Mexican Immigrant Women's Poetry Voices from a Community Poetry Class

This article focuses on poems written by first-generation low-income Mexican immigrant women from a community poetry class. The predominant themes identified in the poems are analyzed in relation to the social forces that act upon this particular group of writers in order to best understand their literary voices within the context of their lives. Excerpts from oral histories with las mujeres are included to support the claims made about their poems. The article also situates the amateur poetic production of these first-generation Mexican immigrant women within the existing landscape of poetry by critically acclaimed contemporary Mexican immigrant women poets, the most well-known being Lucha Corpi and Angela de Hoyos. A comparison of the poetic works by the two groups (las mujeres and the established poets) reveals similarities and differences in themes and perspectives, a juxtaposition that helps broaden our understanding of Mexican immigrant women's poetry in the United States today.