American Masters

(bright music) - People cannot ignore good literature.

People cannot ignore these stories because they were so well written.

- For extraordinary storytelling, the National Medal of Arts to Julia Alvarez.

- [Julia Alvarez] I wanted to write about the tas and I wanted to write about the lore that comes when women are talking as they're doing their housework, which I thought you couldn't write about.

- Gladys sang as she worked in her high, clear voice.

Mangulinas, merengues, salves- - There are people in Israel who read Julia.

They're in Serbia, Croatia, Japan.

She found the words to express herself and those stories related to a lot of people.

- [Alvarez] When we came to the United States, we left everything behind, even our language, our cultures, our families.

We were living in a hard dictatorship in the D.R.

- I remember that all of a sudden you just disappeared.

- [Alvarez] We weren't told.

We came home one day and Mami dijo, vamos a Boca Chica.

- And when we got in the plane, Mami and Papi just hugged each other and cried.

- You leave the country and that stuff is still in you.

We were constantly being warned that the world was not safe for us.

- There are very few writers of the Latin American diaspora that hold the same weight as her.

- I felt like I wanted to give voice to the landscape of being Latina, of coming from another place.

Our stories belong to all of us, but if you don't know how to read, you don't have the key to that treasure chest.

How could I not do something?

- Julia's is in search of space, physical, emotional space, and she's in search of identity.

(bright music)