La Migra

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

“La Migra” is a kind of persona poem, a form of poem in which the speaker is a persona (a character) distinct from the poet. The text of such a poem represents that persona’s perspective and does not necessarily reflect the poet’s point of view. In its purest form, such a poem creates an individualized persona, a single character with idiosyncratic psychology and motivation. Mora’s poem, however, presents two more generalized personae who embody attitudes common to groups of people: Border Patrol agents and unauthorized migrants. Even though one side in this conflict is defined as an individual—a Mexican woman—she clearly represents all people of her ethnicity who must cross the United States border without permission.

Mora has a distinct interest in persona poems, especially ones that give voice to Chicana women. In an interview, Mora refers to one such poem called “Elena” and explains:

[My goal was] to adopt the voice, or hear the voice, of someone whose experience is very different from mine. And of course, I’ve had a particular interest in hearing the voice of a Mexican woman […] the voice of women of Mexican heritage in this country, particularly those whose voices have not been heard” (Torres, Hector A. Conversations with Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Writers, 2007. p. 262).

Mora has experimented with persona poems from the earliest stages of her career, but her most sustained exploration of the genre is Encantado: Desert Monologues (2018). The word encantado means enchanted or haunted. Mora’s book imagines a southwestern town called Encantado and paints its collective portrait through a series of monologues in its inhabitants’ diverse voices. Expanding her range beyond women of Mexican heritage, in this book Mora explores the minds and voices of both men and women of varied social status and ethnicity, creating a significant contribution to the persona poem genre.

Cultural Context

The US-Mexico border was formally established at the end of the Mexican American war in 1848. Before that, parts of Texas and the American Southwest belonged to Mexico, and the border was indeterminate, and throughout the second half of the 19th century, there were laborious and often contested efforts to define the border. Meanwhile, people freely crossed the border to visit family members, look for work, or find safety. It was only in the early 20th century that border controls and immigration restrictions were introduced, and more rigorous enforcement began with the founding of the Border Patrol in 1924. The 1930s Great Depression caused economic problems that created more US animosity toward immigrants, and this gradually led to a series of legislations that both discouraged legal immigration and penalized unauthorized migration. However, socioeconomic problems in Central America increased migration into the States. In 1986, the Border Patrol reported arresting 1.7 million undocumented Mexican migrants. In the 1990s, when Mora wrote “La Migra,” the Border Patrol engaged in large-scale operations, sending thousands of agents to the border. This period was also the beginning of human smuggling, in which desperate migrants pay underground organizations to transport them across the border undetected, often in ways that pose great risk to the migrants’ lives and welfare. Thus, “La Migra” addresses a very topical issue that continued to be a prominent feature of American life in the following decades. How to handle unauthorized immigration across the Southern border in a way that takes into account both homeland security and migrants’ needs and their humanity remains an important and divisive debate in the United States (This paragraph cites “Timeline,” published by the Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center at Southern Methodist University).