Citizen Illegal

October 1, 2018
Olivarez celebrates his family and Mexican-American identity in his hopeful, waggish, and devastating debut collection. He has a critical eye for how Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are observed, labeled, and categorized, writing that “it’s hard for one body to contain two countries,/ the countries go to war & it’s hard to remember you are loved by both/ sides or any sides.” This concept ignites a paralyzing hyperconsciousness that offers a glimpse into the poet’s oftentimes conflicting identities and provides the inventive structure of the eponymous opening poem. “Mexican woman (illegal) and Mexican man (illegal)/ have a Mexican (illegal)-American (citizen)./ is the baby more Mexican or American?” he asks. Olivarez is sharply critical of American media portrayals of Mexican-American culture: “when i watch the news i hear my name, but never see my face. every other commercial is for taco bell.” Olivarez shines when he embraces the flaws and the grandeur of his background. His poem “Gentefication” imagines a neighborhood being reclaimed from gentrifiers and a people’s commune taking its place: “we trade tortillas for haircuts, nopales for healthcare,/ poems for groceries, & if all you can do/ is eat the food, we ask that you wash your dishes.” In the neighborhood of Olivarez’s imagination, “the whole block is alive/ & not for sale.”

September 1, 2018
Featured in The Breakbeat Poets (2015), Olivarez debuts his first solo poetry project, a high-octane take on the rhythms and contradictions of life as a first-generation child of Mexican parents. Early on, Olivarez differentiates between Chicanos (Mexican Americans), Mexicans (who immigrated to the U.S.), and Mexicanos (still residing in Mexico). For Olivarez, the world is defined by these and other limits, and his poems occupy spaces of liminality between law and crime, English and Spanish, hard work and higher education. In "Hecky Naw," the speaker questions the escape value of a college degree: "isn't that what Harvard / was supposed to buy / where the border ended / in a boardroom." This perpetual transition from borderland to mainstream is revisited in "My Family Never Finished Migrating We Just Stopped," in which the speaker laments the hardships of migrants, "worn thin as guitar strings, / so we can follow the music home." A compelling work that embodies the immediacy of live performance, to be read alongside Chinaka Hodge's Dated Emcees (2016) and the anthology The End of Chiraq (2018).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)