On January 30, I was fortunate to be able to reschedule a sundry of enlightening ECU duties in order to attend both Diana Garcia's poetry reading and the question and answer session sponsored by the Writers Reading Series. Garcia began the session by reading poems from her collection When Living Was A Labor Camp (U Arizona P, 2000). Garcia shared her own writing experiences with students and faculty. She initially started writing fiction and did not start writing poetry until she was in her late thirties. Fortunately, she did not allow her professor's lack of enthusiasm about her poetry hinder her from becoming a poet. Garcia also told students how one of her poetry professors, that she referred to as her greatest nemesis, later became her best supporter. (Hey, maybe there's hope for an allegedly disturbed poet in the creative writing program!) Garcia also shared her passion for writing about social issues and her commitment to being a social activist. In addition to visiting the ECU campus, for example, Garcia also spent time with children of migrant workers at local schools.

At the evening reading, Garcia chose to read poems that took a bittersweet look at life in the migrant labor camps. The combination of compassionate and sassy poems was seasoned with humor. Her poems deal with mothers, grandmothers, Madonnas, brothers, and migrant workers working in both harsh and transcendent landscapes. Many of the poems were about the people she knew and painted vibrant pictures of migrant workers. For example, in a sonnet, "Cotton Row," she read about workers with "their backs to the sun / bandanas tied to shade our brows / hands laced with tiny cuts. . ." Other poems she shared dealt with race-gender issues. The poem "Les Rubias" begins with the speaker asserting that she cannot be a "Breck" model "unless they bleach my skin to white and lighten up my curls a bit . . ."

Garcia, a native of California's San Joaquin valley, was born in a migrant labor camp. Her collection of poems When Living Was a Labor Camp won the American Book Award for 2001. At different times, she has been a single mother on welfare, a correctional consultant, and an electronics store owner. She is currently an assistant professor at San Diego State University.