A Quote by Esperanza Spalding
When I read, you know, a rough neighborhood of Portland, I'm like - what? - they didn't have kombucha bars there?
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I did grow up in a rough neighborhood in Portland, which is an abstract concept for anybody who's rolled through Portland because now it looks like a TV set, literally.
In the neighborhood where I grew up, it was a rough neighborhood - well, not rough, but it certainly wasn't upper class or anything. But I remember hearing things like, 'The little man just can't get ahead.' And if you start to believe that, then you know what? You don't get ahead.
I never thought I'd be anything, coming from a rough neighborhood. So my character was built on the street. I had to know how to carry myself; I had to act like I was older than I was.
I took my first acting classes in Portland at Portland State University and the Portland Actors Conservatory.
If you have an all-white neighborhood you don't call it a segregated neighborhood. But you call an all-black neighborhood a segregated neighborhood. And why? Because the segregated neighborhood is the one that's controlled by the ou - from the outside by others, but a separate neighborhood is a neighborhood that is independent, it's equal, it can do - it can stand on its own two feet, such as the neighborhood. It's an independent, free neighborhood, free community.
The second book, which was probably more from a professional standpoint - when I read Junot Díaz's Drown, I was like, Oh my god, you can write these stories and people will actually read them beyond your own little community. This guy's book is blowing up and it seems like [he's writing about] the neighborhood that I grew up in. That was a big deal. I read that in graduate school, so that's when I was really taking writing seriously, but I didn't know you could do it. I didn't know you can actually be an author. It was a weird epiphany.
It's been rough for me trying to find my position in the struggle and where my voice is needed and helpful. You know, I grew up in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia has a really rough police-brutality history. I grew up in a neighborhood where it was very clear that the police were "them" and we were "us".
I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood, Paramount, California, outside of L.A., like near Compton, that's where I'm from.
Is Portland worse off than other cities? Is Portland really 'Tent City U.S.A.?' I want to be clear: The answer is no. While the homeless situation in Portland is significant and unacceptable, it is not unique.
I don't like candy bars. I eat the big rectangular bars. You know - anything between 85 and 50 percent cocoa.
You know, I still live in my neighborhood. I live in Brooklyn and the same neighborhood, so I don't really get star treatment like that. I'm still Vanessa from the neighborhood.
Portland doesn't read like a basketball town, unless you remember what the NBA was like before it exploded into the mainstream in the Eighties: back when cities like Seattle, Baltimore, and Philadelphia moved the needle.
I learned to share work with people even when it was in its rough stages without worrying that they'd be filled with scorn and hatred. After all, I can read their rough work without turning on them like a wildebeest.
We went from candy bars, to handle bars, to hangin' in bars, to being behind bars
Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their critical lab has scales and weights, but neither crucible or touchstone.
I know a lot about health, wellness, and nutrition. I make my own kombucha. I'm clumsy.
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