Juan Felipe
Herrera’s 187
Reasons Mexicans Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007
is meant to be
political and personal, provocative and soothing, historical and imaginative. Covering
36 years of Herrera’s creative work, this book is as much a hybrid of genres,
languages, and styles as it is a blend of Mexican-American cultures and identities.
It asks the question of what it means to be Mexican as it also asks what it
means to be American. The physical and cultural borders of ethnic identity
explored in this work offer multiple representations of individual and
collective Mexican-American identities. In particular, the selected poems can
be a wonderful tool for helping provide a historical context for older students
as they examine current immigration issues in the media.
The title of
Herrera’s work is a response to California’s Proposition 187, which was passed in
1994 but was later struck down by the Courts. The law sought to deny
unauthorized immigrants social services, health care and public education. (Of
note, unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for health care under the
Affordable Care Act). The title poem uses Herrera’s characteristic anaphora and
litany to illustrate the often arbitrary and illogical reasons used to prevent
Mexicans from entering the U.S. both physically and culturally with the irony
being that they are a part of American culture and identity already. Herrera
relies on this irony as well as humor, wit, and historical context to make his
statements as the ending excerpted from his “187 Reasons” demonstrates:
Because
we won’t nationalize a State of Immigration Paranoia
Because
the depression of the 30s was our fault
Because
“xenophobia” is a politically correct term
Because
we shoulda learn from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
Because
we shoulda listened to the Federal Immigration Laws of 1917, ’21, ’24, and ’30
Because
we lack a Nordic/Teutonic approach
Because
Executive Order 9066 of 1942 shudda had us too
Because
Operation Wetback took care of us in the ‘50s
Because
Operation Clean Sweep picked up the loose ends in the ‘70s
Because
one more operation will finish us off anyway
Because
you can’t deport 12 million migrantes in a Greyhound bus
Because
we got his this about walking out of everything
Because
we have a heart that sings rancheras and feet that polka
In other sections,
Herrera delves into the lived experiences of individual Mexicans and Mexican
Americans. In one poem, “Senorita X: Song for the Yellow-Robed Girl in Juarez,”
he commemorates the mothers who have not given up seeking answers to the deaths
of their daughters in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Though the homicide rate has
decreased, at the height of cartel violence in 2010, the city averaged 8.5 killings per day. The killers remain unidentified.
Many of the victims worked in low wage factory positions or were students. The
poem is as much elegy to them as it is a type of historical documentation that
humanizes tragedy and seeks to understand loss. Though it starts abstractly “Yellow-robed
girl/Yellow-book schoolgirl/ Yellow horn-rimmed glasses gazing girl,” the poem
moves to naming some of the individuals lost as seen in the lines “Who’s the
killer Brenda Bernice Delgado?/Who’s the killer Alma Chavira?” This movement
invites the reader to see the women not as statistics of violence, but as individuals.
The poem rescues their lives from anonymity while highlighting the horrific
acts of violence that ended them. Using such a poem with older students
encourages them to look deeper into the individual lives rather than headlines.
While there
are poems of witness, history, and ethnic identity, there are also narratives,
photographs, journal entries, and prose poems that comprise this hybrid
collection. In this layered body of work, Herrera is able to transgress
multiple boundaries: the urban, youthful, and modern with the agricultural and
folkloric traditions. At its best, it makes a reader question the borders of
Mexican, American, and Mexican-American identities, highlighting similarities and
differences, fair and unfair divisions among them, much of which is related to
immigration laws and policies. As the current Poet Laureate, this book is
simply one of his finest.
Additional Resources
About Juan Felipe Herrera:
- To learn more about Juan Felipe Herrera, visit the Library of Congress current Poet Laureate webpage. To read some of his poems online, visit the Poetry Foundation website.
About Applications for the Classroom:
- September is Hispanic Heritage Month and reading Herrera’s poetry is a perfect way to celebrate. If you are using with this book with older students, we suggest selecting one or two poems such as “187 Reasons,” “Senorita X,” or “Mexican Differences Mexican Similarities.” This poem would also pair well with our lesson on Cesar Chavez.
- If you teach younger students, Herrera has written several children’s books that introduce students to migrant farmworker experience as well as to writing. Read our previous blog post reviewing some of his works for younger readers.
- One of Herrera’s influences was the poet Allen Ginsburg who is known for his long, list-making poems and was also the son of an immigrant. Ask students to write a list-making poem of identity as they define in their own words. Have students make personal and collective, historical and current connections in their poem like Herrera.
Want to learn more about building a
diverse library?
Join us on
twitter this Thursday, September 17th
from 7:30pm-8:30pm EST for a #diverselit
tweet chat. Together with LEE & LOW BOOKS, the largest multicultural children’s
book publisher in the country, we will be exploring the how and why of building
diverse libraries using hashtag #diverselit.
We hope to have your voice (or
tweets) included in this conversation! Please help us spread the word with this
digital flyer and follow us @ThnkImmigration.
No comments:
Post a Comment