"I cling to my culture because it is my memory, and what is a poet without a memory? I cling to my culture because it is my skin, it is my heart, because it is my voice, because it breathes my mother's mother's mother into me. My culture is the genesis and the center of my writing; the most authentic space I have to write from. I am blind without the lenses of my culture." -- Benjamin Alire Saenz

What does this quote mean to you? What would Gloria Anzaldua have thought of this quote and why? Richard Rodriguez?

Is this quote relevant to you-- do you, in fact, "cling" to your culture, or not? Is literature more relevant to us if it speaks to us on an immediate lecel, or should we be searching for "universal" truths?