Critically acclaimed author Victor Villaseñor addressed racial equality last Wednesday at the annual Leonardo Durantes Memorial Lecture at the Garvin Theatre.
Villaseñor said he believes that people cannot make a difference until, “we cherish our differences and understand we are keeping each other apart.”
The Durantes Lecture is held in memory of Leonardo Durantes, an immigrant from Mexico and a City College student who was killed in 1990, the victim of a violent hate crime. Villaseñor said he wants everyone to “realize [they] are wonderful.”
He said he is a victim of hate crimes himself, and suffers from dyslexia, a learning disability that affects a person’s ability to read.
Villaseñor describes being discriminated against for being Mexican as one of his first experiences in school. He explained that his teacher forbade him and his friends from speaking Spanish, and recalled her favoring the Caucasian children in the classroom.
“Education isn’t just math or science…it’s finding out who you are,” Villaseñor said. He added he didn’t receive decent grades and eventually dropped out of school. He said he believes that his writing and lecturing is a healing process for himself as well as his audience.
He also recalled one of numerous occasions that shaped his reality, like when a Caucasian boy named Howard told Villaseñor how “his parents explained to him that Mexicans were bad people.”
Villaseñor said his real education began, as he recalls, when a relative decided to bring him over to Mexico. Before his trip, he had believed what other people had told him about Mexicans, then traveled to the country himself.
“I saw all these amazing things being done by Mexicans…learned something was wrong with my perception…[and] realized all I saw were labels,” Villaseñor said about his trip to Mexico.
It was then that he realized his calling in life. “I realized I had to write a book,” he said.
“I came home and wrote. I got 265 rejections…but that didn’t matter because writing was all that mattered,” he said.
It was through this process that Villaseñor published many of his best-selling novels, including his latest book, “Burro Genious,” which chronicles certain parts of his life and took him 39 years to finish.
He said his first lecture, held in 1973, was an accident. “The speaker didn’t show up, I volunteered,” Villaseñor said.
He said he grew up with stories and believes stories are “the healing things that keep us together.”
Years later, he now sees our country as “buffalo grass.” He explains how society has survived, “ice ages, droughts, and several other natural disasters because of our diversity,” and hopes that someday it can embrace that quality.
Villaseñor is also the author of “Rain of Gold,” “Thirteen Senses,” and “Wild Steps of Heaven.” He lives in Oceanside, California with his wife and two daughters at the ranch where he grew up.
For more information about Villaseñor, or to contact him, go to his website, www.victorVillaseñor.com.
