Luis J. Rodriguez, “We Never Stopped Crossing Borders” UA 6
Reader: Jamie McGuire
Respondent: Natalie C. Leonard

http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/logo.jpg

About the author:

Lewis J. Rodriguez was born in 1954.  From ages 11 to 19 he joined a gang, used drugs, dropped out of school, kicked out of his house, became homeless, arrested for misdemeanors and felonies, and at 18 he was facing a six-year prison sentence that was reduced due to community support. 

He has spent twenty years conducting workshops, readings, and talks in prisons, juvenile facilities, homeless shelters, migrant camps, universities, public and private schools, conferences, Native American reservations, and men’s retreats throughout the United States. 

Luis is a cofounder of Tia Chucha’s Café Cultural, which is a bookstore, coffee shop, performance space, art gallery, and computer. 

Awards: 19 +

Books: 7

Children's Biography: 2

Anthologies, Textbooks and Photo Books:122 entries

Magazines & Newspapers: 216 entries

Official Website: http://www.luisjrodriguez.com/index.htm

Objectives:

1b voiceless and choice less

2b class as a repressed subject

3c ambivalent minority

5a hear the minority voice and share the minority experience

Literary Terms:

Allusion A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. Allusions conjure up biblical authority, scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, historic figures, wars, great love stories, and anything else that might enrich an author’s work. Allusions imply reading and cultural experiences shared by the writer and reader, functioning as a kind of shorthand whereby the recalling of something outside the work supplies an emotional or intellectual context, such as a poem about current racial struggles calling up the memory of Abraham Lincoln.

Connotation Associations and implications that go beyond the literal meaning of a word, which derive from how the word has been commonly used and the associations people make with it. For example, the word eagle connotes ideas of liberty and freedom that have little to do with the word’s literal meaning.

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/glossary_a.htm

Interpretation:

November 19, 2002 

Reader:  Dan Negrotto

Luis J. Rodriguez like the Mexican-American minority was forced to participate in the dominant culture.  Part of America already belonged to Mexicans; therefore, we must ask, "Did they come to America or were they already here?".  Mr. Rodriguez points out the many barriers placed in the path of the Mexican-American by the dominant white culture.  Mr. Rodriguez uses the Rio Bravo vs. Rio Grande to show that these barriers did not exist to the Mexican, until the white dominant culture arrived.  He used his poem to help "others" hear the minority voice.  Finally, Mr. Rodriguez noted, "We were invisible people" and "This is not your country".  He used these statements to show how the Mexican-American minority is viewed in relation to the dominant culture and its systems.

My Interpretation:

He sets up the poem in the beginning by implying that throughout history they have continually encountered obstacles,  which they have had to overcome.  Rodriguez says that Mexicans call it Rio Bravo and renaming it instills power into the name.  The term “bravo” means brave in Spanish.  The people who choose to cross the river had to be brave; there was no guarantee  that they would make it across alive.  They  were willing to take this risk because it meant a new beginning, a chance at a future for their selves and their families; because if they stayed where they were they knew only a life without hope, without a future was waiting for them.  Those who choose to cross the boarder also knew that their would be boarders waiting for them in other forms holding them back until they discovered a way to cross them as well. 

Questions:

1. How does “Don’t speak Spanish, don’t be Mexican – you don’t belong” relate to “we were invisible people”?

2. He says, “It was a metaphor to fill our lives – that river, that first crossing, the mother of all crossings”, why is it a metaphor?

Metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using the word like or as. Metaphors assert the identity of dissimilar things.  Metaphors can be subtle and powerful, and can transform people, places, objects, and ideas into whatever the writer imagines them to be. An implied metaphor is a more subtle comparison; the terms being compared are not so specifically explained.

3. Why would he include the refrain “this is not your country” and say that it has “echoed for a lifetime”?

Does this have any relation to number one?

THIS IS NOT YOUR COUNTRY Lyrics
Artist (Band): Morrissey

http://www.sing365.com/

Road blocks and fire
Barb wire upon barb wire
This is not your country

Armoured cars, corrugated scars
Grafitti scrawls:
"This is not your country"

Home sweet fortress
Gunshot - we hate your kind
Get back !
This is not your country

Luis: "... Borders, therefore, have nothing to do with biology, geography (even if some borders follow along rivers and mountain ranges) or spirituality. They are political and historically bound creations, seemingly forever, yet transient and ever changing. Robert Frost once wrote that fences make good neighbors. But for countries, these same "fences" tend to disconnect and often enemize (a new word) each other."

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/borders/talk/dialogue003_lr_6q.html