By Nora Villagrán
Mercury News
Posted on Thu, Apr. 14, 2005
For Yxta Maya Murray, going to law school at Stanford University was like entering one of California's magical kingdoms.
"The idea of Stanford University had a mesmerizing power over my consciousness,'' said Murray, 36, "having come from dire poverty and two immigrant parents.''
This memory is among the California experiences that formed the daughter of a Mexican mother and a Canadian father. Now a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, Murray is also a novelist and very much a daughter of the Golden State.
"California is a fertile ground for 21st-century imagination,'' Murray said. "How would Madame Bovary play out in Palo Alto?''
On Saturday afternoon, Murray -- winner of the 1999 Whiting Writers' Award for fiction -- joins James Quay, executive director of the California Council for the Humanities, in a conversation with the audience at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown San Jose.
The free event is part of the San Francisco council's statewide campaign for California Stories, whose honorary chair is the state's first lady, Maria Shriver. The multifaceted program seeks to strengthen communities and connections among Californians through the sharing of personal and community stories.
Our diverse landscape requires recognition of our shared humanity, said Quay. "Getting people to tell their stories builds trust and understanding; we've created occasions to encourage people to do this. ''
Among the stories being told in programs and events around the state are those of 25 California authors in "California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century'' ($15.95) by the CCH and Heyday Books in Berkeley.
Co-edited by author Chitra Divakaruni, the anthology -- available in bookstores and libraries -- contains an excerpt from Murray's "The Conquest,'' about a Latina restorer at the Getty Museum. "Words offer us a voluptuous legacy, magnificent secrets waiting on the page,'' said Murray, author of "Locas,'' "What it Takes to Get to Vegas'' and "The Queen Jade.''
Francisco Jiménez of Santa Clara University, Robinson Jeffers, Laila Halaby, John Steinbeck, Richard Rodriguez, Joan Didion, Greg Sarris, James D. Houston, Le Thi Diem Thuy, Gary Soto and Robert Hass are among the authors.
These stories offer glimpses of the California state of mind. "There's a sense of space and freedom here in the blueness of its vista,'' said Murray, who married Andrew Brown at the Redwood City courthouse while still at Stanford. "I don't know how to walk in New York City; I take up too much space. In California, I have all the room I need. When I lived in Palo Alto, it was paradise. The sunlight, the quiet, the trees.''
Quay, who left Pennsylvania to attend the University of California-Berkeley, adds, "When we hear people's stories, we're struck by our commonalities of hardships and hopes that brought us here.
"People talk about the California dream -- not the Pennsylvania dream. The reality of California disabuses immigrants of that dream. What endures is the hope. It's that hope that unites us as Californians.''
"Writers in Conversation'' with Yxta Maya Murray and James Quay
What: Free event is part of California Stories Uncovered by the California Council for the Humanities.
When and where: 2 p.m. Saturday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, Second Floor, Room 225, 150 E. San Fernando St., San Jose; (408) 808-2000
Info: (415) 391-1474; www.californiastories.org
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