Chicano: Twenty-five Pieces of a Chicano Mind
"Chicano: Twenty-five Pieces of a Chicano Mind" is a collection of poems by Abelardo Delgado that seeks to articulate the experiences and struggles of Chicano (Mexican American) workers and their families during the 1960s. This period was marked by significant social challenges, particularly for farmworkers who often faced low wages and harsh working conditions. The poems, written in Spanish, English, or a blend of both, express a range of emotions from anger to hope, reflecting on themes of land, identity, and aspiration for the future.
Delgado's work highlights culturally significant figures and symbols, such as La Hembra, a representation of the earth mother, and the Virgin of Guadalupe, who embodies the spirit of La Raza. Two notable poems, "El Imigrante" and "stupid america," address the plight of migrant workers and critique American societal attitudes towards Chicanos, portraying them as both resilient and artistically unrecognized. Delgado is recognized for his influential role in the Chicano artistic movement, encouraging younger poets and performing widely, despite facing challenges in getting his work published through mainstream channels. His poetry, while celebrated for its depth and metaphor, has received mixed critical reception regarding its structure and presentation.
Chicano: Twenty-five Pieces of a Chicano Mind
Published 1969
Author Abelardo B. Delgado
A collection of twenty-five poems that address the concerns of Mexican Americans in the revolutionary spirit of the 1960’s. The works, all of a page or less in length, celebrate important figures and themes while challenging the exploitation of Mexican workers.
Key Figures
Abelardo B. Delgado (1931-2004), poet
The Work
In Chicano: Twenty-five Pieces of a Chicano Mind, Delgado (who published this collection under just his first name, Abelardo) seeks an artistic voice for Chicano (Mexican American) workers and their families, who during the 1960’s were often hired at extremely low wages to perform the exhausting, difficult work that other Americans no longer wanted to do. The plight of farmworkers, who joined in strikes organized by César Chávez, is the most dramatic example. The poems, some in Spanish, some in English, and some in both languages, speak of land, people, and hopes for the future in voices that are sometimes angry and sometimes sentimentally hopeful. One poem calls the Rio Grande “la puerta mas cruel y mas dura,” or “the cruelest door,” while in another the land is “the patient mother who will listen/ to the sunbaked lament of one who toils.”
The people celebrated range from almost stereotypical figures such as La Hembra, a Mexican earth mother, to Mama Lupe, the apparition of the Virgin Mary at Tepayac Hill in 1531, who as our Lady of Guadalupe is praised in one poem as mother of La Raza, (literally, “the race”). Two of these poems became especially well-known and praised: “El Imigrante” (literally, “the immigrant”) depicts migrant workers as “bumerangas que la mano de dios/ por este mundo tiro” (“boomerangs that the hand of God shoots through this world”); “stupid america,” the only free-verse poem in this collection, invokes the santero, an ancient woodcarving tradition native to New Mexico and dating from the earliest Spanish settlements, (“that chicano/ with a big knife/ . . . doesn’t want to knife you/ he wants to sit on a bench/ and carve christ figures”) and Pablo Picasso, the twentieth century Spanish painter who began the cubist movement. Delgado says the United States is destroying the Chicano artist, who “is the Picasso/ of your western states/ but he will die/ with one thousand masterpieces/ hanging only from his mind.”
Impact
Delgado is most admired for his role in fathering (along with poets Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzáles and Ricardo Sánchez) the artistic side of the Chicano movement. He befriended other poets and encouraged younger colleagues in their work; he read his poetry widely in public and was known as a powerful performer. His poetry itself received mixed reviews. “El Imigrante” is often cited for its boomerang metaphor and another in which the migrants are “golondrinas” or “migrating swallows”; “stupid america” to some appears prophetic in warning that “that chicano/ shouting curses on the street/ . . . is a poet/ without paper and pencil/ and since he cannot write/ he will explode.” Elsewhere, however, it is noted that Delgado’s insistence on using conventional meter leads to some distortions (“how soon do you stop being a muchacho?/ why do you wear as heart a ripe pistachio?”) and that his poetry often needs editing, a criticism with which Delgado has agreed. During the 1960’s, his work was not published by a major publisher he often mimeographed his poems or paid to have them printed himself and his reputation remained largely confined to the Latino community.
Additional Information
For a critical assessment of the contributions of Delgado as well as other Chicano poets, see Chicano Poetry: A Critical Introduction (1986) by Cordelia Candelaria.