Poetry. Power. Place. Voices from the Community.

A collaboration between Teatro Visión and the Culture Counts Reading Series at San José State University

At Teatro Visión, we believe the connection between our stories and our community is everything. What happens onstage is just the beginning. When we take teatro into classrooms and community spaces, we’re building something bigger—stronger relationships, new leaders, and a shared vision for a more just world.

This project is one way we’re doing that.

In April and May, we teamed up with the Culture Counts Reading Series to host workshops inspired by The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Students from Silver Creek High School and folks from the community came together to reflect on themes from the novel, including home, identity, and belonging. Those sessions generated the honest, personal poems below.

These pieces are full of heart and truth. They carry voices that deserve to be heard—loud and clear.

The Culture Counts Reading Series, led by Dr. Jonathan D. Gomez and Alberto Camacho, brings together SJSU students, faculty, alumni, and community members to use poetry and storytelling as a way to connect, remember, and heal.

The poems below were written with care—and they’re meant to be read with care, too. We invite you to take your time, revisit them, and share them with others.

If you’d like to save the full collection, you can download it as a PDF using the button below.