“dearest friend, thank you for the copy of dear daisy, cafeteria letter -- once again, i was quite moved. i had to brush away a tear. please continue to share your wonderful gifts. i hope you don’t mind, but i have decided to frame your cafeteria letter and hang it on the wall next to my desk ... it inspires me so ... your letter to daisy reminds me how we are all alike -- really -- it doesn’t matter what culture you come from ... i have reread “china” again. this time, i can smell the texas dirt, feel the heat on my face, and see the migrant workers in the cotton fields behind my grandma’s house. the mexican children play next to their parents. they run around without shoes and dig their toes into the mud, they laugh ... how i wanted to be like them ... i wanted to take off my shoes and pick cotton ... grandma said i couldn’t ... ‘we don’t pick cotton.’ funny, i thought, her family picked strawberries.”

gloria hinojosa
tv/film/literary agent