declares that her jealous husband ‘‘clothed me in
bruises’’ (45). As with ‘‘Discovered’’ and ‘‘Dream,’’
Mora has these two poems arranged so that the
woman in the second poem is stronger, is a survivor
who has learned something about her culture and
her oppressed condition.
She more forcefully repudiates the sexual
oppression in her heritage, however, through
diverse affirmative images of empowered women
inChants. The bruja of ‘‘Bruja: Witch’’ is depicted
positively, as a seeker of freedom and a champion
of other women, for exacting retribution for a
male’s infidelity and double standard: ‘‘My work
is done. A frightened husband / will run to the wife
who paid me / three American dollars//... Beneath
white / stars, I dance’’ (16–17; see Fast 31). The
mother of ‘‘Plot’’ reveals a deep determination and
lasting anger in planningto protect her daughter
from the same degradation she experienced on her
wedding night when her husband discovered she
was not a virgin: ‘‘I’ll arm my daughter with a ring
/... /... She must use the ring. / I don’t want to
slit his throat’’ (20). ‘‘Curandera’’ emphasizes the
healers strength drawn from her integration with
the environment, a particular kind of cultural
empowerment. And here this female tradition is
explicitly linked to a dynamic relationship with the
mysteries of the natural world that empower this
woman: ‘‘The curandera / and house have aged
together to the rhythm / of the desert’’ (26). And,
in ‘‘Aztec Princess,’’ the young woman thwarts her
mother’s traditional efforts to enforce her domesti-
cation by choosing the ‘‘rich earth’’ and ‘‘moonlight’’
over ‘‘the home for happiness’’ (28; see Rebolledo
122–23). Such empowered women appear through-
outBordersandCommunionas well.
WhileChantsmay focus more on recovering
and affirming heritage, the early poems ofBor-
dersaddress the difficulty of maintaining and
legitimating one’s heritage and communicating
it across the borders existing in the U.S. The title
poem, with its epigraph from feminist psycholo-
gist Carol Gilligan, emphasizes the gender bor-
der; but Mora also ties it to the divisions created
by language. Communication is always a trans-
lation of ‘‘like but unlike’’ (10), in which the
differences cannot be effaced in order to under-
stand the other’s desires, needs, culture, heritage.
When one culture claims universality and dom-
inates the lands and the lives of another culture,
translation breaks down (see Rosaldo Ch. 9).
And Mora has several poems emphasizing
such breakdowns, like ‘‘Unnatural Speech’’ and
‘‘Bilingual Christmas’’. In ‘‘Echoes,’’ Mora recog-
nizes that language alone is not the culprit; class
divisions serve as well. The speaker of ‘‘Echoes’’
is a guest of a white woman with a Mexican maid;
feeling kinship the speaker tries to bridge
the chasm of class with Spanish, but it is insuffi-
cient. Then she hopes ‘‘to hear this earth / roar’’ in
retribution for the maid’s oppression, but realizes
the responsibility lies with her. ‘‘Perhaps,’’ she
thinks, ‘‘my desert land waits / to hear me roar’’
(23–24). Only through voicing the common
ground of their heritage, not just speaking
a recognizable language, can the speaker over-
come the class division that places her on the
side of the oppressor against others of her own
heritage.
Perhaps because of her concern over class
divisions, Mora places the eulogy ‘‘Toma ́s Riv-
era’’ after the title poem inBorders. Rivera rep-
resents someone who rose from the fields to a
position of prominence that carried class status,
yet his hands remained always outstretched to
others and remained always a reminder of his
own history. Significantly, Mora emphasizes the
initial difficulty Rivera had in developing his
own literacy:
Those hands clenched in the dark
at vı ́boras, vı ́boras hissing
we don’t want you, you people have lice
as the school door slammed
but Toma ́s learned
and his hands began to hold books
gently, with affection...
Beyond personal literacy, Rivera advanced
Chicano cultural literacy: ‘‘He searched / for
stories about his people and finally / gave their
words sound, wrote the books / he didn’t have,
we didn’t have’’ (13). He is therefore a model to
emulate not only for his own achievements and
his bridging of class divisions, but also for his
efforts to encourage others with similar experi-
ences to build a better life by revaluing their
shared roots and place in the world rather than
leaving them behind.
Remaining connected with the people rooted
in the land is what provides strength, as Mora
testifies in ‘‘University Avenue.’’ These first gen-
eration Chicano university students, a population
with whom Mora had extensive contact in her
university years as student, teacher, and admin-
istrator, know that ‘‘Our people prepared us /
with gifts from the land’’ (19). And while Mora
addresses many subjects inBorders, her poemsUncoiling