“I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.” A quote attributed to John Quincy Adams, though it is quite possible that is a paraphrase. To go from being a gang-banger in Othello, Washington, to a bigger gang called the U.S. Army, almost dying three times in the theater of war, to find himself as a poet, interviewing undocumented people and telling their stories in lyric verse in Spanish and English. This is the story of Ricardo Ruiz and it’s told in his debut book: We Had Our Reasons or Teníamos Nuestras Razones in his lengua materna.
Podcast (prophets-podcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:04 — 53.7MB)
Outstanding interview – I enjoyed this storybook, this book of poems – and will re-read it after hearing this interview. I admire Ricardo’s heartfelt boldness, his refusal to stay in anger, his willingness to keep prodding all of us to be more open, less judgemental, more thoughtful – to open our eyes to what the government does in our name.
Well said Diana. I want to get this book. I’m going to read it first & give it to my sister, who is a Court translator in Idaho & has lots of stories. I was very moved by Ricardo’s project & humanity.
(wandered by here from a Google Search).
The quote is actually “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”, and it’s by John Adams, not JQA. It’s real and can be found here:
https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17800512jasecond
So disappointing! Thanks Seth.