Legal Alien

Mexican American literature began to take shape in the latter half of the 1800s. This development of the field followed the Mexican American War, which ended with Mexico ceding what is today known as the American Southwest. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, tens of thousands of Mexican citizens became U.S. citizens and found themselves navigating new political territory overnight.

Initially, upper-class government officials and priests writing in Spanish led the field. Some of these works took the shape of plays and oral stories that communicated folk tales and critical historical events, as well as poems reflecting the ever-changing political landscape of the American Southwest. In “Teaching Chicano Literature: An Historical Approach,” Raymund Paredes notes that poetry in this period was often “lyrical, romantic, and meditative,” but a greater deal of it was politically charged.

This tradition of expressing political dissent through poetry exploded during the civil rights era of the 1960s, which greatly influenced Mexican American literature. This era saw the advent of publishing houses that produced many influential works in the field, leading to the “Chicano Literary Renaissance” that lasted through the 1970s. During this time, many influential works were published that reflected the multicultural experience: raised in Anglo society while of Mexican descent. Writers often wrestled with issues of identity, particularly the difficulty of establishing a unified identity that represented both their Americanness and Mexican heritage without erasing either.

Though Mexican American literature climbed into the mainstream in the 1990s, the publications in the 1980s from smaller presses—such as The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and Sapogonia by Ana Castillo—set the stage for this literary boom. The works published during the 1980s expanded upon the social consciousness of the 1970s and brought a new focus on Chicana writers. Chicana writers explored the sense of alienation they faced, being discriminated against because of their race and gender. While many works in this period tackled institutional racism, immigration, feminism, diasporic identity, sexuality, and various social issues, others moved away from political issues to more universal themes.

Pat Mora’s writing career began in the 1980s against this historical backdrop. Mora’s writing is deeply influenced by the geography and culture of the Southwest, her upbringing alongside Mexican traditions and folktales, political and social issues, and the idea of nepantla. Nepantla is derived from the Nahuatl word meaning “land in the middle” and is used as a concept in Mexican American literature and art to describe the experience of living on the border between two cultures.

Poems such as “Legal Alien” directly communicate the conflicts of border life in the context of racism and xenophobia, adding to the rich legacy of political Chicana poetry. The poem also demonstrates the idea of nepantla, as the speaker must navigate a liminal space between two unaccepting cultures, creating a third space on the “fringes of both worlds.”

Aside from broader cultural critiques, Mexican American literature in the latter half of the 20th century was characterized by unique plays of language, such as the use of Spanglish and code-switching, or alternating between two languages in a text. Though she writes for a primarily English-speaking audience, Mora’s work is filled with code switches between English and Spanish. In “Legal Alien,” Mora does not directly translate the Spanish phrase in the poem, instead leaving the work of translation up to the English speaker and offering what she calls a “double pleasure” to the bilingual reader who can read the poem with additional insight and recognition.

Alongside her prolific writing, Mora’s advocacy and activism for bilingual literacy and including Mexican American works in the literary canon has made her influential in Mexican American literature and beyond. Her efforts to integrate Mexican American culture into children’s literature will ensure that her core message and vision will persist with future generations.