Mirta Ojito, Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist, to Speak at the Annual Latino/a Caucus Lecture – Thursday, March 8th at 2:30 – Student Center Ballroom – A Preview/Conversation – by Ofelia Rodriguez-Srednicki

[Mirta Ojito is a professor at The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as well as a writer for The New York Times and other publications.  She received the American Society of Newspaper Editors Award in 1999 and a shared Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for a series of articles about race in America.  In 2005, she published the critically-acclaimed Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus (The Penguin Press).   She will be discussing her book and her career as a writer at the Third Annual Latino/a Caucus at Montclair State University on March 8th at 2:30 pm in the Student Center.  The CRC is pleased to share our Director’s Blog this month and post this new telephone interview with Ms. Ojito conducted by the President of the Latino/a Caucus,  Ofelia Rodriguez-Srednicki, Ph.D., Department of Psychology.]

Ofelia Rodriguez-Srednicki: Can you share with our readers on the CRC Web site what it felt like for you to immigrate here as an adolescent? We know you will be discussing this in your lecture but just wanted to know a bit more about the story in advance. Mirta Ojito: It was an exciting and difficult period at the same time. On the one hand, we were finally in the United States– the place my parents, but particularly my father — had dreamed about for years.  On the other hand, I spoke no English.  I couldn’t communicate, didn’t understand what my teachers or peers were saying.  Couldn’t figure out the culture, the customs, the “rules” of high school.  It took a long time for me to feel comfortable in the U.S.A. And, of course, I missed Cuba a great deal.

ORS: When did you start writing? What inspired you to write your first book?  MO: I’ve been writing since I learned to write at age five, I imagine. The question is, when was it any good? I’m not sure. I’m still working at it… I decided to write my book because I had a lot of questions about my own immigration history. I had been writing about the stories of others for so long, I had neglected my own. I decided to change that and delve deeply into the history of the Mariel boatlift.

ORS: When did you first begin to think of yourself as a “professional writer”? MO: When I got my first $10 check for writing a story for The Atlantic Sun, the student newspaper of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

ORS:  Did you have a specific routine or method you used to write your book, Finding Mañana? MO: Yes, I wrote every weekday, from 9 am to 6 pm. No excuses. No days off.

ORS: Many artists talk about their work as helping them to get through hard times emotionally. Would you say that writing is your “escape?”  MO: No, reading is my escape. Writing is my job. And it’s a really hard job.

ORS: Who is your favorite writer — and why? And is there a special style or a special way of looking at the world that he or she has that inspires you? MO: My favorite writer changes all the time. It depends on what’s going on in my life and how I happen to connect with a particular work. Some writers I’ve enjoyed over the years are Amos Oz, Haruki Murakami, Guy de Maupassant, Edwidge Danticat, Kazuo Ishiguro, Esmeralda Santiago, Eva Hoffman, Isabel Allende. I’m an extremely eclectic reader with many interests and passions. I’m inspired by clarity of thought, precise and beautiful language and the perfect tone. Of course, it should also be a riveting story. For example, I like Ishiguro’s tone control and measured language in Never Let me Go. I’m stimulated by Murakami’s wild imagination in everything he writes. I’m a fan of short stories, and the master of that genre is Maupassant. I love the way Danticat writes about Haiti — with love, but also with open eyes, which the same thing Oz does with Israel. They take no short cuts. I’m hugely entertained by Allende. I learned a great deal from Santiago’s When I was Puerto Rican, and I understood my own struggles with the language while reading Eva Hoffman’s masterful Lost in Translation.

ORS: What is the most important life-lesson that you hope readers will learn from reading your works? MO: I don’t think I’m really transmitting ‘life-lessons’ in my work, but there is a theme that is recurrent in my writing, be it my journalism or my book, and that is the astonishing power that people have to change their personal circumstances, and, in doing so, change history.

ORS: How do your family and friends feel about your success? MO: My friends are very proud. They tell me often and, frankly, are extremely nice and accommodating to me because they think I’m writing all the time, which is not true. With my family, on the other hand, I don’t think it’s made a difference. My 11-year-old son has read my book and liked it very much. That was a treat for me to see him reading the book day and night for a few hours. But for all three of my boys, I think I’m just “Mama,” the one who tells them to brush their teeth, sends them to their room to do the homework, and reads them books at night – other people’s books.

ORS:  As a successful Latina, what advice would you give to college students of color about the process of striving for their own success? MO: If you enjoy the journey, you’ll get to the destination, even if you haven’t defined the goal. As a student, and even after I had my first job, I never thought of the next step in my career. I always thought of what I was doing that day: get an A in the exam, graduate with honors, do well in my job – every day. And I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy the journey very much. The rest takes care of itself.