“Too Much”: a Writer Interacting with New Criticism, Ray Zepeda, and Intention: a Personal Essay

High school graduations have a shared end-point in the Kindergarten to 12th grade public education system. At these points, students make decisions to enter markets, military webs, and/or further explore institutions. My end-point experience was full of confusion, uncertainty, interest, and desire to have a safer institution to write at.

My acceptance to California State University of Long Beach (CSULB) and the decision to attend provided a safer home and quality of life. However, it was at the cost of sharing spaces of education with people who hate, value control, and choose to not explore identities of sex, race, gender, and class.

Yeah, I Went to CSULB

2016, CSULB, did not have an ideal learning environment for any person who identified as QTBIPOC. All diversity among the student body and faculty highlighted on pamphlets and websites around 2012 was, and is “hype.” Along with their market tactics to promote “diversity,” they failed to provide safe learning environments for students of color in extension of all, so much it allowed for cis-white males to brandish weapons on students, comforted hate groups to assemble on campus, and collaborated with ICE, using campus grounds to detain, transact, and deport undocumented people. Had these experiences been listed before I committed, they would have been deal breakers for me to apply.

©: a note to the Author during their time at CSULB

While mainstream media brushed these matters under the rug, the series of these campus-wide events and in-class experiences are my reflection of a process that challenged me to understand the audience and intention as a writer.

Some Professors Have Their Understanding of Chaos

Professor Ray Zepeda, was one of few instructors who facilitated space in neutral positions of on-and-off campus happenings, where his main concern was directed to develop writer’s narrative drive and clarity. He is an American traditional oral story-teller and poet who would spend time at racehorse tracks with indigenous elders. In class he would share stories of his manuscripts being stolen, group defending home invasions, and of hangouts he would have with Charles Bukowski, often recall-referencing locations he had thrown up on campus.

One time, after I circulated a chapter in a novel workshop class, I remember Professor Zepeda told me, “it’s not that your work is too much for them,” he laughed and then looked at me sideways, “it’s just that they can’t handle it, you know?”

I didn’t know. It was new to me. I was presenting realities I lived, and realities classmates avoided, manipulated, exploited, threatened, and in possible combinations appropriated in storytelling.

In the motions of navigating creative workshops, I did not care whether or not to be understood. I was satisfied using institutional space as a place to share community realities, events, and voices, because the majority of the student body on campus lived in conditions of coded segregation.

Writing Content & Class Feedback Patterns

Colleagues showed divided responses. Some loved my content, storylines, and presentations. However, most white colleagues focused on my material’s writing grammar, and would avoid critiquing my content for not wanting to interact. In their written feedback they critiqued my characters for being too angry, and expressed a need for character modifications.

©: a note to the Author during their time at CSULB

A few of things that were written as feedback on my manuscript submissions:

“I like your mention of the (cough) Long Beach knife incident… [i]t’s different from the last one”
“I think it needs to get toned down a bit… It’s heavy handed… [a need to be more subtle].”
“The character is very angry. The topic is good and necessary, however the character comes off a bit aggressive.”
“This was pretty boring and hard to read… Be careful when writing about real people and events.”
“Invinsible Man by Ralph Elison”

The last feedback share was irksome because a lot of the colleagues in the school’s English program chose to not acknowledge author and character identity in stories, and would use Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison as a reference example to present race in storytelling. They called this New Criticism, a counter to Critical Race Theory, I would think.

New Criticism, a Colonizer’s Practice

During my first lesson of learning New Criticism, I quickly thought, “dang, this is not inclusive theory,” because we were being instructed to read literary works for its text presentation only, and we are restricted from including social commentary related to the work and its creation.

I was not aware of this English studies program behavior and theory practice until three years after being accepted into the institution. The more aware I became, the more I wanted to mirror physical space colleagues and I shared. I used my creativity to bridge colleagues to interact with local events and people. A lot of their submissions often depicted sci-fi and/or fantasy genre-based fiction, nowhere near Long Beach, California.

There were a few colleagues who wrote realism-based fiction, however, when they would write out identities they had no relations to, they often misrepresented and exaggerated their representation. As the semester developed, I crafted a writer’s intention and realized for whom and for what I would be writing for.

Every session was a preparation to respond to readers who lived in privileges and in comforts of not having to talk about: sex, gender, race, and class.

©: Rocky Mountain Conference

Writer’s Intention

My intention was not to convince, and/or appease other’s writing preferences shared in workshop sessions. Instead, I felt a need to write to inform classmates about hateful patterns and identities that existed on campus. To me, presenting behaviors seen on campus was fulfilling.

With so much content pushback, being consistent encouraged me to pursue writing in representation, especially when having insecure experiences of cultural exchanges with those of dominant societies. Adaptive styles of writing allowed me to interject and personalize content, to make readers feel in the now.

I made readers feel uncomfortable with realities they’ve been escaping, in a school that was protecting their comfort and safety. This is what Professor Zepeda’s words hinted at. I didn’t understand his metaphor at the time, but it echoed what a white colleague wrote in feedback:

“I don’t know if I am supposed to feel… but I guess you did it.”

Final Thoughts and my Ten Year Completion

I am a brown, non-binary writer of color who was testing waters with blends of social realism and adaptive-driven narratives.

I did not stop, nor did I ever change my voice. I did improve grammatical skills highlighted by peers, and I did become aware of word repetition by giving myself writing space, but I did not water-down any of my content.

I continued out of institutions and applied CSULB workshop energy experiences into other mediums, where in 2023, I was invited to travel Mexico and Sweden for writing and content creation purposes.

It took almost a decade to understand my end-point experience and transition; and as hard as I was on myself during my undergraduate experience to “figure things out,” I was unable to see that I was already fulfilling parts of purpose with unconventional writing experiences.

Parts of the process were unwanted. Parts were unforeseen… especially at CSULB, around 2016, a time of racial tension, fake diversity, knives, delusions, deportations, and white fragility. I know these are parts to a whole point I look forward to sharing with my Create and Publish Network community, and all readers in the future.