In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes

In Corral’s poem, lines move freely between Spanish and English. The poet does not use italics to separate the Spanish phrases or provide helpful context to facilitate translating those Spanish words into English. The poem references Mexican locations, Mexican adages, and even Mexican history, all without accompanying endnotes. To understand the poem, Corral shows, the English-language reader must learn something about Mexico itself and, to recite the poem, must learn at least a little Spanish. 

Emerging in the late 1990s in the wake of digital communication and the then-radical concept of a globalized United States, translingual poetry represented a bold movement into creating a national poetry that reflected a diverse multicultural United States. Poets, many first-generation immigrants to the US, designed their poetry to enhance their own sense of multicultural identity by freely fusing their English-language poetry with phrases and words that drew on their native language. 

In fusing the English language with other languages, the poetry transcended the limits of any one language and created a vibrant and engaged poetry that defied the racist biases and cultural stereotypes that impacted immigrant communities perceived as “alien.” 

Translingual poetry encourages empathy. Poets from a variety of cultural backgrounds—most notably Latino, Asian, North African, Caribbean, and Indigenous peoples—use translingual poetry to create verse that encourages acceptance of cultural diversity, especially on behalf of people who are immigrants.