Poetry saved my life: an interview with Lorna Dee Cervantes.(Interview) From: MELUS | Date: March 22, 2007| Author: Gonzalez, Sonia V. | COPYRIGHT 2007 The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnics Literature of the United States. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Chicana poet and activist Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in the Mission District in San Francisco, California, on August 6, 1954, to a working-class Mexican American couple. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was an artist. In 1959, after her divorce, Cervantes's mother, Rose, moved with her two young children to San Jose, California, to live with her mother. Cervantes grew up in East San Jose in a barrio called "Horseshoe," where poverty, gangs, and street violence were ubiqu...