Sara Santistevan
Praise for
The Root from which Freedom Blossoms
“Following in the footsteps and the vision of Gloria Anzaldua, poet Sara Santistevan examines both her California upbringing and her ethnic history to find the roots from which her own freedom will blossom—and in doing so, offers guidance to other young women like her. In these pages we hear what tongues sound like when they sound out their own names and watch as a poet’s eye casts firmly on her “ghostly inheritance.” Here is a poet determined to find beauty in that inheritance as she plucks “armfuls of fruit off ancestral branches.” We are fortunate she is making poems along this journey.”
Farnaz Fatemi, author of Sister Tongue زبان خواهر
and former Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County
About
Sara Santistevan was born and raised in Southern California, where she grew up around vivid storytellers. She fondly remembers listening to her family reminisce in Spanglish over merienda.
Sara graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and a Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies with honors. During her time at UCSC, she received the 2021 Reyna Grande Scholarship for her poetry on the Latina identity. This scholarship gave her the resources to work on her debut chapbook, The Root from which Freedom Blossoms.
The Root from which Freedom Blossoms explores how complicated mythologies, histories, and cultural norms can live on in the internal lives of people in historically marginalized communities. Sara enjoys writing and reading about themes of heritage, language, immigration, girlhood, and the whimsical/uncanny. In her free time, Sara enjoys attending local writing groups, visiting cafes, and dreaming of the day she'll have her own cat.