Trail-Blazing Chicana Poet, Pat Mora

Day 4:  National Poetry Month

Celebrating Trail-Blazing Chicana Poet, Pat Mora

Thelma T. Reyna

 

Year: 1986

Publisher: Arte Publico Press, Houston

Pages: 88

Pat Mora emerged onto the national stage at a pivotal time in U.S. literary history: the 1980s, when Chicano authors were creating a new genre of U.S. literature as the Chicano Literary Renaissance, begun in the 1960s, expanded and solidified. Mora published her first poetry collection, Chants, in 1984, and followed it up in 1986 with Borders, quickly establishing herself as one of the most prominent, influential Chicano authors of the era and presently. 

She writes with warmth, love, and compassion. Since borders are demarcations, there are always two sides: there is “us” and “them,” “their way” and “my way.” This duality spawns prejudice and stereotypes, requiring concerted efforts by each of us to blur the borders traversing our lands and our interactions, so we can be one huge expanse of humanity.

Her book evokes and explores borders large and small, old and new, faint and glaring. Born in El Paso, Texas, her cultural heritage imbues her writing as she aims to facilitate communication and promote understanding among diverse peoples. The granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, she has straddled the border between cultures and languages, has navigated the “like” and “unlike” her entire life. Borders can be cruel or innocuous, but they ultimately reveal us to ourselves.

Types of Borders

Mora describes hardships and triumphs of people from all walks of life. She begins with the famous author, Tomás Rivera, whose hands “knew about the harvest,/ tasted the laborer’s sweat” but also “gathered books at city dumps…began to hold books gently, with affection.” Rivera was the consummate cross-over, a migrant child of illiteracy who won prizes for his books and inspired legions of Latinos to demolish obstacles. 

Other people, however, struggle with limitations and discrimination imposed by borders. Mora describes the lengths immigrant parents go through to “Americanize” their children, as they “wrap their babies in the American flag,/ feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie.” The fear of rejection and marginalization haunts them. In “The Grateful Minority,” the poet describes Ofelia “scrubbing washbowls…/ mopping bathrooms for people/ who don’t even know your name.”  

The Subtle Borders of Life

Other borders—symbolic, emotional, or spiritual—are more subtle. Mora speaks of family love, the generations, the passage of time. The border between doting affection and tough love is embodied in the word “no” repeated like a litany in “The Heaviest Word in Town.” In “To My Son,” the border between childhood and adolescence is symbolized by the worn-down swing set, now sitting silent in the backyard, abandoned years ago.

Some borders transcend time, and Mora, particularly fond of elders, captures these poignantly. In “Pajarita,” the “small, gray Mexican bird/ brittle of bone, flutters at ninety/ through the large American cage/ all the comforts/ except youth.” The saintly grandmother straddles life and death as each day passes. In “Los Ancianos,” the poet describes an old couple holding hands as they traverse the plaza, “both slightly stooped, bodies returning to the land.” Walking the fine line between the present and eternity, “They know/ of moving through a crowd at their own pace.”

Our Individual and Collective Borders

Borders is a heartfelt, spiritual book, a paean to how borders of many types imbue our lives, but how hurtful borders can be eased, or removed, when we embrace how everything in life is interwoven, and we are, ultimately, one. 

Pat Mora has now published more than 30 books of poetry, essays, and children’s writings; received numerous literary awards and two honorary doctoral degrees; is a popular public speaker; and is best-known for instituting “El día de los ninos/ de los libros,” or “bookjoy,” an abiding passion of Pat Mora. Her success continues, and her legacy is intact.

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This book review was originally published in a prior version on LATINOPIA.com, owned and hosted by Jesus Trevino, as part of my column, “Book Review #6 in the PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS SERIES.”  (September 30, 2012).