>> hinojosa: her novel push is a new york times bestseller, and precious, the film it was made into, won a trophy case full of awards, including an oscar. but despite the accolades, many people feel that this story should have never been told. award-winning poet, author, and educator sapphire. i'm maria hinojosa. this is one on one. sapphire, welcome to the program. it's an honor to have you here. >> i'm really exited to be here. thank you for inviting me. >> hinojosa: so you write this amazing novel, push. ends up on the new york times bestseller list, published in 1996. >> exactly. >> hinojosa: and then in the

year 2009, push becomes precious, the movie. and it's a movie essentially about a young girl in harlem. she's obese, and she's brutalized by her mother and her father. and a lot of people kind of focus on the horrible things that happen both in the book and in the movie. but you really see this story about what? >> i saw it as a story of transformation. i saw it as a story of rebirth. i saw it as a story of someone who had been near dead or unable to live fully. and i saw it as a coming to life. and that is what has attracted so many people to the novel and especially to the movie, is that it doesn't... while we see the brutality, while we see the evil, we mostly see and exalt in this girl's coming to life, and, you know, we're rooting for her. and gabourey, our star, we're seeing her literally open like a

flower, you know, become beautiful, become alive. >> hinojosa: and yet... and you know this, because, you know, the book was published in '96. and when the book came out, people were attacking you. they were like, "how dare you write this book? this is a horrible story. you are stereotyping our african american men and the entire community." >> exactly. >> hinojosa: oh, my god. and then when the movie comes out, you're basically attacked again. >> exactly. you know what? it comes with the territory. i made a conscious decision. you know, i used to be... or used to want to be a dancer. that's a whole different medium. i knew when i started to write, and the subject matter that i had chosen to write about, that i wasn't going to get off scot free. and i was lucky, because so many women had gone before me-- ntozake shange, you know, jessica hagadorn, toni morrison, alice walker. so i knew what was coming. i wasn't surprised.

anytime you air out so-called dirty laundry, anytime you dig into the bowels of a culture, people are going to accuse you of being a traitor, accuse you of stereotyping. but for me, i was lancing the wounds, i was cleansing the deepest... the deepest, darkest parts of our soul, and i was doing what we needed to do so that we could live, i thought. >> hinojosa: there was a time in your life, you were still a young person, when you suddenly realized that the life that you thought you had led, which, you know, you say pretty kind of typical african american middle class, and suddenly you start realizing that you... you start remembering that you were not only physically abused by your dad, you were sexually abused, and that your mom essentially abandoned your family. >> mm-hmm.

>> hinojosa: and you said you almost went into having a nervous breakdown, but that the art saved you. >> exactly. i don't know if it's that just one-two, but it's in the process of overcoming my own trauma that i had to find some outlet, you know, i had to find something, you know what i mean? and i was always a creative child. and so... but i was never a particularly... and i always read, but i was never particularly a literary kid, you know what i mean? but i had published a thing in the school newspaper. and i just started to see... begin to see writing as more than just transferring information, but that it could be a way of reordering my soul. it could be a way of restructuring the life that i had lost in a certain kind of way. you know, because what had happened to me in some ways had broken me. we can put it like that. we can really say that. and i could either stay broken or i could begin to put myself

back together. and that's what the process of writing poetry, and a lot of it very bad... but just the process of trying to put words together, the linguistic process of taking bits of language and trying to create experience that others and myself could understand, i think healed me. >> hinojosa: now, of course, when i walk through the streets, after i read your book in '96 i always would look and think, you know, "is she being abused? is this woman being abused? how is she..." you know, "how do we make her visible?" and you really wanted... you wanted people to see a character like precious... >> exactly. >> hinojosa: ...and see her. >> exactly. i thought... you know the famous novel by ralph ellison, the invisible man. and i remember contemplating precious and bringing her to life, and thinking she would be invisible even to the invisible man.

so for... you know, the invisible man was about a man who is not seen by the dominant culture. and i was thinking precious is not even seen by her own. even by the underclass she is invisible. people have done everything... she says it-- "they want to wipe me away, forget that i exist." so i began to see it almost as a responsibility, you know, as a task, you know, like a warrior, you know, that this was... i was going to slay these dragons that kept her invisible. and the dragons were denial, embarrassment, and ignorance, you know? we... many of us in the african american community were ashamed of precious, you know? she wasn't our... >> hinojosa: she was a loser. >> she wasn't our halle berry, type, you know what i mean? she wasn't a winner. she was what we had been taught to think of, also, as ugly. she was... you know, in all nonwhite cultures we've been taught to think of the darkest

of our people as ugly. she also was not a fashion model in terms of physique. you know, she didn't have long, flowing hair. so there were a lot of things there that put her in a category that would cause her not to be seen. but even more than that, the way that anyone is seen and acquaints themself with a larger culture is through language. and in a certain kind of way, precious didn't even have language to express herself. >> hinojosa: which was an amazing thing about the book. i mean, so many people now have seen the movie, but i always tell them, "you have to read the book." because you write this book as if you are precious. >> exactly. >> hinojosa: and so you're writing it the was she as an illiterate teenager would write. it's a dialect. >> exactly. >> hinojosa: how did you do that? >> well, you know, for years i've... for years and years i taught adult literacy. and i taught teenagers from 16 and up to women in their 70s and

80s who had come back to school because they wanted to learn to read the bible. and they would keep notebooks, and a lot of... some of what you see in the movie, like the dialogue journal going back and forth. and... but a lot of my students would... due to life circumstances they would disappear. you know, i wouldn't know what happened. maybe they would go back to the dominican republic, maybe they would go back down south. and they would leave me the notebooks. and that would be all i would have. and i would just pore over it. and i would... you know, many of these students i formed deep, intense attachments with. sometimes i would even go to their homes to try to find out where they had went. and i couldn't, you know? and so there i was with these notebooks, which eventually i just bundled up and gave back to the administration where i was teaching. but for months i would just pore over these notebooks. >> hinojosa: and there were horrible, horrible things in these notebooks. >> there were horrible, horrible things, but there were also wonderful things, like, "i can finally read, and i was able to open a checking account, and now i don't have to give my man my money no more."

things like that, wondrous things, you know what i mean? that whole... you know, i would get them young adult versions of the bible. so here's these religious women who have basically been controlled by their priest or their preachers, now taking command of what... of god's word themself. so there were some wonderful things, and then there were the stories, the stories of the abuse, the stories of the ridicule, you know, the stories of just... there was a black historian who wrote a book, carter g. woodson, and he said... he was talking about the psychology of the oppressed. and said if there was no back door that often african americans, because they'd been trained to go to the back door, would make a back door. you know, they would go to the back of a house, even if there was no back door. and that translated in the movie

and in the book to these students who would... i would have to make a circle, because they would always want to sit in the back row. they would always want... >> hinojosa: want to be invisible. >> they want to be in the back, as far back as they could get. and so that whole thing of being in a circle where they can see and where they can be seen... and then they would write about that, you know, their self consciousness, and not feeling that they had been beautiful. and, you know, some of the ones who were more open would just write me and ask me, "am i beautiful?" you know what i mean? and i would say, "yeah, you're beautiful," you know what i mean? just things like that. and so their souls would open up, and we had deep confidentiality agreements. you know, i said no one, unless you... you know, unless you threaten to take your own life or someone else's life, no one will ever see this notebook. >> hinojosa: so they were really able to be entirely honest. >> there was a deep intimacy, and that comes through in the... not so much in the movie, but you really see that in the book, where she... precious reveals

things like her status, the abuse, you know, what was happening with her mama, things... the unspeakable. the unspeakable can be written. >> hinojosa: and you actually say it has to be written... >> it must be. >> hinojosa: must be written over and over again. i'm thinking about the character of mo'nique. what was it like for you... whoa. because what a total tranormation... >> exactly. >> hinojosa: ...of this woman mo'nique. i mean, her own personal story of allowing herself to be transformed into this monster. talk about what it was like to see mo'nique onscreen, and also about that very untold story that actually i reported about in the 1990s, which was about women who are perpetrators of sexual abuse against their own children. >> exactly, exactly. it's interesting. many, many women had come to me, and they had done, like, one-woman plays of push. some women had done it in

amsterdam, france, a young woman here had done it as an mfa thesis, as a one-woman show. and they would come to me, and literally they would always say the same thing-- "you know, sapphire, that section with the mother?" and i would say, "yeah, that section with the mother." "we left that out." so... >> hinojosa: they just really didn't want to... >> they just... they didn't touch it. it would not be in their text, and it would not be in the performance. >> hinojosa: it is so not talked about, that women can be perpetrators. >> so i was totally prepared for mo'nique to leave it out, or for lee daniels not to have that in the movie. and for mo'nique... i didn't know mo'nique was going to go there. but i had an inkling. i met her on the set. she hugged me, and she said... i forget her exact words, but she said something like, "i'm going to do this, and if i ever get off track, mommy, i want you to let me know."

and it just went into my heart. i said, "this woman is serious," you know what i mean? but because i was unsophisticated, and i didn't know what the dailies were, you know, i didn't know anything about filmmaking or anything, so i didn't know that at the end of each day's shooting they show the dailies, what has been shot. so the first time i saw the film was just like everybody else. i was in a... >> hinojosa: you're kidding me. >> even though i had had a cameo and been on the set, when i saw the film in its entirety it was in a screening room with other people. and i remember i was just dazed, and i was... i thought, "this is some of the best acting i've ever seen in my life. this woman is phenomenal." and she went there. she was fearless. >> hinojosa: oh, she went there. >> and i just felt that... >> hinojosa: she was horrible. >> i felt she was true to my... true to the text. she was true to the text. she took these words, and she made them alive. and i just thought, "this is phenomenal."

and i was scared, because this was the first screening, and i was like... you know, and lee was talking, because it's a different movie then, you know? and i thought, "my god," you know, "we're going to cut this." and i thought, "oh, my god, i ho he doesn't cut mo'nique." this is perhaps some of the best acting in modern cinema. >> hinojosa: now, she did win an oscar. >> she sure did. >> hinojosa: and you were there, actually. i saw you right when you were... >> i was there, i was there. >> hinojosa: sapphire at the oscars! >> and when i was... when i was flying in, i was... you know, there was, like, no doubt in my mind that she was going to get it. you know, and i also... i really thought lee should have gotten best director, and that we should have got best picture. >> hinojosa: well, i was rooting for gabourey. >> and i was also rooting for gabourey. >> hinojosa: because when i saw that performance... and gabourey does an amazing job of being precious. >> exactly. >> hinojosa: but the moments where gabourey goes into her fantasy life, and suddenly she's got these, you know, boas, and she's, like, a queen, that's when i was like, "oh, my god,

she has got to win best actress." >> exactly. >> hinojosa: because that's when you see the depth of her. and she didn't win best actress. >> i was deeply disappointed. >> hinojosa: how was she? how did she handle that? >> i think she's handled it as any 20-something would, you know? like, she knows there's going to be a next time. that was the other thing. i thought, "if there's a good part to this, and there's not really, it's that she's in her 20s, and that now there will have to be other major films for her." >> hinojosa: do you trust filmmaking a little bit more now in terms of... >> you know who i trust? i trust myself. i... you know, i did the right thing. all those people i told no, i was correct. you know, madonna wanted to do the film. i mean, all kinds of people wanted to do... >> hinojosa: madonna. >>o. so... and there's nothing wrong with those people. >> hinojosa: that's right, i had heard about that, that she was trying to... >> and she's a brilliant woman, but what does she know about

race and class? this movie had to deal with race and class. there were a lot of people who came to me, and i talked with them, or i had them write me, and i looked at what they were putting down, and i said no. and then lee came, and i said no too, but then i saw monster's ball, and i saw monster's ball, and i said yeah. he's fearless. here we have a black woman falling in love with a white man who has helped to execute the black woman's husband. he's not afraid of offending people. he will go there. so it was like... and then i said, "yeah, he can do it." >> hinojosa: how do you... i mean, i think probably people will say... >> and i was right. >> hinojosa: right. and people will probably say, "wait a second. but sapphire wrote this book, and she's written all this poetry. what do you mean she learned to trust herself?" people assume that you've always trusted yourself, that just by putting that writing down, that you trust yourself. and yet it's a process. >> yeah, it's a process. and to trust... you know, it's interesting, because you asked me earlier, had i done a lot of

television. and i said no, and not because people haven't come to me, but because i didn't want to be exploited or made to look stupid or something like that. and so it is that thing of beginning to trust myself, and then trust that if i trust myself, if i really have a sense of dignity and honesty, then i can begin to trust that other people will treat me with dignity and a sense of honesty, as opposed to the kitty kelley treatment or something, you know what i mean? >> hinojosa: so you actually feel... >> yeah, so i'm learning that. i'm learning to gauge who i can trust and stuff. >> hinojosa: and the interesting thing is that you... even though you've been highly criticized and targeted, you can still come out feeling... feeling good, feeling like this was an absolute positive? >> i do, i do. i mean, i think it's good that we were... the people who criticized us, and the reasons that they criticized us, i wasn't surprised by. i mean, there is tremendous denial in american culture.

we're a culture that idolizes youth, that spends millions and billions of dollars on trying to look young, but we despise, in some way, young people. so here we have to beg... you know, community groups have to beg for funding for our kindergartens and this and that, you know what i mean? so there's that paradox that we have this youth-orientated culture, but we actually don't really love young people. you know, we want to... you know, if people have enough money, they hire someone else to actually raise their children. we don't value them, and we exoit their bodies in a way that has never been paralleled. i mean, the level of child pornography, the level of sexual abuse of young people, has gotten worse, not better, you know what i mean? so yeah, you're going to get criticism. people, instead of thinking i was talking about a worldwide

phenomena of sexual abuse, people thought i was talking about black men. and that's so myopic, you know what i mean? but what... so i knew that that was coming. there were actually people... some people who i gave credit for more intelligence actually asked... put it in the new york times, why is gabourey dark? why did we pick a dark star? >> hinojosa: they actually... >> that's in an article by felicia lee. someone comments on the shade of gabourey's skin. these type of things you can't predict. we picked her because she was beautiful and she was talented. >> hinojosa: amazingly talented. the story that you also point out with push, the movie precious, is that... it's about these community groups, these... you know, these community organizers. >> exactly. >> hinojosa: look at you. you're just like... >> exactly. >> hinojosa: because you want ople to... >> exactly. >> hinojosa: ...say, "you know what? if we actually see someone... >> exactly. >> hinojosa: ...who is entirely different than us...

>> exactly. >> hinojosa: ...and we give of ourselves, we can in fact transform someone's life." >> exactly. and i really wanted to show... you have this dysfunctional family, a family of colored dysfunctionals, but you also have this functional community. you know, so the first person who... she has angels. you see that in the book. each blade of grass has an angel that tells it to grow, grow. and so the first person who comes to her, she's literally going to die if she doesn't get the baby out of her body. and it's the emergency service man, a hispanic man, who tells her, "baby, you've got to push to give birth, to give life to yourself." then she comes to her teacher, then she comes to her friends, then she has a halfway house teacher, she has a a social worker. there's a community, a functional community of working class and middle class african americans around her who will help her live, who will help her live. so it wasn't just the story of a dysfunctional family, it was the story of a functional community that rose to save her. and i think that's the part that

people overlook, you know? >> hinojosa: and it is overlooked. i mean, you've had to kind of say... >> i've had to, like, pound that into people. >> hinojosa: ..."it's about literacy, it's about empowering, it's about community-based organizations." >> exactly, exactly. the whole book is a tribute to community-based organizations. i mean, the halfway house. i mean, the most... one of the most beautiful scenes in the movie, i think, is where precious is dunking the baby in the water, it's a baptismal scene. i don't have a swimming pool. working class and poor people don't have access to swimming pools. that swimming pool is paid... that's a state-owned swimming pool. that's our money at good use, you know? the halfway house where she learns mothering skills, you know what i mean? her friends, where she overcomes xenophobia, homophobia, where she gets a new world view, where she begins to see herself. that's us, you know what i mean? that's a functional, strong, healed community who is reaching out for one of their own who has been destroyed. what's negative about that?

why should anyone be ashamed of that? why should black people be ashamed of that picture? >> hinojosa: so, sapphire, you were once a struggling artist, unsure about writing of your own poetry. wow. >> yeah. >> hinojosa: wow. >> yeah. >> hinojosa: how are you processing that? because it's a total, "whoop!" >> it is, it's a flip. >> hinojosa: you don't have to work. >> yeah, yeah. well, i do have to work. >> hinojosa: i mean, you have to work. >> i'm working on my novel right now. i do speaking engagements. and i'm taking some classes, hoping to be able to get into a ph.d. program. but no, i no longer have to work at a fast food joint. i no longer have to go from harlem to the upper west side and clean white ladies' houses. so, you know, my life is really blessed. and in some ways, my life... now

i can look back, that i don't have to do any of that anymore, and say my life has really been enriched by all those experiences, because i aa child of the working class. and i have an... because i've come through that, i will always have an allegiance to writing about the working class and underclass. and now i feel more than ever that i have a responsibility. and not a responsibility to produce what people want, but to keep telling the-- i love al gore-- the inconvenient truth, you know what i mean? and so that's what i'm... >> hinojosa: and you actually do love al gore. you said that that was a very inspirational moment for you, to see that. >> hinojosa: tell us about the novel that you're working on. is it finished? >> it is. it is actually finished now. i was... as i was catching the... riding the acela up here i was doing some... you know, some... i had an editor look at it. so i was doing some little... you know, little bits and pieces here and there. so i'm hoping to be able to hand it in to... this is my own editor, but to hand it in to a publishing house and have it out

by 2011. and in this novel, i have really tried to look at the life of young men, which is interesting for me, you know what i mean? so it was literally a world that i observed but didn't know. i tried to inhabit the body of a young man. this young man, he's a dancer. so again, i'm still looking at some issues of race and class, but also looking at what it means to be an artist in america. and also a thing that has impacted not me personally so much, but that i've watched a lot in my community, and i think we all live in fear of it, and it impacts our behavior and keeps us in line. i'm looking at what it means to be homeless, what it means to... what that experience means, and how that has shaped so many men. >> hinojosa: and yet, you know what?

we hear the numbers about homeless this, homeless that, it's almost, like, forgotten. so to wrap up, there are probably some young people watching this who may be surviving very horrible things. what do you want to tell them? >> i want to tell them hang on. hang on, don't give up. what we see with gabby, with the fantasies, is the ability to imagine a situation other than the one you're in. the kids who commit suicide and give up, in an odd kind of way, it's a lack of vision. it's because they think it'll never get better. and i want to say it gets better. it gets better. and one of the things i look back on, sometimes i just marvel, because there were times when i was young when i was suicidal, and i... and right now i just... i just... i'm so glad i didn't kill myself. i'm so glad i hung on. i'm so glai didn't kill myself. i came this close to not... to none of this ever happening, you know what i mean? i would have just been another

statistic. you know, friends talking about, "remember so and so?" i'm so glad i hung on, i'm so glad i did not die. >> hinojosa: that's what i'm talking about. we are glad, too. thank you so much, sapphire. >> thank you. >> hinojosa: and congratulations. >> oh, thank you. >> hinojosa: continue the conversation at wgbh.org/oneonone. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org