Storyweb: Storytime For Grownups

This week on StoryWeb: Jimmy Santiago Baca’s memoir and film, A Place to Stand. For Karen Bowen If you want a gritty, raw, punch-in-the-face but ultimately optimistic and life-affirming story, look no further than Jimmy Santiago Baca’s memoir, A Place to Stand, and the documentary film based on that memoir. I had the great fortune of attending a screening of A Place to Stand at the Boulder International Film Festival. My dear friend Karen Bowen, the coordinator of the BoulderReads literacy program, invited me to join her and dozens of other literacy professionals, volunteers, and activists from around Colorado. What a powerful setting to see this amazing film! Though I had heard Baca’s name and though I knew he was a prominent Native American and Chicano poet, I did not know his work firsthand nor did I know his story. Baca’s story is as unbelievable as it is inspiring. Abandoned by his parents at a young age and left by his grandmother to fend for himself in orphanages and detention centers, Baca turned to a