasmine, it's been a pleasure.
Jasminne Mendez [00:38:41]:
Thank you. Gracias.
Roberto Germán [00:38:42]:
Look forward to reading more, your work and learning more about you as a writer and as a person and appreciate you taking the time to be in Our Classroom.
Jasminne Mendez [00:38:51]:
Sure. Thank you so much.
