"If I were to write with that agenda in mind, then I'd destroy the writing. No, I write really because I have to and if the writing also destroys some of those myths and subverts forms and makes people question the very idea of the writer, the woman, the Filipino American, the whatever, great! (INTERVIEWER: Where does art have to come from to accomplish those kinds of ends? If you set out directly to accomplish them, you probably wouldn't have writing that is, in your opinion, worth reading? So, where does it have to come from?) JH: It has to come from the deepest, deepest, deepest insides of your soul. And it's got to be brutally honest. It's like pornography. You know it when you are doing it and you know when you're bullshitting. You know when you're being self-conscious and contrived and forcing something to be there because you want to make sure that people get the point. You know when that's happening. But if you just really listen to yourself and to your characters, you don't go for the easy stuff."