Lesson 19

Border Poetry/Writing Workshop

Objective: Students will analyze a poem set in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and defend their own interpretations of the work.  In addition, students will demonstrate understanding of poetic technique by writing their own poems of living on the border.

NCSS Standards Met By This Lesson: I, III, IV, IX

Introduction: For years, Frontera NorteSur published a regular monthly "Border Poetry" feature and in 1999 FNS published both text and photos of an entire book, Tierra Cruzada/Crossed Land, a collection of poems edited by Paige DeShong (Gilberto Lucero, Assistant Director).

The entire set of "Border Poetry" features can be most easily accessed by going to the FNS home page (frontera.nmsu.edu), then clicking on the "Archive" button, then choosing May 1999, and continuing to go month-by-month until all poems have been printed out.  Note that sometimes, certain poems stay on-line for more than one month.

Héctor Carbajal's "Upon Roaming the Borderlands," first published in FNS in June 2000, was chosen as the border poem most fitting for this curriculum because it contains within it references to many of the themes and events we've looked at throughout these lessons.  Carbajal is a native El Pasoan and in this poem not only refers to important borderland cultural and political issues, but examines in depth the question of identity, which has been a theme throughout these lessons.

We offer Carbajal's poem here as a good representational sample of borderland poetry and an inspiring example that will encourage student writers to write their own border poems.

Teachers are also free to choose any of the poetry archived at FNS for this lesson.

The lesson itself is straightforward lecture-discussion, analyzing the poem in parts, then interpreting it as a whole. Teachers may approach the teaching of poetry in whatever way is most comfortable for them. What is offered here is a suggestion.

Materials/Preparation: Ideally, every student should have a copy of this poem and Carabajal's background statement.

Teachers may either copy the poem as provided here or print out copies from the FNS page:

Border Poetry (June 2000)
http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/jun00/poe3.html

It may also be advantageous to have available some Spanish-English dictionaries.

Upon Roaming the Borderlands
by Héctor Carbajal

"[We] don't know what we are because we don't know where we are . . . between two countries completely different from each other"
Arturo Islas

"To survive the Borderlands / You must live sin fronteras / Be a crossroads."
Gloria Anzaldúa

Upon roaming the Borderlands,
I step out of my body
and walk on
an herida, where blood
runs a river--the glorious Llorona's sanctuary.

Every step I take, I turn my head--
fences, barbed wire, walls--
I don't know where to go:
out of place, lost and forgotten.
I cry out my anger.

I pose with arms outstretched--
hung against a grey, turbulent portrait sky:
"Please forgive them Father.
They know not how
they have conquered us."

I resume my journey
through the different lenguas, speaking tongues
praising la Virgencita and Coatlicue
from humble servants growing
floresitas del corazón.

My feet are blisters and
My heels will soon wear out.
I fear falling into the abyss
of assimilation, of forgetting--
into a pocho well.

I climb mountains
in search for God-divider of lands,
waters, nights and days--instead,
at the top, I see a preacher man
from my street: "Cristo te salvará."

Christ does not come, nor any
other celestial healer--
alone, among conquered spaces:
"Go Back to Where
You Belong."

My hometown streets
are walls sprayed
with guns from cholos.
Solamente fotos en paredes
of children searching sanctuary.

Punished--castigados--
for being queers, la jotería dwells
in alien spaces:
"You don't belong here.
Go back to where you came from."

South of the Border
I see the mojaditos crossing
el Rio Bravo--just missing
life by swerving highway cars
rushing to 8-to-5 jobs.

The binocular gods watch,
ready to attack. Perros desgraciados
babosos out for a preying good time
while this little lamb watching out for them,
endangered to be sacrificed in deep waters.

In the deserts,
spirits of young girls roam--
dejadas muertas, olvidadas--
solamente caras de inocencia,
pictures of memories.

Stop.
Quiero agua bendita.
Quiera una purga, una limpia, una ceremonia,
un ritual. I want
this knife pulled out.

Ehécatl,
Coatlicue,
Malintzin,
Virgen,
Quiero ser Despojado.

Background from the Author on "Upon Roaming the Borderlands" 

"Upon Roaming the Borderlands" invites different readings and critical approaches in respect to life "on the border."  The poem was inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Meztiza, a groundbreaking work within Chicano/Chicano and cultural studies.  It has inspired many writers and prompted scholarship on "border identity."  The book has influenced me on a personal and intellectual level.

I was born in El Paso.  Images of the border are constant and permeate my writing. Anzaldúa has created images of the border so poetic and prophetic that her work is like a mosaic painting representative of Chicano/a iconography.  Anzaldúa has described the U.S.-Mexico border as "an open wound"/"una herida abierta."   This metaphor is fitting for the feeling of suffering and alienation caused by the effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty, and violence.

I want readers to think about the images and discuss their significance within the context of the poem's theme.  Readers should ask themselves: How does this narrative make me feel?  Important questions when studying this poem could include: How does this poem make me feel? Why? What is the significance of this poem within the study of "the border."  What is "the border"?  I want readers to stretch "the border" beyond physical borders, I want readers to explore the significance of all kinds of borders--psychological, cultural, sexual, gender, and racial.

--Héctor Carabajal

Instruction/Practice:

Part 1 -- Explication and Analysis

Read the poem aloud at least once with students following along on the page.  It would also be helpful to do a staged-reading of the poem.  The poem can easily be scripted for a group of students to read aloud.  For example, one student each can read the poem's two introductory quotes, one person can be the voice of the narrator (or two students may switch off being the voice of the narrator), while other students take the lines and refrains in quotes.

More simply, a different student can read each section.  This poem lends itself easily to staged performance and, even if done in a casual or improvisational manner, it can bring the reading of the poem a dramatic life.  In addition, such an exercise involves more students in the poem.

Questions for Discussion/Suggestions for the Teacher:

1. What people, place, events, references do we understand?  How many of the Spanish words can we understand?

Hopefully, some of the references within the poem should be recognizable to the students from previous lessons: fronteras, Llorona, Virgencita, cholos, the muertas/murders of young girls in the desert. 

If it wasn't noted before the reading, the teacher should mention that the author is a native of El Paso.  What scenes or features of El Paso are familiar to the students?

2. What references are not familiar to us?  Make a list of all the words or references we don't understand.

Some Spanish words in the poem may not be known to all students.  Therefore, the meaning of these passages must be clarified before continuing with the analysis of the work. 

An Incomplete Glossary to "Upon Roaming The Borderlands":

herida -- a wound
Llorona -- reference to famous Southwest legend of woman who killed her children
lenguas -- languages
Virgencita -- The Virgen of Guadalupe, Maria, the mother of Jesus
Cristo te salvará -- Christ will save you.
Cholos -- Gang members.
Castigados -- The Castigated, the Outcast, The Punished
jotería -- community of gay and lesbian people
mojaditos -- diminutive of mojado: wetback: illegal aliens
Rio Bravo -- The Mexican term for the Rio Grande
Perros desgraciados -- Disgraceful dogs
Babosos -- drooling dogs
Dejadas muertas -- lonely, abandoned deaths; left for dead
Olvidadas -- forgotten ones
Quiero agua bendita -- I want holy water
Ehécatl -- Aztec word for "the wind"
Coatlicue -- equivalent Aztec word/concept for goddess -- Conquistadores borrowed the word to create the word "Guadalupe"
Malintzin -- Aztec word/mythic equivalent to La Malinche, Cortes' concubine who betrayed her own Aztec people
Quiero ser Despojado -- I want to be freed of all this/I want emancipation

3. See if we can understand what the poem is saying, line by line.

4. What effect do the two opening quotes have upon you?  What tone do they set?  What does it tell you about the poem, the narrator?

5. In what sense is the narrator "roaming the borderlands"?  He/She (is there any indication that the speaker of the poem is either male or female?) says "I step out of my body"--how are we to understand this metaphor?

6. How can "herida" be understood in relation to "blood" and "river"?  What is the effect of the reference to La Llorona?  Knowing that the legend says she killed her children and drowned them in the river, what image of the border is suggested by this reference?

7. The poet says La Llorona is "glorious"?  Why "glorious"?  How can we understand "glorious" within this context?

8. In stanza 2, the narrator's attitude toward living in the borderland is clear: the imagery suggests a feeling of imprisonment.  He says he feels "lost and forgotten." Why would he feel this way?

9. In stanza 3, there is a vague reference to "they" and "us."  Who is the "they" who are conquering--without knowing it--the "us"? (Given the socio-political dynamics of the border, this should not be too difficult to discern. However, students may have more than one interpretation.)

10. What is the effect of invoking the language of the New Testament, one of the sayings attributed to Christ while he was dying on the cross?  I.e., "Forgive them Father..."

11. The references to Christianity (speaking in tongues, Virgencita) continue in the next stanza, and are mixed with a reference to the Aztec goddess, Coatlicue. T he narrator says he is journeying through "different lenguas/languages/tongues."  Can any of the students relate to the idea of journeying through different languages, histories, religions, etc?

12. What is the"abyss of assimilation"?  If we know that a "pocho" is a slang term for a U.S. Hispanic who is culturally/has grown up as Anglo/White (and the term is not without some humor), is there some comic relief to the phrase "falling...into a pocho well"?  What is the narrator afraid of forgetting?  Why is assimilation an "abyss"?

13. Consider stanzas 6 and 7 together.  The narrator uses the familiar image of an El Paso street preacher, who tells us "Christo te salvará."  But the poet says "Christ does not come, nor any other celestial healer."  What image does this leave us of the borderlands?  Is it a godforsaken place, beyond redemption?  What is the voice that says "Go Back to Where You Belong"?  What does that suggest?

14. Rather than "salvation," stanza 8 refers to "hometown streets sprayed with guns from cholos."  What is the effect of this image following the reference to salvation in the prior two stanzas?

15. Stanza 9 goes on to detail more grim reality: the alienation and isolation of gay and lesbian "queers, la jotería" punished and cast out.  Again, the narrator uses the refrain: "You don't belong here.  Go back to where you came from."  What is the effect of echoing this refrain twice?

16. If the experience of being Chicano/Mexicano on the border is one of feeling like one does not belong, then how would the added alienation/rejection of being "queer" make the experience of border life?  Would it seem to be one of homelessness?  Other suggestions?

17. In stanza 10, the narrator turns his/her attention to "South of the Border."  Again, remembering that he/she is traveling "out of my body" how can he/she see all this? Is he/she speaking as a prophet?

18. The narrator sees three strong images of Mexico?  What are they?  (Illegal aliens, La Migra patrolling the river, the murders of young girls.)

19. What is the cumulative (total) effect of all of these images of the border?  The narrator says he/she is roaming the borderlands, and what has he/she seen?

20. "Stop."  Why is the narrator saying "stop"?  Who is he/she saying it to?  If to himself/herself, why?  If to the perpetrators of the borderland nightmare, why?

21. Quiero agua bendita/I want holy water. Again, the religious imagery.  The poem builds to its emotional climax: what is that the narrator wants?  What is the narrator saying the border needs?  Recalling the reference to the herida/wound in stanza 1, what does "I want this knife pulled out" suggest?  Is this a wound in the narrator or in the land itself--both, neither, other?

22. The poet calls upon a range of deities concluding with the Virgen, all of which continues the imagery of a spiritual healing, then ends with the line: Quiero ser Despojado.  The verb despojar means to be evicted, purged of something.  What does this concluding line suggest to you?

Part 2 -- Summary, Analysis, Synthesis

The purpose of this analysis is to understand the poem better as a whole.  Having done that, the next step is to put the whole together as we have seen it.

First, have the students explain what happens in this poem by writing a short summary.  The summary might begin, "In this poem, the narrator ...." Says what? Does what?  Invokes what?  We know the narrator is roaming the borderlands in a spiritual sense, seeing it as a whole... what does he/she see?  How does he feel about? What effect does it have upon him/her?  What does the narrator say he/she wants?

Secondly, ask the students to explore what this poem means to them--their response as readers. Can they relate, yes or no?  Do they share the same vision of the border?  Do they feel the same need for a cleansing, for a purging, a ceremony?  How is the student's view of border life similar to or different from that of the narrator?  How does the narrator's view of the borderland affect the student?  Does the poem add a new dimension to his experience of the border?  Is it interesting to discover that there is someone out there who feels this strongly about the experience of living in the borderlands?  What will the student take away from or learn from this poem?

Part 3 -- Border Poetry

Based on the example of Hector Carabajal's "Upon Roaming the Borderlands," students will write their own poems about living on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The class can warm up for their poetry writing by doing a few exercises.  For example, teachers can ask the students to use their five senses and make a list of everything about the border that they can think of, everything they have tasted, touched, smelled, heard, or seen in these borderlands.

Other exercises may include doing this same five-senses listing for specific places: Juárez, Tijuana, El Paso, Las Cruces, school, city, neighborhood, etc.  Also, an exercise with metaphors can also help.  Have the students write, "The border is like..." or "Living in El Paso is like...." and write down the first 10 or 15 things that come to mind as quickly as possible without stopping.

After collecting a sufficient amount of images and metaphors, students should be ready to write about their experience of life on the border. I t might be easiest to instruct the student to stay with the "I" point of view and the present tense as they explore what they know and feel about living here.  Students might also take time to put their pre-writing images and metaphors in an order they might follow in the first draft of their poems.

(Note: I have done this exercise with high school students using just the theme of "Las Cruces," and the students came up with many striking images, metaphors, and lines.)

This writing assignment may be given as a homework assignment. Some students will want time to work on revisions.

Closure: A good way to bring this lesson to a close is to have each student write down on a piece of paper one line from their poem/exercises, their favorite line or a good line.  Then have each student read their line aloud in the round to create one group poem.  If you have time, play around with the order of the lines: have the students make a circle and have them re-arrange themselves in the way they feel the poem sounds best.  Then have a final read aloud.

The teacher can collect the students' lines in the order they finally settled upon, type up the lines into a group poem, which then can be copied and given to the class. This kind of exercise is especially good at creating a sense of class community.

Extensions: Students may research border writers and poets for a final project, write a set of border poems of their own (adding an introductory essay to the original works), or read the works of non-borderland Chicano/Mexicano/Latino/a and Anglo poets for the theme of "borders" in the specific and metaphorical sense. Some suggested writers: Francisco X. Alarcón, Gloria Anzaldúa, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Luis J. Rodriguez, Tomás Rivera.

Updated October 2004.