Working on words as the most beautiful way of living (or my Personal Statement for Berkeley)

I was sixteen when my family moved to live in an attic. It was like a small tent. I shared a bed with my brother, and my mother shared one with my sister. The TV was always on and some cardboard boxes were filled with books. My mother loved reading. She was always behind a novel. One night when we were in bed she said, “We might write a book about our history.” She was probably reading Isabel Allende and thought about our tragedy, living in another family’s home at their expense. My mother knew, as everybody knows, that literature is built on tragedies. Even more, she knew literature is about finding consolation in the middle of the tragedy.

Like my mother, I’ve always loved to read. Thus, writing was a natural step for me to take. When I was eighteen, I published my first opinion article in a national newspaper. I talked about my experiences as a poor teenager from the suburbs of Santiago, and such achievement inspired me to study Journalism. My family could not afford my tuition so I took out loans, and gratefully I learned how to write. When I finished college, I began using this privilege to publish political articles about social injustice in Chilean newspapers.

Once I finished school, I decided to serve at NGOs. I collaborated with OCAC Chile, a feminist organization that successfully led the law against sexual harassment in Chile. I was both the Communications Director and spokeswoman, leading a group of twenty professional ladies and speaking about the issue on national media. In parallel, I worked as a journalist in Educación 2020, a nonprofit institution for education equality that works with poor and indigenous communities, improving their opportunities to access higher education.

Although I enjoy journalism, my true passion has always lied with literature. One night I started to write short stories inspired by the abused women and indigenous I had met, besides my own experience as a teenager living in an attic. I titled the project Quiltras, a Mapudungún word used in Chile to name strays half-breed dogs. I am a mestiza woman born into a working-class family, with Spanish, African, and indigenous roots. I was eager to write stories from a feminist, non-white, proletarian perspective. Literature for teenagers like I was. Quiltras was published in Chile and won the Ministry of Culture prize for book of 2017, and later was published in Spain and Mexico. It is now read by nonprivileged students in public schools around the world.̣

Across my life, using words and language has been my way of growing, my contribution to repair the world’s injustices. I decided to apply for a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley because I believe access to higher education will help me to continue to develop my critical thinking, as well as my ability to express and amplify issues I think are important, in both artistic and academic ways. After my studies, I expect to return to my home country as a better faculty, writer, and human, so I can continue healing personally and collectively through literature, as my mother taught me.