Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Proyecto de Poesía: María Meléndez

María Meléndez was born in the United States of America and grew up in the Bay Area of California. As she was growing up, Meléndez loved poetry and read as many poetry books as she could. Now, Meléndez is a mother and wife, the editor for Momotombo Press at Notre Dame, the publisher of the literary journal called Pilgrimage, and a poet. She has published three books of poetry: How Long She’ll Last in this World in 2006, and Flexible Bones in 2010, both published by the University of Arizona Press; and Base Pairs in 2001, published by the Swan Scythe Press. Meléndez lives in the mainstream culture of the United States, but she does not want to be seen as post-Latino or like a woman without a history. Her passions can be identified as the exploration and incorporation of mestizo identity, feminism and femininity, and ecology into her writing. Of the three themes, her mestizo identity and feminism show up most prominently in her writing. Although the poems by María Meléndez in the anthology The Wind Shifts often address a specific audience with their allusions to mestizo history and culture, her poems can be enjoyed and appreciated by all American feminists.

First, let us examine a poem that the majority of Americans can relate to, regardless of cultural heritage. “Nude Sonnet,” a free verse poem with a prosaic look and sound, is a love poem that celebrates the body of a man. Regardless of its form, love is something that every human has felt or will feel, making it a universal topic. However, “Nude Sonnet” is not a typical love poem or the celebration of a lover’s body. In this poem, Meléndez explores the cultural expectations between a man and a woman in a romantic relationship and questions those expectations. In line 9, she asks the man, “why don’t you ever say I’m beautiful?” She then seems to realize that her request may out of place and wonders “but then, / why don’t I ever say that you are?” (“Nude Sonnet”10). Rather than keeping with the traditional expectation that the woman should be seen as the beauty in a relationship, Meléndez re-examines the typical roles between men and women and questions why she should expect something she has not given. In this way, feminist readers—both women and men—can delight in the discovery that stereotypical male/female roles do not have to be adhered to. Men’s bodies can be celebrated as beautiful, too.


The poem “Tonocacihuatl: Lady of our Flesh” is written in five stanzas of four lines, making it one of Meléndez’s most structured poems, although it does not have a rhyme scheme or meter. “Tonacacihuatl: Lady of our Flesh” makes a huge shift in audience as Meléndez writes about the mythology of the Aztecs, one of the most powerful native tribes of central Mexico. In their mythology, Tonocacihuatl is the wife of Tonacatecuhtli, the god of creation, and is herself the goddess of creation. These two gods were the original beings and created everything else in the universe. The name Tonocacihuatl means “lady of the flesh” or “lady of substance.” It can be argued that many mestizos would not be aware of this Aztec mythology; however, it is likely that mestizos have been exposed to it by their family and cultural experiences.

This poem not only is for a mestizo audience that understands the importance of the goddess Tonacacihuatl, but is also a poem for feminists. The creator goddess—a female divine entity—is not present in the majority of white Western culture. The poem’s portrayal of the Creator as a woman is a powerful one for womankind, as are the universal images and senses that Meléndez uses to describe the goddess of creation. Meléndez describes Tonacacihuatl’s breath and sweat as the “fragrance of rain,” her dress as being covered in “thirteen mirrors” and her fever as “an affliction known as August” (“Tonacacihuatl” 1, 2, 13, 16). In the descriptions of her breath, sweat and dress, Meléndez uses concepts that are familiar in nearly every life—and certainly in every North American one. One might assume that the last image—fever as August—is a familiar one, but it is good to remember that only in the northern hemisphere is August a hot and sticky summer month. Still, this poem of a female creator remains a tangible idea for feminist readers to grasp onto.

Meléndez’s poem “Remedio” is a free verse poem that focuses on images of wolves and the spirit. To better understand this poem, we must first understand the significance of the wolf image and, specifically, “la loba” that is mentioned in line 36. In Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, she includes the myth of La Loba, the Wolf Woman, from the Pueblo people of the southwestern US. In Estés telling of the myth, La Loba is an ugly, fat, old woman who lives alone and avoids the others’ company. The only work of La Loba is to collect wolf bones, collecting and preserving “that which is in danger of being lost to the world” (Estés 26).

She searches through las montañas and the dry riverbeds to find enough bones to remake an entire skeleton. As she stands near a fire and sings over la criatura, the bones become the wolf—furry and breathing. The wolf becomes alive, jumps up and runs into the desert. Somewhere along the run, the wolf is “suddenly transformed into a laughing woman who runs free toward the horizon” (Estés 28).

Knowing the Pueblo myth of La Loba, we can now read “Remedio” with a better understanding of the Latino and mestizo connections and see this poem through the feminist lens. The narrator of the poem gives directions to the reader or listener, saying to “let your wolf mask go” (“Remedio” 3). This “wolf mask” is the body of the wolf that rises from the bones and runs off into the desert. La Loba, or the narrator, is telling the listener to shed their wolf skin and become the woman that the wolf eventually morphs into. Later, the narrator instructs the reader in a “simple spell for home lycanthropy,” or a simple way to turn one’s self into a werewolf (“Remedio” 30). In a chronological poem, this piece of information would come before the previous quote; regardless, this step is important as it gives a “remedy for when you’ve lost your sense / of Spirit in the world” and encourages women to “recuerda la loba” within themselves (“Remedio” 28-9, 36). The narrator goes on to instruct the reader to notice the natural world, and to “let her pass through your heart again, / this wolf” (“Remedio” 31, 40-41). Based on these instructions, the reader may safely assume that the narrator is La Loba herself and the text is her song to the bones of the wolf—encouraging the tired, dead bones to come into their full potential and run like the powerful she-wolf through the desert, eventually turning into the free woman within.

Throughout all of María Meléndez’s poems, themes of feminism—the validity of womanhood and the expectation of equality among genders—and of mestizo culture and history are deeply rooted and intrinsic parts of Meléndez’s message. From the Aztec people’s creation myths to the more recent myths from the Pueblo people, Latino and mestizo history appears and reappears in her poems. Goddesses such as the Aztec Creator Tonacacihuatl and mythical women such as La Loba bring ancient and respected views of women into mainstream American culture. Even more so, Meléndez surveys the life of a modern American woman and realizes that expectations in love between men and women should not be any different. Although sometimes her specific references to Aztec and Southwestern US myths may occasionally isolate some mainstream American feminists, Meléndez’s poetry is accessible enough that all of her readers can enjoy and appreciate her portrayals of mestizo culture, feminism and femininity.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

A Response to The Devil's Highway


The crosses along the border fence represent those who have died trying to cross.
Photo courtesy of keiforce.



The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea is, in my opinion, the most well-written and emotionally-riveting book that we have read so far. I think the reason it connects so well and makes such an impact is because the idea of borders is one that we can all relate to.

What borders have I had to cross?

Thinking about it, I keep going back and looking at pictures I have posted up in my room, or the ones I have saved on my computer or even some of the ones I'm tagged in on Facebook. The pictures are all of the places where I felt those borders (college, working at camp, working in Chicago, my family, my on-again-off-again friends) but that's not where I find the borders themselves. There are no pictures of the borders I've experienced like there are photos of the US-Mexican border. People don't usually take pictures of the things keeping them out of or separated from where they want to be. But these borders are important.

And in my case, every border has people that are encouraging and supportive on each side of the fence. What would I do if I didn't have that support system to help me through? What if I got to the other side and realized I didn't know the language? What if I got there and every sign looked like WingDings and every person talking sounded like R2D2? I'd be straight out of luck. I'd give up. I'd go home.

The people that cross the border along the Sonoran Desert are either the stupidest or the bravest people I have heard of. The courage that they have to come to a new place across a land known to be threatening and devastating, and known to be a killer--even under the best conditions. I can't imagine having the strength or the willpower or feeling so responsible for my loved ones that I would cross such a destructive area to support them. I have so much respect for people that travel across the desert--and for any person that goes through hardships--to benefit the ones they love.

Friday, February 10, 2012

The Guardians, The Devil's Highway and Identity:

As a work of creative nonfiction, the story of the Yuma 14/Wellton 26 does not fit as well into the theme of identity as a struggle between cultural/familial values and choosing one’s own path in life as the other books we have read this semester. Rather than metaphorically finding their own paths in life, these men are quite literally and physically moving themselves away from their families and their cultures. For the interactive map from the presentation, click here. In The Guardians, Gabo must forge his own identity separate from his family's. Tía Regina is not religious, going as far as to scorn it, but her sobrino Gabo is. Regina says, of Gabo, that her “biggest fear is he’s gonna become a priest. Wait ‘til Rafa hears about it. He’ll be so disappointed” (7).

In Gabo’s search to defining himself and finding an identity leads to his experimentation with a gang. At the barbeque birthday party that Miguel throws for him, Gabo invites his friend Jesse. But he also ends up inviting the whole Palomino gang. When El Toro gets up to leave, Jesse and Tiny Tears go with him; and then Gabo follows too. Regina says that he “didn’t thank us for the party, say good-bye, or even look at nobody. He just hurried off and got in Jesse’s car with the others. It wasn’t like my nephew not to mind his manners” (80).

After Gabo leaves with the Palomino gang and has a run-in with the police, he goes to Padre Juan Bosco’s house rather than home to his aunt Regina’s. She says that he is “a boy trying to figure things out” (97). The Padre assures Regina that when Gabo is ready, “he’ll go home on his own” (99). This is a very interesting statement, especially given my thesis for these Latino novels. This would in turn suggest that once young individuals take the time trying to figure out who they are and what their identity is, they ultimately end up back in their homes, as the Padre puts it—in their family and cultural origins.

On the other hand, The Devil’s Highway contains a literal path away from the cultural and familial expectations in the Latino characters’ lives. Each of them are leaving for different specific reasons, but all of them are leaving to better their lives and the lives of their families. Enrique Landeros García went on the journey to get enough money to “pay for a more straightforward chance at a future” for his children to go to school (52). Reyno Bartolo Hernandez “went to Don Moi for money to pay for [his adopted daughter’s] care (53). All of these men, along with the others not mentioned here, are choosing to temporarily abandon their families and cultures to assure a better life for their families. They have chosen that a future for their children is more valuable than their own lives—death is a well-known consequence of the path on the devil’s highway. As adults, their identities are tied to the lives of their children more than they are tied to the men themselves. Perhaps once Gabo reaches adulthood, he will find that his identity is intrinsically tied to his family.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Thoughts on 9500 Liberty:

9500 Liberty, a documentary first aired completely via YouTube video clips, follows the story of Prince William County, Virginia from the spring of 2007 until the spring of 2008. During this time, a law was instated that required police to check the citizenship status of people based on subjective standards of suspicion. The law required 21 new police staff as well as 14 million dollars.

The biggest problem with this law is that the "probable cause" mandate almost certainly meant that Latinos and non-white people would be racially profiled. This caused huge conflicts between the Latinos, who made up 20% of the county's population at the time, and those white Americans worried about protecting America, and more specifically, Manassas (as is shown through the "Help Save Manassas" group).



In response to the passing of this law, a man named Gaudencio Fernandez who owns the property at 9500 Liberty Street, erected a wall with messages to the government on it (as is pictures above). Others started blogs, such as Greg Letiecq and Alanna Almeda and Elena Schlossberg. Many immigrants--both legal and illegal--simply left Prince William County.

There were so many interesting topics in this film. I was fascinated and disgusted at the use of manipulation and coercion by citizens of Manassas City. I was shocked that county officials would make decisions without a basis of facts concerning the matter. More so, I was so surprised at how many people hold hostile prejudices and un-based opinions of Latinos. One man referred to the United States as "my country" and that people here should speak English. A woman asked county board members to remember who was behind 9/11: illegal immigrants.

To me, these sentiments--along with other opinions we heard from various other characters in the documentary--simply perpetuate feelings of danger, anger and fear. Fear seemed to be the most overwhelming emotion throughout this movie. Speakers in favor of the law used fear politics--appealing to the board members sense of fear rather than their logic or obligation to uphold the US's democratic ideals.

One of the citizen speakers put it best, I think. He was a teacher, but asked to be seen instead as a human being. He went on to say that we all deserve to be seen as human beings. When you think of people in that sense, I can't imagine passing a law that would divide, uproot or harm families. Regardless of "legal" status, human beings are human beings and we all deserve respect--enough to not be judged by the color of our skin.