Citizen Illegal

Mexican food is a key motif that emphasizes the speaker’s affection for Mexican cuisine and confirms his identification with Mexican culture. One of the “Mexican Heaven” poems (in section IV) consists solely of a list of 11 Mexican foods, including tamales, tacos, sopes (a kind of corn cake), and menudo (a traditional soup), plus agua (water). In “Mexican Heaven” (section IV) Pedro, the Mexican St. Peter, gives all the Mexicans a shot of tequila to welcome them to heaven. Tequila is considered to be Mexico’s national drink. 

Frijoles (beans), a staple of Mexican cuisine, have a cultural significance that the young immigrant boy in school is only too aware of. In “River Oaks Mall” he does not want to admit that he brought beans to school for lunch as that would brand him as Mexican, and he is ashamed of his ethnicity. Other types of Mexican foods mentioned in the poems include carne asada—grilled meat—which the speaker loves; he says he cannot “contain my happiness” (59) when he gets a whiff of it cooking (“I Loved the World So I Married It”). His grandmother makes masa, a popular Mexican corn dough, and the whole immigrant neighborhood comes to share it (“Gentefication”).