Themes that act as Windows and Mirrors

Lidia Torres is a Puerto Rican poet.  She was born in New York City, and graduated from Hunter College as well as New York University.  Her poem, A Weakness for Boleros (also the name of her poetry collection) was selected by the Poetry Society of America for its program called Poetry in Motion.  Torres received a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.  She is still living in New York City and is working on a translation project.  

Image from the Poetry Foundation

An American audience can especially appreciate poems written by Lidia Torres because they act effectively as both a window into Latino culture and a mirror in the lives of individuals.  Torres’ poetic style is unique and fresh.  Her voice coaxes emotion out of the reader and helps them see the world in a new way. 

Many different life themes and wonderings shine through in Torres’ poetry.  Among them are family, music, death, the body, spirituality, fruits, longings, sexuality and passion.  These themes are universal, yet Torres draws from her own life, her own latina experience, making her poetry act as a window into an unfamiliar culture. 

Through her writing, an American audience learns about the deep connection of family and taking care of one’s parents when they’re old.  In Latin American it is known by everyone that you are responsible for you’re children when they’re young – just as your parents cared for you – and are allowed the honor and privilege of taking care of your parents when they are old – as you expect your children to care for you as you age. 

The importance of family and the deep connection that families in Latin America share is apparent in many of her poems, including Three Keys, Visiting the Dead, and Listening For Her.  In Listening For Her, Torres describes how she cares for her mother as she struggles with a brain disease.  I clean my mother’s body abandoned long ago by its brain cells.  She allows me to move her limbs, unfold her skin, yielding like an infant…I listen and listen, gazing into the mirror with her.  In Three Keys she writes about losing three brothers, and the power of ghosts and memories.  These keys cannot lock the bare rooms with quiet ghosts of three brothers.  The last brother answers.  Then we are all in the same dream, alive and dead.

Image from Blog UMY Community

Music is also a reoccurring theme in her work.  The beat and rhythm of the music inspires her, and in her poems she uses musical references to capture the movement of life patterns and rhythms.  Her musical references are usually specific to Latin America, but when translated they have to do with the particular rhythmic patterns in certain kinds of music. 

One example of her integration of music into her work is from Three Keys:  My brother answers, tapping the congo skin…Another brother taps the Clave’s beat.  The last brother answers by barely scraping a Guiro.  From a Weakness for Boleros:  The Bolero was composed for you and me.  That is the first line of that poem.  It’s as if she’s saying “the dance of life was composed for you and me.”  Our dance.  Our life. 

The deep connection of family, the rhythms and beats of life, mothers and brothers, dreams and ghosts; Torres uses her unique style and voice to tell of Latin American culture, but many of her themes are universal.  An American audience, an audience that is not Latino, can best appreciate Torres’ poetry because it acts both as a window into Latin American culture as well as a mirror that reflects universal life themes. 

            

            

Gaining Perspective

Of the three books we read in our unit on Mexican American Literature, The Devil's Highway had the most impact on me as I read about the journey of 20 some illegal immigrants - real names, real people, real places, real tragedy.  Urrea effectively captures the different elements and dangers of illegal immigration and the struggles that immigrants face as they cross the border.

Urrea, born in Tijuana, Mexico, worked directly with border issues for a lot of his early years.  He moved to the states when he was young, his mother American, his father Mexican.  As he worked with relief workers on the border, he had day to day interaction with homeless peoples who lived in garbage dumps, children in orphanages, drug addicts, and gangsters.  When he was hired to teach Expository Writing at Harvard he began formulating his book from notes he had taken from his years of experience at the border, and was empowered to speak on behalf of the voiceless through his writing.  Urrea calls the border his Home, and being from the border, he felt he could effectively portray some of the most challenging border issues.  I think Urrea's background really helped him write this book well, and his passion for border issues was very apparent in the voice of the book.  Reading a bit about his history was helpful to me.  Here is a link if anyone would like to read a brief biography.  There is a youtube video about how Urrea's background affected his writing on the site as well.  http://sitemaker.umich.edu/luisalbertourrea/urrea_biography

The Devil's Highway was an incredibly sad and sobering book.  There are two passages of the book that stuck with me a little more strongly than others.  One is on page 166 where Urrea describes Reymundo Jr. dying in his father's arms.  The sorrow that Reymundo Sr. felt must have been unbearable.  I cannot imagine having a loved one die in my arms.  The scene ends with Reymundo throwing himself into the sun, giving himself up to the desert, wanting to die and be with his son.  

The other passage that had a great impact on me was Nahum's testimony on page 167.  It does indeed read like modern poetry.  The imagery he uses to describe their circumstances is both symbolic and literal.  He kept saying We all died, We all died.  It seems as though spirits, souls, and men all died out there, sucked into the vastness of the desert.  

One thing that was difficult for me throughout this book is the portrayal of the Sonoran Desert.  This is the place in which I grew up and the place I call home to this day.  The Sonoran Desert is beautiful - it is the only desert in the world in which Saguaros grow.  It is home to an incredible number of unique animals that evolved to adapt to a desert environment and that thrive there.  (If you ever go to Tucson, visit the Sonoran Desert Museum).  

But I have never experienced the desert in the way that immigrants crossing the border have had to experience it.  The book describes the desert as a human's worst enemy, as a land separate from people instead of a land that people call home or a land that people can love and internalize.  It was sad for me to read such things about a place I love, but it was good for me to have this reality check.  And after reading this book I realized how different my perspective of the desert is from others.  One reality is that I've always had the luxury of water, and I still take that for granted to this day.  I know I would feel differently about the desert if I were lost and wandering in it, helpless to find my way out.

The Push and Pull of Family

As we continue exploring border issues, I’m becoming more and more intrigued with the theme of self-identity amidst cultural diversity, areas of work, family (or lack of family), peers, and history of land and people.  In the Guardians, Gabo was one of the main characters that struggled with self-identity.  On this journey he crosses many borders through his interaction with various people - friends, mentors, family, peers, gang members. 

            Along with trying to find his father, Gabo is on a journey of self-identity.  As he attempts to put the pieces of his life together – a life without his father, mother or sister - he is also quietly trying to figure out who he is apart from his family, in a world where his guardian is his Aunt Regina and his best friend is a gang member. 

            Life doesn’t make sense. 

Gabo senses this gap between what is and what ought to be in his life.  He is very hard on himself.  He seeks justice, he wants to be a good person and do what’s right, but he is torn between living his life for the church and following his instincts to locate his father and help his friends as they struggle, stuck in gang activity that seems to thrive wherever there are borders. 

One theme that plays a large role in self-identity, and that is a particularly strong theme in each of the books we’ve read, is family.  The lack of immediate family in Gabo’s life is difficult for him.  In the beginning of the book he speaks of his father’s soul as if it is haunting Gabo himself, as well as the world he knows.  Gabo’s tie to his father leaves him unsettled, unable to proceed with his life in the same way.  He cannot seek himself, the callings of his own soul, until he finds out what happened to his father.  Family pushes and pulls us, guides our decisions, and shapes us to be the people we are today. 

 I challenge each person to consider what their family means to them, how family has shaped their core values and actions, and what that means for how you will conduct yourself in the broader scheme of a life with borders.  

Thoughts on 9500 Liberty

I was really glad for the opportunity to see 9500 Liberty.  The documentary was extremely well-done, and provided a close-up look at the effects of the "Probable Cause Mandate" in Prince William County, Virginia.  Along with telling the County's story, the film acted as a logical argument against such laws.

As summarized by Eric Byler, one of the filmmakers, the Probable Cause Mandate was damaging to the county's economy, its housing market, and its reputation, making it hard to bring in new investors, business owners and home owners.  The law itself would cost millions of dollars (14 million, to be exact), not to mention the lawsuit that would have followed in due course if a citizen of the county had found their human rights to be violated (the federal government planned to back up the first person who experienced this).  The crime rate during the time the law was in effect went up - though in the last 15 years the crime rate had been dropping and the latino population had quadrupled.  In addition to the law being morally wrong, the only argument in favor of the law that had any possibility of being valid was the claim that latino people commit more crimes - and there weren't facts to support this claim.

Though the argument that Prince William County's economy was hurting due to the Probable Cause Mandate is valid and important, it bothered me that citizens of Manassas weren't disgusted by the mandate to begin with.  Did it really take the economy and housing market plummeting to cause regret that the bill had been implemented?  What about the basic virtues of compassion, love and kindness?  What about human rights?  I am glad that the law was repealed, but its a shame that it to encouraged such hatred, anger, and fear within the community.  The role that Greg Letiecq's blog played in the implementation of the bill was shocking.  I'm glad that people like Alanna Almeda and Elena Schlossberg and others chose to speak out against it.

Watching this documentary helped me realize the messiness and complexity of immigration and made real to me just how strongly some people feel about this issue.