Struggles

The poem I chose is “To Abuelita Neli.” This poem shows the difficulties immigrants have to deal with. We can see how much trouble Zamora went through crossing the borders and surviving. He explains the struggles he is having from being in the US to his Abuelita who is in Mexico. 

We know this poem is from around 2009 since he mentions in the poem that “today, this country chose its first black president,” who was Barack Obama. He starts off the poem by saying how many times he had to make fake passports to keep moving around the US and lying about his birthplace in order to hide. He does apologize for lying about his birthplace because it would seem disrespectful. In line 5, he italicized “choose” to emphasize that he doesn’t want to have a choice in marrying. I took that in two different ways: (1) he wasn’t given many opportunities so he doesn’t want to have this choice as well or (2) in the US, it is normal for people to choose who they marry and not do an arranged marriage, so he is following that tradition. He explains to his Abuelita that he can’t go back home because he can’t cross the border. He has already made so many fake passports that he won’t have the opportunity to get papers. He compares himself to a parakeet which are considered small and vulnerable birds. Zamora sees himself vulnerable in a world with so many opportunities that he isn’t allowed to have. Line 8 would be a metaphor since he is comparing himself to a parakeet but he isn’t using any similes. 

Not only does he explain his struggles, we also know that his parents were already across the border before he turned one. In line 11-12, he states how Abuelita and him both celebrated his birthday without his parents. He states that he can’t be a citizen because he can’t get papers which he stated in lines 6-7. He also states how he won’t have to be working anymore since he is hidden in the US away from border control. He ends the poem telling Abuelita that his friends don’t know the real truth about him being in the US. They see him as a traitor and he compares himself to a coconut, which is a metaphor. A coconut has two sides, brown on the outside and white inside. White would be considered as Americans and brown would be referring to the immigrants. His friends claim that he is lying about considering himself still benign one of his family, but since he left and won’t come back, they see him as an American.

Javier Zamora pointed out a lot of the struggles he went through by explaining the issues in hiding and being stuck in the US. He states that he feels vulnerable and small in a big world. He apologizes for not being able to come back and that he isn’t a traitor to his family. For the question directed to the poet: I noticed that in most of your poems, you always add spanish words/phrases in them. Why do you like to mix up the languages in your poem?

Gurranvir Kaur

A great distance

When reading through the various works within Javier Zamora’s Unaccompanied poetry collection the work that held the most impact on me was his poem titled: Then, it Was So. My attention was captivated by the first stanza. “To tell you I was leaving” (Line 1) At first we wonder where it is this character is leaving to, but quickly realize with the context of his other works that this is likely someone preparing for their trip across the border. The character deals with the many anxieties that come with such a dangerous and risky trip. Within the second stanza, we see the longing that leaving your home country causes. While many do seek and receive a better life within the States, it’s hard to say if those benefits outweigh the distance one is from their family. “That dawn, I needed to say / you remind me of my father” (Lines 23-24) This stanza really shows the trend within Hispanic families and the common immigration towards the United States. Highlighting the effect it has on the family that’s left behind, but ultimately becoming a realization point when one recognizes that they too must make the same decision. Javier Zamora’s Then, it Was So showcases the story and struggle shared by many Hispanic families. Giving recognition to the often ignored heavy sacrifices made by these families. The process of immigration is often belittled, but Zamora makes sure that readers are made aware of the various aspects within. The grief and longing caused by the great separation, the danger and risk of the treacherous journey through the grueling and unforgiving desert. As well as the constant fear of having all that sacrifice and work be negated through an unfortunate encounter with I.C.E 

My question is: within the final stanza of this poem, you use an unemptied “Bucket of mosquitoes” as imagery for leaving, why this specific item?

– Eduardo Ojeda Jr

Beauty in the worst

The poem I decided to go with was “Dancing in Buses,” of course, by Javier Zamora. The poem was very intriguing to me due to a matter of factors – first of all, it’s almost musical. The entire poem itself is structured in a rhyming-rap structure. It’s consistent, it doesn’t stop, and it’s almost sung with a ‘jing’ to it, or a somewhat golly tune. However, once looked over, the poem is the complete opposite.

The starting lines start off with the poet talking about music being blasted from a speaker and telling everyone to raise their hands when playing the music, nothing more. He tells us to twist our arms in the air, and look around like so, before bending over and doing the Rump. So far, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing strange. The speaker then tells us to do the ‘rake,’ before sweeping and doing the Pupusa Clap – so on. All in all, a myriad of dance moves. However, by the near end, the poet suddenly tells us to duck underneath the seat, because someone’s shooting. After that, he instructs the reader to put their hand behind their back, look at the ground, roll over, and face the barrel.

After a brief skim, I decided to read closer. When the poet talks about doing a dance, he mentions something called a “pupusa clap”, with “finger dough clumps.” After doing some research about this, Pupusa is a sort of flatbread made through cornmeal or rice flour, which requires the chef in question to kneed and clap at it roughly to give it its texture. This specific food is Salvadoran, the origin of the poet in mind, and definitely as a result something that’s related to his hometown. Same with Horchata, a rice-based item as well, just a drink in this case. He’s correlating actions you would do when eating these specific foods into a personal dance, perhaps this is some sort of remembrance of his hometown? Right after this, we’re immediately once again, thrust into a life-or-death situation, with the poet suddenly telling everyone to drop down, roll over, face the mouth of a barrel (A gun, most likely), and don’t scream. From what I’ve gathered, this could be one of the experiences many of the immigrants attempting to cross the border face. Like all the previous poems, border patrol plays a big part, with them consistently brandishing their guns, and said to shoot on sight without any sort of repercussion. This huge juxtaposition of happy dancing upon a bus to the sudden possibility of death just feels immense, I believe Javier wanted this exact notion as well. To suddenly move from happy dancing and the such to sudden near-death experiences.

I suppose the poet here was trying to convey the immigrants trying to brighten up the terrible times they have while trying to cross the border by trying to enjoy themselves with activities that remind them of their hometown, such as the scooping of Horchata incorporated into their dances, alongside the kneading of Pupusa as well. Yet even then, they’re still caught by their terrible fate at the end of the poem, forced to turn around to face the barrel of a (Unestablished, but hinted at) gun. I’m not quite sure exactly if this is the case, and the one question I have right now is just who exactly are they rolling over for? In a lot of the previous poems, Border Patrol isn’t the only ‘evil’ thing out there. There’s the metaphorical coyotes, and so on. It makes me wonder, just what exactly are they cowering under?

Edmund F-

Gun Violence: A Deadly Dance

In Javier Zamora’s poem, “Dancing in Buses”, the enjambment and repetition within the lines create a rhythm fitting for a dance, but the speaker uses these poetic devices to highlight the frequent violence that surrounds them. The poem situation is a person in a bus dancing with moves that are inspired by hispanic culture. A shooting interrupts this dance, and the person hides under a bus seat for protection. Specifically, the speaker tells their audience to “Do the Pupusa- / Clap — finger dough clumps. Clap. / Do the Horchata-Scoop — / your hand’s a ladle, scoop” (lines 12-15). Enjambment connects each line to the next so they flow together the way music does. The pupusa and horchata connect the dance to El Salvador (as well as Spain and Latin America). When people do this dance, their limbs embody these hispanic experiences. The repetition of “clap” and “scoop” adds more rhythm to the lines and emphasizes the connection between the dance moves and foods. The scooping literally mimics the motion of using a ladle. 

Enjambment and repetition are absent in the second stanza. The speaker adopts a more direct, serious tone. By this point, the speaker abandons the rhythm of the previous dance and gives their audience clear instructions like “Drop down. / Look at the ground.” (lines 21-22). The periods at the end of these directions stand out due to the lack of enjambment. These lines have a staccato rhythm due to the punctuation and lack of repetition. Life is drained from this stanza because the words visually and audibly have no more movement. The directions, “Roll over. / Face the mouth of the barrel. / Do the protect-face-with-hand” (lines 23-25) are abrupt in comparison to the flow of the previous stanza. However, the speaker still connects these instructions to the previous dance with the “protect-face” move that is hyphenated as if it is the stomp-and-twist or any ordinary dance move (instead of a precaution in the face of danger). Ultimately, the second stanza is still part of the dance because these are moves that the speaker knows equally well due to their previous experiences with guns. The shooting crosses over from being a disruption to being part of life. The speaker’s fear is evident as they tell their audience “don’t breathe” and “Don’t scream” (lines 19 and 26). These directions contrast the beginning of the poem because the speaker is telling the audience not to do something for the first time. The speaker and audience must fight against natural instincts if they want to survive.

Question for Javier Zamora: How did you decide where to end the enjambment within “Dancing in Buses”? Why not stop the enjambment when the shooting first begins?

~Miki Chroust

Crossing Deserts

Let Me Try Again

I could bore you with the sunset, the way water tasted

     after so many days without it, 

                                                     the trees,

the breed of dogs, but I can’t say 

                                                    there were forty people

when we found the ranch with the thin white man, 

           his dogs, 

                          and his shotgun. 

Until this 5 a.m. I couldn’t remember

                           there were only five, 

or seven people—

We’d separated by the paloverdes.

      We, meaning: 

                             four people. Not forty. 

The rest. . . 

     I don’t know. 

                            They weren’t there 

when the thin white man 

                                         let us drink from a hose

while pointing his shotgun. 

                                             In pocho Spanish he told us

si correr perros atacar.

                                      If run dogs trained attack.

When La Migra arrived, an officer 

     who probably called himself Hispanic at best,

not Mejicano like we called him, said 

                                                      buenas noches

     and gave us pan dulce y chocolate. 

Procedure says he should’ve taken us 

     back to the station, 

checked our fingerprints, 

                                             etcétera. 

He must’ve remembered his family 

      over the border, 

or the border coming over them, 

     because he drove us to the border 

and told us 

    next time, rest at least five days, 

don’t trust anyone calling themselves coyotes, 

      bring more tortillas, sardines, Alhambra. 

He knew we would try again 

      and again,

                       like everyone does. 

In the poem “Let Me Try Again”, Javier Zamora appears to be writing about the first occurrence of trying to cross the border and escape through the desert. He continuously mentions how little people there were. It is mentioned that there “were only five or seven people” (line 10-11) and specifically how, gradually, there were less and less people. “Four people. Not forty” (line 14). This reference to a small number of people, and gradually less and less people than they started with, may be an indication of the people that were lost along the way when crossing the border and or the desert. Whether they were killed by La Migra or they simply didn’t make it with the rest along the way through the desert, people were being lost throughout the journey. Eventually, when an officer of La Migra arrived, he did not follow procedure. Procedure says that he should have “taken [them] back to the station, checked [their] fingerprints, etcetera” (line 29-32). The officer did not do this though, instead he drove them back to the border and gave them advice on getting rest, who not to trust, and what foods and water they should bring “next time”. The speaker believes that he did not follow procedure out of empathy. The officer, also Mexican or Hispanic, may have “remembered his family over the border, or the border coming over them” (line 33-35). So instead of following procedure, he may have felt a sense of empathy and drove them to the border, to give them another chance. He did not leave them without the advice though as he knew there would be a next time, as they would “try again and again” (line 41-42) to cross the desert and escape. 

Sarah Rix

Question for Javier Zamora: Are the physical structures and interesting indenting of the sentences in multiple of your poems, for example in your poem “Let Me Try Again”, meant to have a specific meaning to compliment the poem?

Very difficult stories to tell

Personally, since I have never experienced crossing borders myself, I don’t know well how difficult it must have been or how much trauma it might have caused. Javier Zamora clearly addresses my question through his poem, ‘From The Book I Made with a Counselor My First Week of School.’

In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker’s counselor appears, jotting down the story he said. Through this, I learn that he had a grandmother who made great pupusas. A pupusa is a thick griddle cake or flatbread from El Salvador and Honduras made with cornmeal or rice flour, similar to the Colombian and Venezuelan arepa. Through pupusas, I can catch his cultural background. Additionally, the fact that the counselor wrote down the story next to ‘Stick-Figure Abuelita,’ not referring to her as ‘grandmother’ but using the Spanish term ‘Abuelita,’ suggests that the speaker himself drew the picture. From the title and the first sentence, I understand that this is inside a school counselor’s office, where the speaker is sharing his childhood stories and receiving counseling. In the second stanza, stories told by his father and mother are mentioned, always emphasizing to watch out for gringos and to smile. Here, ‘gringo’ is Spanish and it means ‘foreigner.’ This sentence connects with the last stanza and conveys an important meaning. In the third stanza, I recognize how much the speaker struggled to cross the border. Also, the mention of ‘cacti’ in the third stanza is the Spanish word for cactus.

In the fourth stanza, Javier mentions seeing a dead coyote had flies over and emitting a foul smell next to yucca plants and a dried creek. However, the italicized font suggests that the counselor is transcribing what the speaker said. So, the line about Javier’s story is the note that the counselor wrote. Yucca is a plant adaptable to various climates and environments found across the American continent. Therefore, even when the creek dries up and the coyote dies, the yucca can survive. In the last stanza, the counselor prompts the speaker with a question in Spanish, attempting to reassure him and guide him to open up if he has any concerns. However, the speaker, remembering the advice of his parents mentioned in the second stanza, simply smiles to the counselor, the ‘foreigner’, and says nothing. The phrase ‘no animal, I knew that man.’ might be Javier’s own reflection presented in italics, but the consistent use of italics throughout the previous stanzas indicates that is the counselor’s note-taking. And that sentence gives hints at the possibility that what Javier saw was not a coyote, an animal, but perhaps a person.

Having endured immense hardships and adversity to cross the border, the speaker, while not engaging the counselor or saying a story, remembers the advice given by their parents and simply smiles. Maybe the speaker is afraid of being the ‘coyote’ that he saw. However, through this, the readers can discern the magnitude of what the speaker has experienced and how difficult that journey has been.

Through your poems, I’ve noticed that many references to ‘coyotes’ appear. Does the ‘coyote’ symbolize the wounds and loneliness in your heart?

Jisoo Jang

Pupusa – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupus / Yucca – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca

the “evil” within

In Natalie Diaz’s poem ‘My Brother at 3 AM’, Diaz describes her brother seeing himself as a devil and being horrified of himself. She displays the intense fear in him of this “hellish” version of himself. Diaz discusses in her interview that she always wants her poems to return to the body and in this poem, by having the twist in the end of the fact that the devil her brother fears, be himself, it symbolizes an evil within one’s self or somethings that is a part of a person that is viewed as evil by society and the world we have grew up in. Diaz states she wants to “return back to the body because as an indigenous person, as a Latina, as a queer woman, I haven’t been given the permission or the space, to be fully in my body.” Her poem enforces this idea by having the devil be a separate entity from the ‘brother’, but also the same person, or a part of himself. I feel that this poem especially can connect with the fact that she is a queer woman, because in society for the longest time being queer was seen as almost evil by society, especially by people who were very religious. I feel that the devil is a symbol for the part of either the brother or the author herself, that she felt she had to hide from society because she was led to believe it was evil and horrific. Also I feel that the fact that the brother constantly states “ He wants to kill me, Mom.“, could represent the fact that many people were killed for claiming having a different sexuality than society deemed acceptable or the fact that it this brother felt it could in a way ruin his life. I feel this devil seems to act as a symbol to display the part of us that we may be afraid to show because society has taught us that it is wrong, when in the big picture it is a part of us and nothing we should be ashamed of. I feel that is what Diaz means when she says that she hasn’t been given “permission or the space, to be fully in my body”, the “devil” within her is not acceptable by the standards society has put on us and how they feel things should be so she hides it and only displays it in her poetry. Many others feel this way and she beautifully explains how it feels to have to keep a part of who you are hidden out of the fear of the consequences that may come when it is out in the open.

Emily Mayo

Heroes Cross Borders

Crossing the US-Mexico border is a challenge that many citizens from Central and South America knowingly risk their lives for. Their desire for a better life in the United States is enough for them to walk thousands of miles of hostile terrain with very little food or water, certainly a traumatic experience given how high the probability of death is. Javier Zamora was one of those who completed the dangerous trek, at age 9; it is because of that experience that he wrote the poem “Second Attempt Crossing”. The words of the poem describe his personal experience through “the middle of that desert that didn’t look like sand and sand only” and the fear of being caught by “La Migra”, only to be saved by his guardian angel known only as Chino. It is important to note the italization of the name Chino; in general, words are italicized when they can stand by themselves, as to draw attention to it. This is the case with Chino as, in Zamora’s point of view, there is only one Chino, the same one who is not only responsible for him making it to the US, but also for having kept him alive in a dangerous situation. The same gratitude that Zamora expresses in his poem translates to the oral version of the poem, however, in the oral version, Zamora’s tone is reminiscent of speakers at a funeral. He describes Chino as though he is a superhero and instantly becomes saddened when he begins the farewell section of the poem, since he knows he will never see his hero again since he was only one of a kind. The oral version of the poem has that feeling of loss that one hears when the loss of a family member occurs, as opposed to the written version which has more of a reminiscent tone to it.

“you won’t be seeing me again.”

By: Jocelyn Lemus

The world shifts from dimension to dimension in order to find who to target next. Who shall be the victim of the day? Who shall feel this day more? Who shall remember every breath and every touch of this day? A day can change your life, it can change you. Being a nine-year-old boy, Javier Zamora an undocumented Salvadorian poet crossed the U.S.Mexican border in order to get where he is at now. A graduate from UC Berkeley and an inspirational poet. When reading his famous poem, “To President-Elect” I felt this cold breeze flow between my ears and inside my chest. The sensitivity of the topic bruises just like a peach, so softly and so quietly. He was able to implement so many straightforward a and hidden messages in this piece.

Initially, when I first read the poem I was extremely amazed by how Zamora was able to structure his poem differently and uniquely. So many important messages stood out to me when seeing and analyzing this poem as I read it. For instance, he begins his poem with anaphora, repeating the word “there’s” (1)  three times in the beginning. This is significant in the poem because it provides an enormous emphasis to the tone of this piece. The tone become extremely sympathetic and dominant at the same time. This strategy allows the reader to focus into tying up ideas together. Not only that, but one phrase that caught my attention, not with what was asked, but how it was written caught my naked eye. When he states, “¿no one’s running?” (2). This stood out to me because originally, there are two question marks when using Spanish language instead of English. As you see here, Zamora used both languages and literary cultures together to question in his piece. This relates to bi-cultural and bi-language aspects in his poem. There is so much meaning within the poem and it just becomes to difficult to analyze it in such limited time. One more thing that also gives the poem power and meaning is when Zamora includes the phrase, “sobreviviste bicho, sobreviviste carna” (8). This last line is essential to acknowledge because he inputted an italicized Spanish phrase that shapes his culture. Coming from a Salvadorian family, I was able to relate the way his Spanish works. Most do not know what ”bicho” means. I remember always using it around campus or my friends and many would question what it meant. That word just means, “kid.”  Using this small Spanish phrase demonstrates his appreciation of his culture, giving it more spark to the fire of the piece. 

When analyzing the poem alone and listening to the recitation Zamora gives, I can compare these two in a sense where both were extremely convincing when sending out their powerful message. However, the way he decides to begin this poem in the recitation, caught my attention instantly. In the poem alone, it starts with, “There’s…” but when Zamora was reading it out-loud, he began with, “Congratulations.” Even if just a simple word added in the beginning, it still has meaning and significance because the reader will end up catching the attention faster than expected. The word alone gives the reader an urge to know what is being or who is being congratulated. In addition, another phrase that was said in the recitation and not shown in the poem was, “if you call us alien, you’re equally fucked.” Having this phrase said in the recitation changes the tone giving it more force to the voice alone. This changes the poem because it gives it a big touch on the way the speaker poet feels deeply inside. It gives meaning to the reader and the poem altogether.

To learn and to read and to give and receive even if it is just with the voice or a piece of paper.

Received vs Read

            The most notable difference between reading the poem and hearing it is the contempt and frustration that you hear in his voice. This highlights Zamora’s, and the larger Hispanic community’s, feelings about how he is completely over and done with the current state of things.

            I am an African American male; I have experienced similar types of the subjugation and unfair judgments of these people therefore I can sympathize. But I was born here and do not have to worry about whether or not I will be uprooted and sent far away, possibly even to a land they never knew, and having all of my efforts thrown away out of nowhere. I am not I a refugee; I have not had to slip, “…my backpack under the ranchers ‘fences…” to traverse a deathly desert in order to find sanctuary due to an undocumented status that is totally out of my control. Therefore, I do not understand much of their struggles and could not summon such a feeling on my own.

            In addition, hearing it out loud can help those who may not understand the Spanish words. Hearing them out loud and fully emoted, can help someone gain the meaning and overall concepts far better.

-Andrew Hardy