[Don Jones]

Thank you, Pedro, for your interesting article.

Several thoughts come to mind. Most poetry journals in the U.S. lean left of center. Do I have statistical proof? No. But my anecdotal experience in reading U.S. poetry journals, leaving aside, for example, such obvious outliers as “Trinacria” or “The New Criterion,” are that many if not most lean left.

These left-leaning journals are happy to air grievances of being an outsider and to share exoticisms from non-white poets. As you know, many white liberals are condescending in their view of non-whites. You can call it soft bigotry or some such. They mean well but pretty much cordon off non-whites as a special group in need of help. Identity politics plays a big role in seeing non-white poets as victims, who don’t have a chance to get their word across except through enlightened journals, art films, or post-modern performances.

This arrangement also flatters the egos of white editors who are “doing justice” on behalf of the silenced, or at least muted, voices of Latinos and other non-white poets. It could be that these “enlightened” white editors are practicing “white guilt” in doing their best to compensate for American culture’s general distaste and abysmal ignorance of Latino culture (e.g. “Taco Bell” is Mexican?).

But this is a two-way street. If white editors publish the poems by Latino poets that reinforce their marginalization, then it is also true that Latino poets are writing such poems. Is this not an industry of supply and demand? Could it be that Latino poets know they will make it in the American poetry scene if they self-reference their marginalization in their poetry? Knowing that the reading audiences of poetry journals in English are largely liberal white Americans (again, no statistics but not an unreasonable assumption!), do they not write for that audience either to enlighten or chastise? Is there an unspoken pact of mutual interest that is ultimately to the detriment of Latino poets, who are thereby limited in their publication of subjects and themes outside that contract?

I’m sensitive to the fact, Pedro, that Latino writing that confronts “white lies” and enforces the expression of the excluded is not something that you oppose per se. You make that clear in your article. Neither do I. My point is that this type of writing is encouraged not only through the white powers that be.

Things won’t change until Latinos have greater control over their own lives and expression by releasing themselves from the yoke of white patronage, no matter how well-intentioned.

My prediction is that the US will be a bilingual nation before the end of the century. Again, I have no statistics. I am crystal-balling! But I do know that the Latino population in the US is growing to the horror of the American right. The day will come when all of this you touch upon will be history and Latinos will have their full say in poetry and elsewhere in American life.

I for one embrace and welcome that future. It is my hope that when you become an “abuelo” your grandchildren will know a different world.

Respectfully,

Don

Addendum: On the other hand you do write:

I’m not arguing that Latino poets ought to write less about identity and more about anything else in particular. What I find problematic are not the subjective choices Latino poets make but the biased selections editors make—even if only unconsciously. I know Latino poets write poems about a wide variety of topics. But I can’t help but suspect they aren’t read as carefully when they choose not to write “what they know.” If editors in positions of cultural power have a real commitment to showcasing the remarkable diversity of the contemporary landscape of American poetry, then this phenomenon of unconscious selection bias should be part of the conversation.

So it's not so much a pact but the negligence of non-Latino editors (I realize the term "white" is extremely problematic as well!).