Legal Alien By Pat Mora

Poem of the week: Pat Mora's

Pat Mora is a Mexican-American poet and writer who has won numerous awards for her books and verse. She holds the Kellogg National Leadership fellowship award, the National Endowment for the Arts accolade, the Southwest Volume Award and the Aztlán literature Laurels.

She was born El Paso Texas, January xix, 1942. Her family unit settled there during the Mexican revolution. She writes on many topics, from poetry to children's books. She has taught at the University of New Mexico every bit a distinguished visiting professor. Her most popular books include My Own Truthful Proper noun (1984-1999), Aunt Carmen's book of Applied Saints (1997), and Auga Santa (1995).

Mora also has been a museum manager and consultant for U.S.-United mexican states youth exchanges. She is at present retired and spends most of her fourth dimension writing and traveling to schools and other events to teach young writers.

This poem, "Legal Alien," captures an important quality of our evolving and emerging multi-national, multi racial, and multi-ethnic culture.

Legal Alien

by Pat Mora

Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural,
able to sideslip from "How's life?"
to "Me'stan volviendo loca,"
able to sit in a paneled office
drafting memos in polish English,
able to gild in fluent Castilian
at a Mexican restaurant,
American just hyphenated,
viewed by Anglos every bit perhaps exotic,
possibly junior, definitely different,
viewed by Mexicans as alien,
(their optics say, "You lot may speak
Castilian but you're not like me")
an American to Mexicans
a Mexican to Americans
a handy token
sliding back and along
between the fringes of both worlds
by smiling
by masking the discomfort
of existence pre-judged
Bi-laterally.