And right now, I also want to introduce, if you remember the civil rights movement, it was based on poetry, art, literature, only art could save us. And it really gives me a great honor to introduce someone that I've looked up to and that I am humbled and honored to be able to call a friend. If you think of any of the writers who are banned, many of them were first published in her journals and I remember her being an activist before we were even a demographic. She will be flowing for us to marinate at the Guadalupe, so I know a Tucson, Jan Brewer is having us in it right now because he knows what's coming. It is an honor to pleasure to introduce La Veda Mera, Lorna B. Sidrope. I love San Antonio. I love Tejanos. I love Tejanos. And I love Tejanos. I do not love the version of Texas history. I do not love the version of history I was given when I was in high school 40 years ago. 30 years ago, I celebrated the publication of my first book, Emplumada. After I had given a poetry reading and was a visiting professor of a visiting writer at Yale University, I was 21 years old, barely 21 years old. Couldn't even really drink yet. And 40 years ago, I am celebrating or commemorating my high school teacher asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And I said, I want to go to college. And she said, oh, what level? I said, PhD. And she said, oh, where do you want to go? I said University, California, Santa Cruz. And she said, oh, what do you want to be? And I said, a university professor. And she just about swallowed her tongue. And right away, she spit out at me, you are not college material. You will only fail. I do not think you should apply to Yale University or any university because you will only fail. This was based on nothing but the fact that I was Mexican American because she had told my white boyfriend when he came to that school, Abraham Lincoln High School in South of California. Do not expect anything from this school. It is 86% Mexican. I knew this is where she was coming from. And I got mad. I got really mad. What did I do? I didn't blow anything up. I didn't set any fires. I didn't commit any vandalism. I didn't break anything. You know what I did? Because I was pissed off. I started doing my homework. When I was in history class 1A, we had the Brown Berets come into my high school, my history class, and read Lalo de Garo Stupid America. I sat there with my head gonging in the back of the room sitting there all, you know, to let out. I didn't really care. But I'm sitting there with tears in my eyes thinking, man, I do not want to die with 10,000 masterpieces hanging only from my mind. And I discovered Chicano literature then. And I discovered the literature of Texas writers. And Jose Antonio Buerceaga. In 1980, I published his book, Drink Buerita, with his broadsides because our people have an intimidation of the book we were conquered with the book in one hand and the cross in the other. In a language that we did not understand. So I started reading. And I published Jose Antonio Buerceaga and I dedicated my life to getting this poetry out wide because Chicano poetry saved my life. I am a life today. I am a university professor 20 years. The University of Colorado associate professor, director of creative writer writing my poetry that is banned in five of these anthologies here, including the poem I wrote and dedicated to my high school teacher called, poem for the young white man who asked me how I an intelligent well-read human being could believe in the war between races. That poem is in over 100 anthologies, including anthologies that are now not allowed in three states and not allowed in Arizona. And my poems that are in that book that was published 30 years ago in Blumata are now in test questions for the SAT. That means our Chicano students are not reading this poetry. They are not going to be able to pass these tests, these SAT tests because somebody really stupid who hasn't even read these books. Come on, House on Mongolia Street. What is controversial about red shoes? I have taught that book over and over again. As a matter of fact, I published Sandra Cisnetto's first book, Bad Boys. If you have a copy of that that I sold for $1, it is now worth $3,500 for one copy of that little chap book. Sandra Cisnetto's recommended House on Mongolia Street. I am so proud that now it is in every school across the country and now they're trying to van it for what? Because it's good. It is excellent. It makes people think and most importantly it gives people, it gives these students what Chicano poetry gave to me. We pride, pride and the truth of our history. We can read the documents in two, three and all of our other native languages. Thank you very much. Please, please, please donate to this cause by banned books. Tell people, people do not know what is going on. And come to borrow, bring your high school.