Sandra Cisneros, Joy Harjo, and Juan Felipe Herrera spoke at the University of Iowa on Sept. 27. All three panelists graduated from the Writers’ Workshop, and Cisneros and Harjo were in the program at the same time.

The Latino-Native American Alumni Alliance hosted the panel to celebrate over 50 years of the organization’s work. Cisneros is an awarded author known for novels and short story collections such as “The House on Mango Street.”

Harjo, a poet, musician, playwright, and author, was the first Native American poet laureate. Herrera is an educator, poet, and writer who uplifts Chicanx culture, amplifying shared experiences of solidarity and empowerment through poetry and prose for all.  On Oct. 1, Herrera was named one of the 2024 MacArthur Fellows.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Daily Iowan: How were your overall experiences in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop?

Sandra Cisneros: There was behavior there that would be unacceptable now. The students have told me that they don’t feel sexually harassed or abused, now. That’s not the workshop I knew. It was also constructed in a way that there was competitiveness and a hierarchy. I just feel like it’s a different workshop.

Joy Harjo: It’s quite different from the late ‘70s. I felt pretty silenced.

Juan-Felipe Herrera: I have been writing since 1966, performing, doing street theatre, spoken word, and traveling with poetry, Teatro Chicano, and so on. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop was my second world of poetry, a most exhilarating one.

How has the Iowa Writers’ Workshop changed since then?

Cisneros: The receptiveness of the students and the respect and the energy. The vibe you feel now is really different.

Harjo: The atmosphere in the workshop is much more, I would say respectful. Today my experience in the Writers’ Workshop was excellent and the students, you know, the advanced practice students, were open and interactive.

Herrera: The scene is different — new shops, new populations. My professors have passed away, the hangouts are also gone. A new generation is on the move.

Do you feel that it helped push you guys to become better at your respective crafts?

Harjo: Definitely. Because of the workshop and my experience, I went through a period of trying to be somebody other than I was in my writing to match the kind of writing I was seeing, which worked for others, but not me. I came from a different culture, from a different community.

I had to stop and realize that I was there because of my writing and what I had to offer. I had to stay with it, follow it and make it through. So, it galvanized me and challenged me to keep moving in my own direction and not take on someone else’s.

Cisneros: One of the things that it taught me is that if your writing can withstand this criticism, then it’s going to make you write your very best before you put it out there. I realized as a person of color, we couldn’t afford to be good. We had to be excellent. It was a boot camp of sorts, but I didn’t think it needed to be structured hierarchically.

I was very intimidated and very easily silenced, but I had an awakening when I was here thanks to the negative experience at the workshop. My first impulse when I realized my class difference was kind of shocking. I had been through all my years of education, and we never talked about class. So, it made me question whether I was smart enough or good enough to be here.

What would be the best piece of advice that you guys can give to any prospective writer who is thinking about applying to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop?

Cisneros: You don’t often know who “yourself” is at 21. I wish that someone had made me look inside and see who I was. I had to discover who I was by coming here because I had never been anywhere except with my family.  I didn’t know that the thing that made me different was the gift that I could give my writing. For women especially, you’re so used to meeting other people’s ideas of what they want you to be. Nobody has ever asked you in our society since it’s patriarchal, “What do you want?” And you don’t even know what you want. You discover that in your twenties. So, it’s an exciting time for women to figure out how to be themselves and who they are. Discovering that in your twenties is dangerous and devastating and exhilarating and wonderful and fun. Everything, all the emotions. It’s a magical, mystical journey.

Harjo: Be yourself. Within us, we are built in to be exactly who we are. And where we get into trouble is when we contort ourselves to be someone other than we’re meant to be.

Herrera: Enter with total happiness, experiment, and [have a] joy of life. Be ready to meet a new and exciting cohort of young writers, soon-to-be mentors, and friends.

What were your biggest inspirations while writing for the workshop?

Cisneros: When you read about your community, it’s not written about with love or accuracy, and I realized, I was gonna write that book. I wasn’t gonna get any credit for writing that book because I was in the poetry workshop, but I would write it as a way to keep my spirit alive during the time I was here. So, I started writing my poems and my prose pieces, the book that became “The House on Mango Street” here. Then I found a voice that was mine, not imitating anyone else’s in the workshop. It was a rage that made me ask myself, “What do I know that no one else knows?” Once I left here with the beginning of “The House on Mango Street” and a poetry manuscript, I went directly to work in the Tulsa neighborhood, the Mexican neighborhood in Chicago. My students began to populate my story, so it changed. I was compelled to write from a place of rage, but I composted it, and it transformed itself, opening a path for my writing.

Harjo: You have your tribal nation identity, but you’re also experimenting in the middle of it all, too. It was always important for me that the work speaks to the people. You can read it and understand that at the same time, you’re pushing the art and what the art can do within the parameters of cultural structures and at the same time creating what the generations need now because times have changed.

Herrera: I was inspired by Tadeusz Różewicz, Witold Gombrowicz, Denise Levertov.