The meaning behind Lorna Dee Cervantes’ poem, “To a Stranger”

In her poem “A Un Desconocido,” Lorna Dee Cervantes shows her struggle as she seeks her self-identity. The title of the poem, which can be translated as “To a Stranger” shows the poem addressed to an unknown subject. The very first sentence refers to her search for her unknown self-identity as she says, “I was looking for your hair, / black as old lava on an island / of white coral.” The contrasting diction throughout the entire poem is used to emphasize her views on the divisive world she knew as a Chicana and her subordination to men.
The first line points out the search for this stranger’s hair. Even though there is nothing very interesting about hair at a first glance, a single strand of hair can be used as a source of identity. The second sentence follows this idea as she says, “I dreamed it / deserted you and came for me.” The ‘it’ refers to this source of identity and explains how the subject became a stranger.
In the second stanza, the speaker introduces the “male species,” whom she refers to as an “intelligent mammal” and “twin sun to a world / not of [her] making.” In other words, she regards men as high intellectuals and by comparing them to the sun she gives men a sense of power, to which she believes she is submissive. As they are being compared to the sun, men “reduce [her] to the syrup of the moon.” This depicts her belief that in most Mexican households men are superior to women.
The speaker’s struggle on the divisive world she knew is reflected upon her contrasting diction. Throughout the poem she uses contrasting words such as black with white, and the sun with the moon. These contrasts portray a struggle, which is emphasized by her questioning in the third stanza. “Where is your skin parting me? / Where is the cowlick under your kiss / teasing into purple valleys?” This confusion transcends to the reader because by the end of the poem the subject actually becomes unknown, and the struggle continues. The contrasting diction follows the poem until the very last two lines, “If only you were a stone I could / throw, if only I could have you.” To have something and to throw something are still two different things.
Throughout the entire poem, Dee Cervantes’ use of imagery depicts the search itself. The beginning of the poem illustrates the contrasting images of the color “black as old lava on an island / of white coral.” The imagery brings out the poem and allows the reader to feel the poem, wrapped me, desiring fire, smell of wet ashes and kiss teasing into purple valleys. The imagery sets an inviting tone to the reader. It allows the reader to picture the setting and feel the contrast.
In this poem Lorna Dee Cervantes reflects upon the contrasts of the divided world in which she lived, her struggle with her self-identity as a Mexican-American and her observations of women’s subordination. Lorna Dee Cervantes expresses her beliefs and her struggles as a Chicana woman and her imagery allows the reader to experience it too.

Resources:

Dee Cervantes, Lorna. “A Un Desconocido” Poetry Foundation. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179284>

Picture from

http://debraglassco.homestead.com/2_Cervantes.jpeg

Nympha : a poem for my mom

Nympha

I think of nymphs
And wishes
And home-sewn skirts

Of Barons
And sharp tools
And bloody torn shirts

I think of dancing
And playing
And new made-up worlds

Of yelling
And punishments
And very sad girls

It’s the kingdom of the Precious, where everyone knows
It’s the baron that rules but the nymphs still grow…

This was a poem written for my mother in my senior year of high school. Originally, it was an assignment in my English literature class in which we had weekly poetry tasks for part of it. The assignment for that week was to write in the style of a sonnet.
Firstly, I have never considered myself much of a writer–especially not a poet. But like with any subject I face, I try to mold it to my preferences in some way. While most of the kids in the class were writing about themselves or anything simple to get through the assignment, I really cared about my poems, especially since it was the first time I really tried writing them and I wanted them to be decent. So I decided to take the metaphorical route.
Many of the Chicana poets we read about, for example Lorna Dee Cervantes’s poems, address the differences of generations. In her piece, Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway, Cervantes uses the images and common experiences she, her mother, and her grandmother have lived through, as a basis. I decided to write a poem about my mother’s childhood, but her childhood was worlds different from mine, thus there was not much to relate when it came to the types of struggles we faced or the people we dealt with. Therefore, the genre of fantasy fit best since it was a way for me to at least grasp at general ideas.
So I chose nymphs because my mother’s first name (which she replaces by using her middle name) is Nympha, and it also reminded me of the playful young girls my mom and her sisters once were (as she’s told me through stories). Her father was very strict, scary, and overprotective. He was also the one to carry the last name of Preciado, meaning “precious.” So all those pieces (and probably a few more) put together resulted in this poem.

Additional Sources:

Reading: Race and Resistance

Reading assignment for Monday, April 2, 2012.  Your reply (under Comments) is due before class. Your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about both of the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.

Lorna Dee Cervantes, “Poem For The Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent Well-Read Person, Could Believe In The War Between The Races” (From Making Face, Making Soul 4-5),

Trinh T. Minh-ha, “Commitment From the Mirror Writing Box” (From Making Face, Making Soul, 245-255)

 

Chicana Generations (1)

Reading Assignment: Your reply (under Comments) is due before class on Wednesday, February 15. Remember, you don’t need to answer all or even any of the questions, but your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.

  • Lorna Dee Cervantes, “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway”
  • Angie Chabram Dernersesian “And, Yes…The Earth Did Part: On Splitting Chicana/o Subjectivity” (from Building With Our Hands, 34-56)
  • Bernice Zamora, “Notes From a Chicana Coed” (from Making Face, Making Soul)

Reading both Cervantes and Dernersesian, how do you see the images of generations in Chicana feminism?  What can each woman in Cervantes’ poem represent?  What do you associate with the poetic images of freeways and their shadows?  Do you agree with Dernersesian’s thesis that Chicana poetry / art constructs and positions multiple Chicana identities? According to Dernersesian, how do these identities relate to Rendón’s machismo / malinchismo dichotomy?

How does Zamora’s “Notes From a Chicana Coed” read along side Cervantes’s “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway”?

Reading from Dernersesian’s article, how would you say Aztlán is split in Cervantes’ poem? How in Zamora’s?

 

Chicana of Many Voices

Lorna Dee Cervantes is known as one of the greatest poets in Chicana literature. She was born on August 6, 1954 in San Francisco, California. Her parents came from Mexican and Native American descent. When she was young, her parents divorced and her mother took her and her brother to San Jose, California to live with her mother. Cervantes had a tough childhood living in a neighborhood filled with poverty, gangs, and violence. However, she found comfort in writing poetry; at the age of 8 she composed her first poem (Women’s History).

During her teenage years, she was influenced by African American women poets and reading their poems “politicized her.” She started questioning the dynamics of oppression, especially of women, and this made her very angry. Cervantes went on to work as an activist for the National Organization for Women, the Native American Movement, and the Chicano Movement. She used her poetry as a “weapon to denounce racism, sexism, violence against women, and the oppression of the disempowered” (Gonzalez). Later on in life, she went on to publish three books of poems: Emplumada, From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger, and Drive: The First Quartet.

In 1975, Cervantes wrote the poem Para Un Revolucionario [For a Revolutionay]. The following is my own interpretation of what she is trying to tell us in this poem. Given by the title, it is evident that this poem is directed toward the Chicano (men) on behalf of the Chicanas. She begins by describing that the words of liberation spoken by the Chicanos are like snow and the warmth of sun. Their Chicano spirit is so high that no army, police, or city can bring them down. His persuasive words draw her in and the “snow” raining from his mouth covers her breasts and hair. This can be a reference to how the men in the movement tried to get the young women to sleep with them.  In Blackwell’s, Chicana Power, she mentions “sexual politics” and how men used Chicanismo to get women into bed.

In the second half of the poem, the tone changes the Chicana is bothered by the fact that she is stuck in the kitchen cooking and cleaning while he’s in the living room spreading his dream to brothers.  This represents the sexism in the movement. Women we not allowed to discuss their opinions and ideas and if they did, they would be ignored and not taken seriously. The women did the “work” in the movement the cooking, cleaning, and typing. The poem goes on to say, “Pero, it seems I can only touch you/ With my body.” Once again, this describes how Chicanas were seen as sexual objects and not as political comrades and the only way they paid attention to the women were for sexual favors.

At the end, she addresses the “hermano raza” with her fears. “I am afraid that you will lie with me/ And awaken too late/ To find that you have fallen.” She is warning the brother raza that the revolution will fail without the cooperation and equality of Chicanos and Chicanas in the movement.    

 

References

Blackwell, Maylei. Chicana Power!: Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement Austin: University of Texas, 2011. 70-76. Print.

Garcia, Alma M. “Para Un Revolucionario [For a Revolutionay].” Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. New York: Routledge, 1997. 74-75. Print.

 Gonzalez, Sonia V. “Poetry Saved My Life: An Interview with Lorna Dee Cervantes.” Goliath: Business Knowledge On Demand. MELUS, 22 Mar. 2007. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-7647816/Poetry-saved-my-life-an.html.

“Women’s History – Lorna Dee Cervantes.” Gale Cengage Learning. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/whm/bio/cervantes_l.html.

Photo (image): http://www.poetscoop.org/SPRING2010BIOS.htm

Reading: Alma Garcia’s Chicana Feminist Thought (2)

Reading Assignment: Your reply (under Comments) due before class on Wednesday, January 18.  Remember, you don’t need to answer all or even any of the questions, but your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about the readings.

o0o

Tessie Liu “Teaching the Differences Among Women from a Historical Perspective: Rethinking Race and Gender as Social Categories” (from Unequal Sisters 29-40),

Readings for Alma Garcia, Chicana Feminist Thought

  •  ”A Chicana Message” (35)
  • “Empieza La Revolution Verdadera” (73)
  • “Para Un Revolucionario” (74-75)
  • “Viva La Chicana and All Brave Women of La Causa” (80-81)
  • “El Movimiento and the Chicana” (81-82)

Are the “Anonymous” articles different from the signed ones?  What power does it invest or take away from someone to sign an article “A Chicana” or “Anonymous” rather than with their name?  Why do you think these articles were unsigned? Do you agree with the authors ideas about gender, sex and competition?

In reading Tessie Liu’s section of Unequal Sisters, “Teaching the Differences Among Women from a Historical Perspective,” she opens by stating “we must recognize that race is a gendered category.”  Are you convinced? Do you see race gendered as gendered, and if so, how? In what ways do you think the term “Latina/o” or “Chicana/o” are racial? In what ways are they not?  How does race complicate ethnicity?

Using all the readings, what do you see as problems circa 1960s and 1970s (and now too) with the idea of universal sisterhood between all women?  In what ways is it similar (and / or in conflict) with ideas of nationalism?  Especially for those of you that see yourselves as teachers (or future teachers at least), do you think Liu is right in saying that white is the universal normal, is the default?  How do Latinas fit into that paradigm?  When do you feel like an insider in terms of race and / or gender? When like an outsider?

Reading the poems by Lorna Dee Cervantes and Anne NietoGomez, how and why do the authors deploy English and Spanish? Is the discussion of union between men and women in NietoGomez sexualized? If so, how?  How about in Cervantes?

Which of readings seems most relevant to you now and why?  Which seem dated or outside your experience?

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The video I mentioned in class Black & Latino.  Please watch it when you get a chance. It’s about 10 minutes long.