SAUSD's Amplifying Leadership Podcast

10. Crafting Characters, Changing Lives: Inside Ernesto Cisneros’s Creative Mind, Part 2

• Bianca Barquin • Season 1 • Episode 10

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Ever wondered how stories of resilience and struggle can inspire young minds? Here's a golden chance to peek into the diary of Ernesto Cisneros, an acclaimed author and educator, as he reveals how his personal journey has shaped his writing. He shares his trials in getting published, the significance of diverse representation in literature, and how his narratives have made a profound impact on students, propelling them to dream big and find their own voice.

Engage with Ernesto as he navigates through a myriad of themes ranging from overcoming self-doubt to addressing complex topics in children's books. Listen to how he drew inspiration from real-life experiences and people to create relatable characters, and his soul-stirring journey from a child in Santa Ana to a nationally recognized author. Ernesto's determination to maintain a rigorous writing schedule and his relentless pursuit of his passion are nothing short of inspirational. His story is a testament to the power of dedication, resilience, and the transformative impact of literature.

Ernesto's journey doesn't stop here. His diligent efforts to amplify diverse voices in the publishing industry, his reflections on the influence of his classroom experiences on his writing, and the way he gives life to complex themes in children's books are truly captivating. The episode wraps up with a sneak peek into his upcoming projects and the legacy he wishes to leave behind. So, join us as we embark on this journey with Ernesto Cisneros, celebrating resilience, creativity, and the power of storytelling in education. 

Part 2 of 2

Visit us at our Buzzsprout site for more ways to listen, links to our social media sites and any referenced materials, and complete transcripts of our full-length episodes: https://bit.ly/SAUSDAmplifyingLeadership

Announcer:

Welcome back, Amplifiers, to the second part of our incredible conversation with SAUSD teacher and nationally acclaimed author, Ernesto Cisneros. We hope you enjoy the conclusion of this enlightening journey.

Bianca Barquin:

I think in my mind, the theme for this interview has been breaking boundaries, inspiration, and our stories matter right? So I think that those would be the themes. Next question. Your books tackle some complex and sensitive themes. How do you approach these topics in a way that's accessible and meaningful to young readers?

Ernesto Cisneros:

So one thing that I've learned as a teacher is that kids, and not just as a teacher, I think, just remembering when I was young, kids go through a lot and they process a lot and I think sometimes adults, as adults, we don't always give them credit for what's going on in their minds. I remember being a kid and watching Starchy and Hutch, something like that? Starsky yes, that one and I remember there was an episode where they had the KKK that was on there and I remember just being so worried and I couldn't sleep that night. And I remember walking to school the next day and I was worried about people who they were hurting. I remember hearing about storms that were knocking down communities or just watching the news and all the bad things that were happening and I was internalizing all those things. As a child, I never had anybody to really talk to about those things. People would just assume oh, you're just a kid, just worried about what you're going to play, what video game you're going to play next, and I was like, no, they're listening and they're hearing everything. All the conversations with my parents when they were struggling with money, the arguments, I was hearing all those things and so, as a teacher, I see those things as well. I see the impact that they have on the kids, and so I think that it's really important that we address those with children.

Ernesto Cisneros:

In Falling Short, there's a scene where the father was supposed to take his son to Disneyland and there's a scene where he's sitting on the curb and he's got his little Disneyland ticket in his hand and the dad never shows up. There's another scene where the boy gets sick at school. He throws up, he's at the school nurse and they call the dad to come pick him up and the dad shows up and he's been drinking. These are different experiences that, and some of these experiences are mine and some of them are things that I saw happen to my friends. But they are things that do happen to the kiddos too, the kiddos where I work. I actually had that situation where one of the kids called home to be picked up and their father was intoxicated and so I couldn't allow the child to go with them, and so they're very difficult situations, but these are things that the kids are already going through, and I think I've always thought of books as being kind of like instruction manuals.

Ernesto Cisneros:

We're not born with instruction manuals when we're born, but I think children's books are the closest things that we have, and so I'm always trying to not just entertain but to inform kids too, and any information that I have, any experiences that I think might help somebody else...

Ernesto Cisneros:

I think it's a way of turning something that was hurtful to me and, for example, if I remember walking over to school and there were some dogs that were coming in this direction and one of them bit me, and then I remember fast forwarding when I had my first child and carrying him and seeing some dogs, and I remember picking him up, scooping him up because I didn't want him to be bit by those dogs, and part of the way that I see that experience is that that prior experience helped me to protect my son from having the same thing happen to him, and so that might not be the best example, but by sharing my experiences I'm hoping to turn them into something positive, so they have a purpose, they have meaning. Otherwise it's just meaningless bad things that happen to us and that doesn't sit well with me. But you can turn them into something positive if they help somebody else.

Bianca Barquin:

Absolutely, and it will help them work through their own issues, which is great. Next question for you. Leading a book study with parents on Ephrén Divided is a fantastic initiative. What has the experience been like... I've heard nothing but great things, by the way... and what are some key takeaways for you from those interactions?

Ernesto Cisneros:

My first takeaway is that Lisa Solomon is an amazing human being.

Bianca Barquin:

Agreed.

Ernesto Cisneros:

She was my mentor teacher, so she taught me everything that I know. Just an amazing, amazing, caring, just compassionate human being, wonderful person. And that experience has been so wonderful. And it's not about the parents reading my book, it's more about they're seeing their stories told too. And the beautiful thing is that the parents are reading the books in Spanish, their kiddos are reading it in English and they're going home and they're having conversations, and it's not just conversations about the book, it's shared experiences that they have and so they're not talking about like, oh, Efrén's Amá, this happens to them. Let me tell you what my experiences were coming into this country, and so the kiddos were actually having these conversations and I'm hearing from the parents. So I mean, there was things I didn't even know that my kids were thinking about. I didn't know that my kids had never asked me these questions before, and that's... it's been wonderful, also hearing some of the kiddos. Sometimes they want to raise their hand, they want to read out loud too, and yesterday one of these students that goes to Mendez, he just happens to go there, he started reading out loud and he started laughing while he was reading because it was the funniest part in the book.

Ernesto Cisneros:

As an author, I... oh my gosh, that was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had. Just having... experiencing somebody enjoying something that you wrote is amazing. But really it's just that sense of, I love seeing the parents looking at themselves and seeing how amazing they are, because you cannot read Efrén Divided without falling in love with the parents, without thinking that they're amazing human beings and heroes, true heroes. And then when you see yourself and you had, you did something very similar you're like, wait a minute, I'm a hero too. This is, I'm amazing, and that, that's been the best part of it. Bianca Barquin: So per hero Ernesto: So per, yes, yes. Basically, I want to just let all the people, all those parents were there know, you guys are all so per too, and they really are.

Bianca Barquin:

Beautiful. What advice would you give to educators or students in our district who aspire to write and publish their own stories?

Ernesto Cisneros:

I think the best advice I can give them is to write about things that are dear to them. Write about things that you want to read, question things that you question. Write about things that you don't know. Write about things that scare you. Write about things that you don't think you can write about. But honestly, it just comes down to just write and be yourself.

Ernesto Cisneros:

Everybody has a unique personality and that's what I refer to when people say, oh, I love the voice in this book. It's about this personality that's coming across and that's what I gravitate towards, and I think that if people just value themselves enough to allow their personalities to come out in the writing, I think that's going to make people very successful. So I think that's the biggest thing. And also believing yourself and believing your experiences and just know everybody has a story. I really do believe that everybody has a potential to write a book because you can teach yourself the mechanics. It's just you can't teach yourself the desire to want to do it, but I really do. I mean, there's so many people I've met before and you start talking and you ask them about so what are your kiddos doing? And they start talking to you like 30 minutes about their kids or something that happened when they were growing up, and I'm always thinking, my God, that would be a fantastic book. I think we're all basically open books sometimes and everybody has a story to share.

Bianca Barquin:

I love that. Everybody has a book inside them, right? I know you started to talk about this a little bit when we mentioned the book study with parents, but what has been some of the most impactful feedback you've received from students and parents who have read your books?

Ernesto Cisneros:

That's been part of the most rewarding part of this experience. I remember there was a girl and when I went to visit a school and she was very excited to get her book signed and she came over and she just... I knew she was going to say something special to me for just the way she was looking at me. She was honestly looking at me like I was somebody, like somebody should really want her to meet and I just I could see like a sparkle in her eye. When her turn came over, I asked her her name and that's when she told me that she really identified with the story of Lalo because she said that's her dad's story. And sorry, I think I'm trying not to choke up at this moment because I'm just thinking about those, but it's just really surreal and I don't think that's the right word, but it's moving. It's just very special when you're writing something and people are really connecting too.

Ernesto Cisneros:

And I've had people, kiddos come over to me and telling me that oh yeah, my dad's undocumented too. And I've had kiddos who, for example, we're going to be going off for Christmas break and I always ask the kids anybody going anywhere, anybody doing anything? And I always get a few kids who tell me oh, I'm going to go see my dad, where's your dad? Oh, he's over there in Tijuana. We get to see him once a month and I'm like, are you going to go there or are you going to go to Friendship Park? And it's like, no, just like your book.

Ernesto Cisneros:

And it just breaks my heart. So part of it is very difficult to hear that they're going through similar experiences, because there is a part of me that wishes that there was no place for Efrén Divided the book, there was no need for it. I think that's what I kind of want and I know it's kind of a weird thing for an author to say, but I really do wish that there was no need for this book. I wish that people weren't identifying with it but sadly, they are, and it's really... It just breaks my heart to hear the stories. So it's rewarding but it's devastating to hear at the same time.

Bianca Barquin:

Important for us to hear and important stories. The characters are truly likable, relatable. I mean. I read the book and I actually fell in love with Lalo's character too, because here's a character in a difficult position but so helpful and so caring, so I completely understand.

Ernesto Cisneros:

So one of the things I really wanted to do was to help the kiddos to navigate their situations. So with Efrén, at the end, and I'm not gonna give any spoilers away, but I wanted to the character Efrén to feel empowered by the end of the book, and if there are any kiddos who find themselves in the same situation that Efrén does, I hope that they feel empowered as well by the end of the book.

Bianca Barquin:

Thank you. Next question for you. Can you give us a sneak peek and I know that you've started to talk about it, but now I'm super excited and can't wait to hear, into any future projects or books you're working on? What themes or messages are you hoping to explore next?

Ernesto Cisneros:

So a little quick disclaimer is that most of my titles are working titles and every book I've written so far the title has changed, but the working title right now it's named Queso for Short, and it's about a boy named Quetzalcoatl, who people can pronounce his name, and this is based on a student that I actually had, so not based on the student, but I'm borrowing his name and I had trouble with his name at the time too, and so I asked him if I'd call him Queso, and he loved the name Queso. And it's a story about a boy whose dad was as a security guard right here on the Bristol by the swap meet, and there was a burglar who breaks into their home and he's murdered. And we fast forward to the story two years later and the boy's still struggling with the loss of his father, and so one day he makes a wish that he could see his dad again, and the next day he wakes up, but it's 1982, and he gets to see his dad again, but he's 12 years old and his father is at Tremendo. And I'm having so much fun revisiting the 80s and I get to write about schools like Spurgeon and Freemont and going to Salvador Park and doing all the foosball tournaments and going into the swimming pool for 25 cents because it lets you go for two hours.

Ernesto Cisneros:

Back in the day, they would let you go for two hours and then my friends and I like after, we would go into the bathrooms and we would hide and they kick everybody out and then when they let the next batch in, we would just come out of the bathrooms. So, for 25 cents, we would spend the entire day there. Just a lot of the of the stuff that we did when we were kids, I get to relive them and share them with people, so I cannot tell you how excited I am about it, how much fun it's been. I am following my rule about writing for one hour a day, and so I'm happy. I'm not making myself sick, I'm not stressed. I'm really enjoying the process, and so I'm really excited for that story to come out.

Ernesto Cisneros:

I'm not sure if it's gonna make it for 2024. It's either gonna be late 2024 or early 2025. But that's one of the projects I'm working on. I'm working on a comic book and I'm hoping to publish a young adult novel as well, one that I wrote in Sharon Saxton's junior year classroom, that was one of her assignments and I'm super, super excited about being able to write for a little bit older kids, and that was a little bit more challenging. That title is gonna really be very emotional. I don't... Ernest Hemingway said something along the lines of basically just bleeding onto the pages, and that writing was pretty easy if you do that, and for me that's always been my approach. I don't really censor myself as far as like, what am I willing to share? I did grow up with a lot of tough experiences, but those are the tough experiences that the kids are also having and they're living them too. So again, I wanna help them navigate those experiences, those tough moments in life.

Bianca Barquin:

I am so excited about what's to come. I can't wait. I hope that your book gets published, Queso, sooner than later, so I can read it. Ernesto Cisneros: Me too me too. Bianca Barquin: But I'm excited about the comic book and the young adult book as well, so you'll have to keep me posted.

Ernesto Cisneros:

I will and I'm really excited right now because there's two kiddos in my classroom who have copies and they're, like I said earlier, they're my best editors and I'm really excited about it. I did have an author friend read it and she said she thought it was the best thing I've written yet. So that's exciting. But yeah, I think I'm more excited about the kiddos. I just wanna see their reaction because I know that they're gonna be super honest and I just can't wait to kind of pick their brains and ask them what parts did you enjoy? Did anything kind of move you? And, like I said, those are my editors. I could not write without them.

Bianca Barquin:

Awesome. Okay, last question I have for you before we get into our Amplifier Acknowledgement segment. Reflecting on your journey from a student in Santa Ana to a nationally recognized author, what are some key life lessons you've learned that you'd like to pass on to our educators and our students?

Ernesto Cisneros:

You know, it's funny how, every time you ask me questions about things that I've learned throughout this whole process, I cannot help but mention Sharon Saxton, and I think that the reason for that is, as an educator, she had a huge impact on my life and part of it was because, growing up and I think this is the third time I'm in a reference, but with a sense of disentitlement I just did not believe in myself, and sometimes when you don't believe in yourself, you need that one person who will believe in you when you can't, and she was that for me. I remember her pretty much as she... I wasn't doing my homework and she pulled me aside and she had a very stern talking to me and I realized she was probably the first teacher that ever showed she cared and even though, you know, maybe I didn't like the message that she was giving me, I appreciated it so much and it was just her faith in me and she would always tell me that you're such a talented writer. And I believed her because she was always so brutally honest about everything else and why would she lie to me? But she's been amazing. Right after I left high school, I found out that she actually signed up to take classes with her former students in the community college because she heard about so many other that were struggling. So she signed up and she took the classes alongside with them. And so again it just goes back to, I mean one, she's a wonderful human being, and two, just that she invested her time and her energy into her students. And I still... we keep in touch with social media sometimes.

Ernesto Cisneros:

And again it just goes down to I did not believe in myself, but she did, and she kind of carried me for a couple of years. Just her belief in me helped me, help to just keep me going. Every time I was at UC Irvine other professors, would you know, shred my paper and say, oh, this is one of the worst things I've ever read. I would think, you know, Sharon Saxton thought you were very talented, okay, you can do this, you can do this, and so she... I think a lot of the confidence, or what little confidence I had, it all came from her and I think that as an educator, that's the most powerful thing you do. If you can believe in the kiddos and let them know that you're not just saying that you truly believe in them. That's the most powerful thing a teacher can, can do for a student.

Bianca Barquin:

I think that that is a powerful message, not just for teachers, but for every employee that works with children, for all parents, aunties, uncle, everybody, right tios, tias, everybody, abuelitos, abuelitas, just to continually tell our kiddos that we believe in them and they can do anything they set their minds to doing.

Ernesto Cisneros:

Yes, and in the classroom, I, I share the struggles with the kids too, when we are doing writing and, and I, I don't like to go home and write something the night before. I used to do that as a teacher because I thought I'm the teacher, I can. I, I can't have spelling mistakes if I write something, or I can't have, you know, improperly structured sentences. So let me type something up and write it and have it be very professional. And then I realized that the kids are not seeing the true process.

Ernesto Cisneros:

I never hide my mistakes. I never hide my frustrations. There's days in my lessons don't go well and we talk about them next day. I'm like you know what? It's fine, because now I learned what I did wrong and now we can try and do it better. So that's also really important, that we also show them the struggles as well. A lot of times people don't, they're not transparent with those things. And so kids, they try to be like us and then when they fail, sometimes they give up because I think they, well, I'm not as good as this person. No, no, no, you just didn't see all the work that it took. You know, okay, you're struggling to publish your book. Okay, I struggled for 14 years. That's part of the process sometimes.

Bianca Barquin:

You're being authentic with our students and you're helping them become more reflective and you're helping them become more resilient. So thank you for that. Okay, before we sign off, it's time for our Amplifier Acknowledgement segment. Ernesto, if you could amplify the message or lesson of one educator or leader who's made a significant impact in your journey, who would it be and what is that resonating message?

Ernesto Cisneros:

I could very easily go back to Sharon Saxton one more time. I think I'm going to mention Ms. Ashley also, and she's also a teacher that was... she was my math algebra one and algebra two teacher at Santa Ana High School. I think that the message that she gave me though it wasn't an actual something she said it was something she did and she would always stay after school and just tutor us and she would play music and she would make it fun. And I never knew that studying could be fun and, honestly, I would go to the class just because I thought it was a cool place to be and the fact that they were doing math problems, that didn't seem to matter and I didn't know I was studying. And I think the message is sometimes we just need somebody to sit by us, by our side, and even if she wasn't directly telling me how to do the math problems, just knowing she was there, you know, working on math problems, there's other students who are doing the same thing, my peers were doing the same thing. She was leading by example and I think sometimes with a lot of kiddos, we ask them to do things, go home and read, okay, but sometimes they need somebody, said next to them while they're reading, or they need somebody to read with them. Okay, I need you to study. Okay, what does studying even look like? For a lot of the kiddos, they're not aware, they're not sure exactly how to do these things. So I think the biggest message is sometimes we just we need a little bit of help, and it's just little things that make the biggest differences.

Ernesto Cisneros:

I think that the overarching theme with with both teachers, and not just them, but everybody else who's been part of my life, who's Influenced me, you know, at school, they all gave me a place to be, and it wasn't just a place to be, but as a place where I wanted to be, like I felt welcomed and I, looking back, naturally there's a first time I'm actually processing this like live on the spot.

Ernesto Cisneros:

But as I think about this, every classroom where I did excel was a place where I felt welcomed and wanted and appreciated. And all the classrooms where I did not feel that way, where I thought was just... it felt like that was just another number, I didn't... I usually didn't do very well in those classes because I didn't, unfortunately, I just didn't do things for myself and sometimes when those... you have somebody who cares about you, you don't want to disappoint them, so I think that's what it was. They cared about me, so in return, I cared about them and what they thought about me, and so I think that that brought out the, the best of me, and I will forever be super appreciative for what they did.

Bianca Barquin:

Remember, leadership is not just about guiding, but also celebrating and acknowledging those who've paved the way. Ernesto, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on SA USD's Amplifying Leadership. Your journey from Santa Ana to the pages of your books is an inspiring testament to the power of resilience, creativity, and dedication. Thank you for sharing your insights and for the profound impact you're making in the lives of our students, parents, and the broader community. To our listeners, thank you for joining us today. I hope Ernesto's story has inspired you to find your own unique ways to connect, create, and contribute to our community. Remember, each one of us has a story that can ignite change and foster understanding. Until next time, keep leading, keep inspiring, and keep amplifying the voices that make SA USD a place of growth and discovery.