About Victor Villaseñor
Biography
Born in the barrio of Carlsbad, California in 1940, Victor Villaseñor was primarily raised by his Yaqui Indian grandmother alongside the alley behind his father’s poolhall until the age of four. Then Victor and his family moved to a ranch by the sea four miles north in South Oceanside. Since his grandmother and parents were born and raised in Mexico, Victor spoke only Spanish when he started school and yet “only English” was the
philosophy of American education at that time. And so Victor and his fellow Latinos were yelled at and slapped when they spoke Spanish, and Spanish was all they knew.
School was a nightmare for young Victor, and he became a bedwetter, then after years of facing language and cultural barriers, heavy discrimination and a reading problem, later diagnosed as dyslexia, Victor dropped out of high school his junior year and moved to Mexico. There, he discovered a wealth of Mexican art, literature, music, and to his utter shock, he found out Mexicans could become doctors and lawyers and architects and teachers and weren’t just people who labored in the fields.
Biography
Born in the barrio of Carlsbad, California in 1940, Victor Villaseñor was primarily raised by his Yaqui Indian grandmother alongside the alley behind his father’s poolhall until the age of four. Then Victor and his family moved to a ranch by the sea four miles north in South Oceanside. Since his grandmother and parents were born and raised in Mexico, Victor spoke only Spanish when he started school and yet “only English” was the
philosophy of American education at that time. And so Victor and his fellow Latinos were yelled at and slapped when they spoke Spanish, and Spanish was all they knew.
School was a nightmare for young Victor, and he became a bedwetter, then after years of facing language and cultural barriers, heavy discrimination and a reading problem, later diagnosed as dyslexia, Victor dropped out of high school his junior year and moved to Mexico. There, he discovered a wealth of Mexican art, literature, music, and to his utter shock, he found out Mexicans could become doctors and lawyers and architects and teachers and weren’t just people who labored in the fields.
Biography
Born in the barrio of Carlsbad, California in 1940, Victor Villaseñor was primarily raised by his Yaqui Indian grandmother alongside the alley behind his father’s poolhall until the age of four. Then Victor and his family moved to a ranch by the sea four miles north in South Oceanside. Since his grandmother and parents were born and raised in Mexico, Victor spoke only Spanish when he started school and yet “only English” was the philosophy of American education at that time. And so Victor and his fellow Latinos were yelled at and slapped when they spoke Spanish, and Spanish was all they knew.
School was a nightmare for young Victor, and he became a bedwetter, then after years of facing language and cultural barriers, heavy discrimination and a reading problem, later diagnosed as dyslexia, Victor dropped out of high school his junior year and moved to Mexico. There, he discovered a wealth of Mexican art, literature, music, and to his utter shock, he found out Mexicans could become doctors and lawyers and architects and teachers and weren’t just people who labored in the fields.
This was why we saw all of Our Sister Flowers open every morning with such joy when Our Father Sun, the Right Eye of God, came up each morning, giving light and warmth to all of us. Birds chirping. Trees swaying. Rocks purring. And Our Beloved Mother Earth along with all her Holy Waters giving Life, la Vida, to all of Creation. And at night Our Mother Moon, the Left Eye of God, along with all Our Familia de Estrellas giving us gentle Sacred Guidance and warm LoveAmor in our Sleep DreamVoyaging.
And all this had been ripped away from him with “English only” ever since he’d started kindergarten and he and the other Mexican kids had been slapped and ridiculed and punished for speaking
Spanish. They’d only been little five-year-old kids and within a week they’d been made to feel ashamed of their brown skin and Mexican Indian heritage.
Feeling such rage of having been culturally raped as a child, Victor drove down to Wisconsin Street to see the old playground teacher who’d so mistreated him and his Mexican friends. And there she now was, an old woman with trembling hands blowing into her too hot cup of coffee.
Teaching was a sacred job, and so teachers should be kind and thoughtful and good hearted. Sad and angry he drove east through Riverside, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, St. George, Utah, then turned north going through Salt Lake City and into Idaho and turned right. The whole way he kept crying and praying and asking for Papito Dios and his grandmothers to come to him, for he knew that we all came from the Stars with our very own Guardian Angel to Mother Earth to help Little Daddy God plant His Ongoing Sacred Garden. But how in hell could he help plant a Sacred Garden with all this anger, confusion and hate that was killing him deep inside?
Then in Wyoming out in the middle of nowhere, a herd of antelope ran across the road in front of him. He slammed on his brakes.
This was why we saw all of Our Sister Flowers open every morning with such joy when Our Father Sun, the Right Eye of God, came up each morning, giving light and warmth to all of us. Birds chirping. Trees swaying. Rocks purring. And Our Beloved Mother Earth along with all her Holy Waters giving Life, la Vida, to all of Creation. And at night Our Mother Moon, the Left Eye of God, along with all Our Familia de Estrellas giving us gentle Sacred Guidance and warm LoveAmor in our Sleep DreamVoyaging.
And all this had been ripped away from him with “English only” ever since he’d started kindergarten and he and the other Mexican kids had been slapped and ridiculed and punished for speaking
Spanish. They’d only been little five-year-old kids and within a week they’d been made to feel ashamed of their brown skin and Mexican Indian heritage.
Feeling such rage of having been culturally raped as a child, Victor drove down to Wisconsin Street to see the old playground teacher who’d so mistreated him and his Mexican friends. And there she now was, an old woman with trembling hands blowing into her too hot cup of coffee.
Teaching was a sacred job, and so teachers should be kind and thoughtful and good hearted. Sad and angry he drove east through Riverside, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, St. George, Utah, then turned north going through Salt Lake City and into Idaho and turned right. The whole way he kept crying and praying and asking for Papito Dios and his grandmothers to come to him, for he knew that we all came from the Stars with our very own Guardian Angel to Mother Earth to help Little Daddy God plant His Ongoing Sacred Garden. But how in hell could he help plant a Sacred Garden with all this anger, confusion and hate that was killing him deep inside?
Then in Wyoming out in the middle of nowhere, a herd of antelope ran across the road in front of him. He slammed on his brakes.
And in that zenith of a moment, Victor realized that he had to become a writer. A great writer. And write about his familia. His own People. But then he remembered that he didn’t even know how to read, and he leaped to his feet and started screaming at God, “What are You, senile? Or so hard up and mean that You just love giving wonderful visions to people that you know they can’t do it?”
But then he suddenly remembered that God can do anything and so he said, “Look, God, I’ll make a deal with You, but not kneeling down! No, standing on my two feet, planted here on Our Beloved Mother Earth, I swear that if You stick with me and don’t chicken out, then I won’t chicken out either, and so I’ll write my Peoples’ story with all my Heart and Soul, so we, too, can be Your Chosen People!”
And so, with this commitment and tears pouring down his face, Victor drove non-stop all the way home to Southern California, well-over 1,500 miles away, and he looked up his old high school English teacher at his old military high school in Carlsbad and told him that he had to become a great writer.
Captain Moffat looked at Victor in his eyes, a student who’d done well-below a “D” level work in his
English classes, but had also been the chess champion of their school, and he could now see in
Victor’s eyes that same fire he’d had when he’d played chess, and so he said, “Yes, you’ll do it.” And he walked his former student across his classroom and pointed to a big poster he always kept on the wall by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and he read it to Victor.
“Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic.” Victor shouted, “THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT! That’s exactly what I’ve been hearing ever since I took my oath before God in Wyoming! For me to just go for it!”
And so, with his old English teacher’s guidance, Victor put all his concentrated energy into confronting cultural and racial discrimination through literature. Getting up at 2 and 3 in the morning, Victor wrote with burning passion for 10 years producing 9 novels, 65 short stories, and receiving well-over 265
rejections, before he sold his first book, Macho!, which was immediately compared to the best of John Steinbeck by the LA Times.
Thusly Victor’s journey began that would eventually lead to the publication of his non-fiction National Bestseller Rain of Gold, used by thousands of teachers and school systems across the nation and abroad as required reading, and publishing 17 other books, including his most recent, Gathering Stardust.
This was why we saw all of Our Sister Flowers open every morning with such joy when Our Father Sun, the Right Eye of God, came up each morning, giving light and warmth to all of us. Birds chirping. Trees swaying. Rocks purring. And Our Beloved Mother Earth along with all her Holy Waters giving Life, la Vida, to all of Creation. And at night Our Mother Moon, the Left Eye of God, along with all Our Familia de Estrellas giving us gentle Sacred Guidance and warm LoveAmor in our Sleep DreamVoyaging.
And all this had been ripped away from him with “English only” ever since he’d started kindergarten and he and the other Mexican kids had been slapped and ridiculed and punished for speaking
Spanish. They’d only been little five-year-old kids and within a week they’d been made to feel ashamed of their brown skin and Mexican Indian heritage.
Feeling such rage of having been culturally raped as a child, Victor drove down to Wisconsin Street to see the old playground teacher who’d so mistreated him and his Mexican friends. And there she now was, an old woman with trembling hands blowing into her too hot cup of coffee.
Teaching was a sacred job, and so teachers should be kind and thoughtful and good hearted. Sad and angry he drove east through Riverside, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, St. George, Utah, then turned north going through Salt Lake City and into Idaho and turned right. The whole way he kept crying and praying and asking for Papito Dios and his grandmothers to come to him, for he knew that we all came from the Stars with our very own Guardian Angel to Mother Earth to help Little Daddy God plant His Ongoing Sacred Garden. But how in hell could he help plant a Sacred Garden with all this anger, confusion and hate that was killing him deep inside?
Then in Wyoming out in the middle of nowhere, a herd of antelope ran across the road in front of him. He slammed on his brakes.
This was why we saw all of Our Sister Flowers open every morning with such joy when Our Father Sun, the Right Eye of God, came up each morning, giving light and warmth to all of us. Birds chirping. Trees swaying. Rocks purring. And Our Beloved Mother Earth along with all her Holy Waters giving Life, la Vida, to all of Creation. And at night Our Mother Moon, the Left Eye of God, along with all Our Familia de Estrellas giving us gentle Sacred Guidance and warm LoveAmor in our Sleep DreamVoyaging.
And all this had been ripped away from him with “English only” ever since he’d started kindergarten and he and the other Mexican kids had been slapped and ridiculed and punished for speaking
Spanish. They’d only been little five-year-old kids and within a week they’d been made to feel ashamed of their brown skin and Mexican Indian heritage.
Feeling such rage of having been culturally raped as a child, Victor drove down to Wisconsin Street to see the old playground teacher who’d so mistreated him and his Mexican friends. And there she now was, an old woman with trembling hands blowing into her too hot cup of coffee.
Teaching was a sacred job, and so teachers should be kind and thoughtful and good hearted. Sad and angry he drove east through Riverside, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, St. George, Utah, then turned north going through Salt Lake City and into Idaho and turned right. The whole way he kept crying and praying and asking for Papito Dios and his grandmothers to come to him, for he knew that we all came from the Stars with our very own Guardian Angel to Mother Earth to help Little Daddy God plant His Ongoing Sacred Garden. But how in hell could he help plant a Sacred Garden with all this anger, confusion and hate that was killing him deep inside?
Then in Wyoming out in the middle of nowhere, a herd of antelope ran across the road in front of him. He slammed on his brakes.
And in that zenith of a moment, Victor realized that he had to become a writer. A great writer. And write about his familia. His own People. But then he remembered that he didn’t even know how to read, and he leaped to his feet and started screaming at God, “What are You, senile? Or so hard up and mean that You just love giving wonderful visions to people that you know they can’t do it?”
But then he suddenly remembered that God can do anything and so he said, “Look, God, I’ll make a deal with You, but not kneeling down! No, standing on my two feet, planted here on Our Beloved Mother Earth, I swear that if You stick with me and don’t chicken out, then I won’t chicken out either, and so I’ll write my Peoples’ story with all my Heart and Soul, so we, too, can be Your Chosen People!”
And so, with this commitment and tears pouring down his face, Victor drove non-stop all the way home to Southern California, well-over 1,500 miles away, and he looked up his old high school English teacher at his old military high school in Carlsbad and told him that he had to become a great writer.
Captain Moffat looked at Victor in his eyes, a student who’d done well-below a “D” level work in his
English classes, but had also been the chess champion of their school, and he could now see in
Victor’s eyes that same fire he’d had when he’d played chess, and so he said, “Yes, you’ll do it.” And he walked his former student across his classroom and pointed to a big poster he always kept on the wall by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and he read it to Victor.
“Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic.” Victor shouted, “THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT! That’s exactly what I’ve been hearing ever since I took my oath before God in Wyoming! For me to just go for it!”
And so, with his old English teacher’s guidance, Victor put all his concentrated energy into confronting cultural and racial discrimination through literature. Getting up at 2 and 3 in the morning, Victor wrote with burning passion for 10 years producing 9 novels, 65 short stories, and receiving well-over 265
rejections, before he sold his first book, Macho!, which was immediately compared to the best of John Steinbeck by the LA Times.
Thusly Victor’s journey began that would eventually lead to the publication of his non-fiction National Bestseller Rain of Gold, used by thousands of teachers and school systems across the nation and abroad as required reading, and publishing 17 other books, including his most recent, Gathering Stardust.
This was why we saw all of Our Sister Flowers open every morning with such joy when Our Father Sun, the Right Eye of God, came up each morning, giving light and warmth to all of us. Birds chirping. Trees swaying. Rocks purring. And Our Beloved Mother Earth along with all her Holy Waters giving Life, la Vida, to all of Creation. And at night Our Mother Moon, the Left Eye of God, along with all Our Familia de Estrellas giving us gentle Sacred Guidance and warm LoveAmor in our Sleep DreamVoyaging.
And all this had been ripped away from him with “English only” ever since he’d started kindergarten and he and the other Mexican kids had been slapped and ridiculed and punished for speaking
Spanish. They’d only been little five-year-old kids and within a week they’d been made to feel ashamed of their brown skin and Mexican Indian heritage.
Feeling such rage of having been culturally raped as a child, Victor drove down to Wisconsin Street to see the old playground teacher who’d so mistreated him and his Mexican friends. And there she now was, an old woman with trembling hands blowing into her too hot cup of coffee.
Teaching was a sacred job, and so teachers should be kind and thoughtful and good hearted. Sad and angry he drove east through Riverside, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, St. George, Utah, then turned north going through Salt Lake City and into Idaho and turned right. The whole way he kept crying and praying and asking for Papito Dios and his grandmothers to come to him, for he knew that we all came from the Stars with our very own Guardian Angel to Mother Earth to help Little Daddy God plant His Ongoing Sacred Garden. But how in hell could he help plant a Sacred Garden with all this anger, confusion and hate that was killing him deep inside?
Then in Wyoming out in the middle of nowhere, a herd of antelope ran across the road in front of him. He slammed on his brakes.
This was why we saw all of Our Sister Flowers open every morning with such joy when Our Father Sun, the Right Eye of God, came up each morning, giving light and warmth to all of us. Birds chirping. Trees swaying. Rocks purring. And Our Beloved Mother Earth along with all her Holy Waters giving Life, la Vida, to all of Creation. And at night Our Mother Moon, the Left Eye of God, along with all Our Familia de Estrellas giving us gentle Sacred Guidance and warm LoveAmor in our Sleep DreamVoyaging.
And all this had been ripped away from him with “English only” ever since he’d started kindergarten and he and the other Mexican kids had been slapped and ridiculed and punished for speaking
Spanish. They’d only been little five-year-old kids and within a week they’d been made to feel ashamed of their brown skin and Mexican Indian heritage.
Feeling such rage of having been culturally raped as a child, Victor drove down to Wisconsin Street to see the old playground teacher who’d so mistreated him and his Mexican friends. And there she now was, an old woman with trembling hands blowing into her too hot cup of coffee.
Teaching was a sacred job, and so teachers should be kind and thoughtful and good hearted. Sad and angry he drove east through Riverside, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, St. George, Utah, then turned north going through Salt Lake City and into Idaho and turned right. The whole way he kept crying and praying and asking for Papito Dios and his grandmothers to come to him, for he knew that we all came from the Stars with our very own Guardian Angel to Mother Earth to help Little Daddy God plant His Ongoing Sacred Garden. But how in hell could he help plant a Sacred Garden with all this anger, confusion and hate that was killing him deep inside?
Then in Wyoming out in the middle of nowhere, a herd of antelope ran across the road in front of him. He slammed on his brakes.
And in that zenith of a moment, Victor realized that he had to become a writer. A great writer. And write about his familia. His own People. But then he remembered that he didn’t even know how to read, and he leaped to his feet and started screaming at God, “What are You, senile? Or so hard up and mean that You just love giving wonderful visions to people that you know they can’t do it?”
But then he suddenly remembered that God can do anything and so he said, “Look, God, I’ll make a deal with You, but not kneeling down! No, standing on my two feet, planted here on Our Beloved Mother Earth, I swear that if You stick with me and don’t chicken out, then I won’t chicken out either, and so I’ll write my Peoples’ story with all my Heart and Soul, so we, too, can be Your Chosen People!”
And so, with this commitment and tears pouring down his face, Victor drove non-stop all the way home to Southern California, well-over 1,500 miles away, and he looked up his old high school English teacher at his old military high school in Carlsbad and told him that he had to become a great writer.
Captain Moffat looked at Victor in his eyes, a student who’d done well-below a “D” level work in his
English classes, but had also been the chess champion of their school, and he could now see in
Victor’s eyes that same fire he’d had when he’d played chess, and so he said, “Yes, you’ll do it.” And he walked his former student across his classroom and pointed to a big poster he always kept on the wall by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and he read it to Victor.
“Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic.” Victor shouted, “THAT’S IT! THAT’S IT! That’s exactly what I’ve been hearing ever since I took my oath before God in Wyoming! For me to just go for it!”
And so, with his old English teacher’s guidance, Victor put all his concentrated energy into confronting cultural and racial discrimination through literature. Getting up at 2 and 3 in the morning, Victor wrote with burning passion for 10 years producing 9 novels, 65 short stories, and receiving well-over 265
rejections, before he sold his first book, Macho!, which was immediately compared to the best of John Steinbeck by the LA Times.
Thusly Victor’s journey began that would eventually lead to the publication of his non-fiction National Bestseller Rain of Gold, used by thousands of teachers and school systems across the nation and abroad as required reading, and publishing 17 other books, including his most recent, Gathering Stardust.
Victor’s Gallery
Victor’s Childhood
Step into the early years that shaped Victor’s dreams and deep cultural roots.
View GalleryYoung Victor
Explore moments of ambition, identity, and discovery in Victor’s young adulthood.
View GalleryVictor’s Friends
See the connections and friendships that added joy and strength to his journey.
View GalleryVictor’s Gallery
Victor’s Childhood
Step into the early years that shaped Victor’s dreams and deep cultural roots.
View GalleryYoung Victor
Explore moments of ambition, identity, and discovery in Victor’s young adulthood.
View GalleryVictor’s Friends
See the connections and friendships that added joy and strength to his journey.
View GalleryVictor’s Gallery
Victor’s Childhood
Step into the early years that shaped Victor’s dreams and deep cultural roots.
View Gallery
Young Victor
Explore moments of ambition, identity, and discovery in Victor’s young adulthood.
View Gallery
Victor’s Friends
See the connections and friendships that added joy and strength to his journey.
View Gallery
Awards & Recognitions
