American Voices: The Sandra Cisneros Symposium at Hunter College

Please join us as Roosevelt House—together with Hunter College’s Office of the President and MFA in Creative Writing Program—celebrate the artistry of the great Sandra Cisneros on the 40^th anniversary of the publication of the The House on Mango Street. To mark the occasion, American Voices: The Sandra Cisneros Symposium at Hunter College will bring together leading authors, journalists, scholars, singers, and musicians, as well as friends and associates, to contemplate, commemorate—and revel in—the timeless significance of Sandra Cisneros’ work.

Among those featured in this all-day event will be Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco; bestselling novelist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Xochitl Gonzalez; acclaimed memoirist and poet John Phillip Santos; renowned composer Derek Bermel; and celebrated singer Mikaela Bennett. Conceived, produced, and moderated by Paul Alexander, an esteemed biographer of American cultural and political figures, the symposium will consider the legacy of Cisneros through the lenses of her personal life, her writing, and her most iconic book. The event will culminate, and conclude, with a reading by Cisneros from her work, followed by a conversation in which she will be joined by bestselling author and co-host of NBC’s TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, Jenna Bush Hager, who presented The House on Mango Street to millions of new readers by selecting it as one of her highly influential Read With Jenna picks.

 11:00am — 1:00pm
Session One: The Poetry, the Prose, and the Person
An overview of the life and work of Sandra Cisneros

Richard Blanco was selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history. In 2023, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, he is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including Homeland of My Body, as well as the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. Among his many honors are the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the Patterson Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award for memoir. He teaches at Florida International University.

Rigoberto Gonzalez is the author of 18 books of prose and poetry including Unpeopled Eden, which won the Lambda Literary Award; So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until it Breaks, a National Poetry Series selection; and Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, which received the American Book Award. Additional honors include the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is the director of the MFA creative writing program at Rutgers University-Newark.

Xochitl Gonzalez is the author of Olga Dies Dreaming, a New York Times bestseller that was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New York Times, Time, Kirkus, Washington Post, and NPR. The novel won the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize and the New York City Book Award. Her second novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, was a selection of Reese’s Book Club. Her nonfiction has appeared in Elle Décor, Allure, Vogue, Real Simple, and The Cut. As a staff writer for The Atlantic, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2023. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the Hunter College Office of Institutional Advancement.

John Phillip Santos is the author of the memoirs Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation, a National Book Award finalist and The Farthest Home is in an Empire of Fire as well as the poetry collection Songs Older Than Any Known Singer. As an Emmy-nominated television producer, he has produced more than 40 broadcast documentaries and news programs for CBS and PBS. His journalism and commentary have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and Texas Monthly. The recipient of the Texas Medal for the Arts in Literature, he is professor of borderlands humanities and creative nonfiction at the University of Texas San Antonio. He wrote the introduction to the new Everyman’s Library edition of The House on Mango Street.

2:30 – 4:00pm
Session Two: A Slice of Mango
A selection of arias from the forthcoming opera based on The House on Mango Street, performed by Mikaela Bennett, followed by a conversation with Paul Alexander, composer Derek Bermel, and Sandra Cisneros

Mikaela Bennett has appeared as a featured soloist at the Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, and Kennedy Center. On stage, she has appeared in Renascence, Acquanetta, The Golden Apple at City Center Encores!, and West Side Story at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She has recorded with The Knights and recently made her New York recital debut at Alice Tully Hall.

Derek Bermel is composer-in-residence at Bowdoin International Music Festival and director of Copland House’s CULTIVATE institute. His music has been commissioned and performed by celebrated orchestras, ensembles, festivals, and artists worldwide; among them are BBC Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chamber Music Society and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Beijing Modern Music Festival. Among the writers and performers with whom he has collaborated are Will Eno, Nicole Krauss, Wendy S. Walters, Wynton Marsalis, and hip-hop legend Yasiin Bey (Mos Def). His honors include the Herb Alpert Award, Rome Prize, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships. For his recordings, he has received three Grammy Award nominations.

6:00 – 7:30pm
Session Three: The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros reads from her work followed by an interview conducted by Jenna Bush Hager

Jenna Bush Hager is the co-host of NBC’s TODAY with Hoda & Jenna, alongside Hoda Kotb. In 2019, Hager founded TODAY’s wildly popular Read With Jenna book club, for which she has chosen 57 books. 40 of her choices have become New York Times bestsellers. In 2022, Hager established her production company, Thousand Voices, in a partnership with NBC Universal’s studio, Universal Studio Group. She’s written seven children’s books and is a #1 New York Times bestselling author.

Sandra Cisneros is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant who settled in Chicago, Alfredo, where he met her mother, Vera. Along with her six brothers, Cisneros grew up on the city’s West Side. She attended Loyola University Chicago and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, after which she began publishing poetry and prose. Her books include Woman Hollering Creek; Caramelo; A House of My Own; Loose Woman; and, most recently, Woman Without Shame; but her most beloved work is the novel The House on Mango Street, now considered an American classic. Cisneros’ honors include the PEN/Nabokov Award, the American Book Award, the Lannan Literary Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation’s Richard Holbrooke Award. In presenting her with the National Medal of Arts in 2016 for “enriching the American narrative,” President Obama said: “Through her novels, short stories, and poetry, she explores issues of race, class, and gender through the lives of ordinary people straddling multiple cultures. As an educator, she has deepened our understanding of American identity.”

 Paul Alexander, American Voices Director and Moderator, has published eight books, among them Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year and Salinger, a biography of J.D. Salinger that was the basis of a documentary televised on PBS’s American Masters, Netflix, and HBO. His nonfiction has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, New York, The Guardian, The Nation, and Rolling Stone. This is the third American Voices symposium helmed by Alexander at Roosevelt House; the previous two focused on Sylvia Plath and Billie Holiday.

Julie Rosenberg, chair of the student committee, is a graduate of Hunter College with a degree in English. She is a master’s student in Hunter’s School of Education.