When it comes to the Mexican American civil rights movement, Ana Castillo knows what she's talking about.
She should - she was there.
Castillo, the author/activist who gave the closing address for Chicano History Week celebrations on campus Saturday, said she came out of the Chicano rights movement of the 1970s "with the realization that because I was a woman, I was experiencing the revolution differently from my male counterparts."
About 50 people gathered in East Hall to hear Castillo's comments and to get their newly purchased books signed.
Castillo, who has published four books of poetry and three novels, often draws on her experiences and observations from the Chicano rights movement, which took place from 1965-1975, as well as social issues and her own cultural background for her writing.
The event was sponsored by La Voz Mexicana, with help from the Office of Academic and Multicultural Initiatives, the Womens' Studies Department and other University departments.
The Chicago-born author said she became more reflective after the 1970s. "In the '80s, I continued to write, and my world began to expand," Castillo said.
Encompassing a wide variety of political and personal experiences in her hourlong reading, Castillo spoke earnestly about people she admired - migrant farm workers' advocate Cesar Chavez and Sister Diana Ortiz, an American nun working in Guatemala who was sequestered and tortured. Castillo's poems - many of which are sprinkled with Spanish words and phrases - also emphasize memories and experiences from her childhood.
She titled the yet-unpublished poem dedicated to Ortiz, "Like the people of Guatemala, I want to be free of these memories," a quote from Ortiz.
In the poem, Castillo painted a poignant scene of the torture Ortiz experienced. "She fell on other bodies, some alive, some beheaded. This is what is known as the nightmare from which a person would not, and could not awake," she read.
Ortiz survived the ordeal but still has not received an explanation from the Guatemalan government.
Audience members said they were impressed by Castillo's presentation. "I thought it was excellent," said RC senior Maria Job. "I like the fact that her more recent work is very political."
Castillo noted that the audience was the "most quiet group I have experienced in a long time," after only a handful of people asked questions.
Castillo's latest collection of short stories, "Loverboys," was published last August. She recently completed her fourth novel, and said she goes back to it every chance she gets to "revise it and polish it." The novel will be released in 1998, along with a book of poetry. She has also written the novels "The Mixquiahuala Letters," "Sapogonia" and "So Far from God."
A resident of Chicago and a full-time writer, Castillo said she usually works on "about four books at once."
Engineering sophomore Lucy Arellano, a co-chair of La Voz Mexicana, said the week reached a large number of students this year. "(The turnout) was a lot more than last year," she said. "A lot of people came out from the woodwork and represented."