Poetry has always been an integral part of Latin@ cultures, and my mother read poetry to me from the time I could first listen. My ears learned first how magical words could be.

I didn’t know any English when I started school in the United States, and I was punished for using Spanish. Some immigrant parents capitulate to the idea that their kids must un-learn Spanish to fit in and get ahead. But not my parents. They insisted that I never lose their language. They saw insisting on “English only” as insisting on ignorance. To forbid a language, as happened in my school, recognizes the powerful role language plays in shaping a people’s identity. To vanquish a people, you must suppress their language.

I taught English when I became a teacher, but I told my students that what they would learn from me would be “standard English,” a tool for getting certain kinds of jobs. But “standard” ranks as only one of many kinds of English. What you speak in the ’hood will always be just as valid. The language you use will be just as good in the context you use it.

You were born in the borderlands, an economic/cultural/spiritual space both Mexican and estadounidense — we have no English adjective for “of the US”! How does your poetry reflect this duality? How does poetry give words to the wordless, to the sacred?

On this permeable border, I had family on both sides, and we had a constant interchange. I have two languages, two worlds in dialogue with each other. I am heir to two muses. I write my poems almost always in two tongues. Sometimes the English muse speaks first and sometimes the Spanish, but neither dominates. The two versions you read side by side come together as a single work. 

Given the importance of sound, reading or reciting poetry becomes a performance, like playing a piece of music. I’ve sometimes heard poets read their poems as if they were classified ads. Poets must taste the words, savor each one!

Your poetry expresses love and concern for ordinary people and points to the injustices so many of us face.

A mastery of language brings a responsibility to give voice to the voiceless. I might prefer to write love poetry, but I must write protest poetry because we have an obligation to confront the institutions of injustice. We live in a society focused on greed and a lust for power deeply rooted in patriarchy. I don’t believe we have any such thing as “ordinary” people. The people my poems speak for suffer from our society’s lack of compassion.

Education, subversive by definition, should always question authority. But education’s purpose has become about just producing a labor force. Children thrive as natural poets, but our school systems have eliminated music and dance. We need to teach the arts, to celebrate our joy together. Joy! That should be the measure of a nation’s greatness.

How does poetry help us move to a borderless world, or better yet, a “borderlands” world where many worlds exist simultaneously?

Yes, a world of harmony and diversity. In recognizing our commonalities, we can also not just respect our differences, we can inhabit those differences. One way to do that: by speaking each other’s languages.

Keep your ears open for the music of language and learn the power of words. But also don’t fall victim to language used falsely. We must be ever more alert to what is true.

Be loving, be joyful, and kick up your heels! 

A sampling of the poetry of Rafael Jesús González. For more, check online at his blog.

Los mapas mienten

Borders are scratched across the hearts of men

          By strangers with a calm, judicial pen,

And when the borders bleed we watch with dread

          The lines of ink across the map turn red

                                             Marya Mannes

Mienten los mapas —
son colchas de parches sin sentido

de colores pasteles

  (lila, celeste, lima,

  limón, naranja, rosa)
con nombres, costuras arbitrarias

con que imaginamos a la Tierra

pretendiendo poseerla
y le llamamos ‘mundo.’

La Tierra no tiene costuras
ni fronteras —
ríos y barrancas, sierras, pantanos,

desfiladeros, junglas y desiertos,

cascadas y saltos, mares sí,
pero nunca fronteras.

Los mapas mienten.

Maps Lie

Maps lie —
they are crazy quilts

of pastel colors

  (lilac, sky, lime,

  lemon, orange, pink)
with arbitrary names & seams

with which we imagine the Earth

pretending to possess it
& call it ‘world.’

The Earth does not have seams

nor borders —
rivers & ravines, sierras, swamps,

canyons, jungles & deserts,

cascades & falls, seas yes,

but never borders.

Maps lie.