Living alone for 10 years taught world-renown Puerto Rican writer Rosario Ferre to be herself. For Ferre, that meant communicating in the two languages with which she identified. Ferre, a bilingual author, spoke to a group of about 50 students and Philadelphia community residents, invited to Penn by the Puerto Rican Undergraduate Association, also known as ADEPEP. The organization sponsored the event -- held in Logan Hall -- in conjunction with several other Hispanic and women's groups on campus, including La Casa Latina and the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women and Gender. She provided a brief glimpse into her past, sharing stories from the period when she lived alone in Washington, D.C., where she completed a great deal of her writing. "I became a whole person by just being by myself," Ferre said. The purpose of last night's event was to communicate "what we really are," ADEPEP President and Wharton senior Jaime Fonalledas said. "We are not typically what you see in Hollywood and in the news." Ferre writes novels, essays, short stories and poems. Her work deals mainly with Latin and feminist issues. At last night's event, titled "Writing In Between," Ferre spoke about the process of writing in English and Spanish -- the advantages and disadvantages of each of the two languages. "I write in Spanish like I speak it -- fast," Ferre said. "It is impossible for me to write in English like I write in Spanish. I can't be trigger-happy in English." "Writing in English is like looking at the world through a different set of binoculars," Ferre said. As a speaker of the two most common languages in this country, Ferre says that she feels a responsibility to write in both as the United States becomes increasingly closer to "becoming a bilingual and bicultural nation." "I write from both sides of the arrow... aimed at the same target -- understanding," she said. Most audience members called the event both informative and personal. "It was very interesting how she put so much emphasis on the Spanish languages as a uniting force among all the countries and races of Latin America," ADEPEP member and College freshman Carlos Vega said. Ferre concluded her talk by reading several poems from a soon-to-be-published collection -- first in English, then in Spanish.
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