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Day of the Refugios - Alberto Rios, 1952

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Day of the Refugios - Alberto Rios, 1952

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In Mexico and Latin America, celebrating one’s Saint’s day instead of one’s birthday is common.

I was born in Nogales, Arizona,
On the border between
Mexico and the United States.

The places in between places
They are like little countries
Themselves, with their own holidays

Taken a little from everywhere.
My Fourth of July is from childhood,
Childhood itself a kind of country, too.

It’s a place that’s far from me now,
A place I’d like to visit again.
The Fourth of July takes me there.

In that childhood place and border place
The Fourth of July, like everything else,
It meant more than just one thing.

In the United States the Fourth of July
It was the United States.
In Mexico it was the día de los Refugios,

The saint’s day of people named Refugio.
I come from a family of people with names,
Real names, not-afraid names, with colors

Like the fireworks: Refugio,
Margarito, Matilde, Alvaro, Consuelo,
Humberto, Olga, Celina, Gilberto.

Names that take a moment to say,
Names you have to practice.
These were the names of saints, serious ones,

And it was right to take a moment with them.
I guess that’s what my family thought.
The connection to saints was strong:

My grandmother’s name—here it comes—
Her name was Refugio,
And my great-grandmother’s name was Refugio,

And my mother-in-law’s name now,
It’s another Refugio, Refugios everywhere,
Refugios and shrimp cocktails and sodas.

Fourth of July was a birthday party
For all the women in my family
Going way back, a party

For everything Mexico, where they came from,
For the other words and the green
Tinted glasses my great-grandmother wore.

These women were me,
What I was before me,
So that birthday fireworks in the evening,

All for them,
This seemed right.
In that way the fireworks were for me, too.

Still, we were in the United States now,
And the Fourth of July,
Well, it was the Fourth of July.

But just what that meant,
In this border place and time,
it was a matter of opinion in my family.

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Born in 1952 Nogales, Arizona (Border Town)

Lived within a bilingual culture

His father was from Mexico and his mother was from the U.S

Introduced to both English and Spanish at early age

Good at combining the two in his writing

Author of ten books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir

First Poem to Get Recognition - “Whispering to the Fool the Wind”

Explains how and where he grew up

Walt Whitman Award in 1981

Book -  The Iguana Killer

Western State Book Award

Memoir -  “Capirotada”

Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award in 1999

Has over 300 other national and international literary anthologies

His work is regularly taught and translated

Since 1982 -  Regents' Professor of English at Arizona State University in Tempe

2013 - Was named the Inaugural State Poet Laureate of Arizona

2014 - Elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets

2017 - Appointed as New Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University

2018 - Named Shelly Award Honoree

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Contemporary Movement

Free Verse - Give a sense of freedom to poets

Multilingual Poetry Group

Chicano heritage informs his writing

Development of third language

Uses language in lyrical and unexpected ways

Contain elements of magical realism

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Fireworks on the Borderlands: A Blending of Cultures in the Poetry of Alberto Ríos - Joseph Deters

Innovative portrayal of hierarchical structures and binary oppositions that have worked against and oppressed Chicanos for years

Fourth day of July is not just the celebration of American Independence, but also the feast day of Nuestra Señora de Refugio

Special hybrid event

Unique by the importance of this day for the speaker's family

Adult reflecting back on childhood

Poetic speaker claims that the Fourth of July is a celebration of "everything Mexico."

Way to honor and remember the homeland of relatives, language and customs

Language is one of the most obvious differences in border situations and vocabulary and pronunciations

Becomes an object of contemplation rather than an invisible medium

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The Idea of Boundaries in the Work of Alberto Ríos
- Richard Vera

An emphasis on the changing attitudes towards borders and the border experience

"...where identities are transformed as a result of encounters and acts of resistance, mixtures and migrations, bonds and ruptures... and 'curious' symbolic coexistences."

Explores both the physical and social borders

He grew up with a "foot in each culture"

Aims to show how new perspectives subjects everyone to embrace shifting boundaries

"...if you knew that everything around you had at least two names, maybe three, suddenly the whole nature of perspective and the whole nature of understanding shifted"

Agreed - grew up with this special hybrid, point is told through the poem of this connection.

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