Jose Hernandez Diaz: Realism and Surrealism
Season 5, Episode 55, May 15, 10:18 PM
Jose calls his book, Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024) “two books in one.” The first section is deeply autobiographical, but the second half is truly surreal. Jose and I talked about honoring his writing and life.
In the first section the speaker subverts stereotypes around growing up in economic hardship. Jose notes that though his family was poor they were, “Fucking happy, because his parents showed us so much love.” He felt that if he had only collected his surreal poems, people would ask, “Where are your Chicano poems? Where are your poems about social justice?”
Then his book shifts to an impersonal, third person narrator. Many of the poems begin with “A Man Wearing a Rage Against the Machine Shirt…”, creating worlds symbolic of what the poet is going through, but in some instances Jose says, they are him playing with his imagination and world-building. Though the language in all of the sections feels approachable, the surrealism draws out images that are otherworldly, archetypal and surprising. They have in common their use of imagery from Mexican Culture and modern-day pop culture. The “Man wearing the Rage Against the Machine T-Shirt” might encounter a jaguar, an eagle, a pyramid a magician, or he might turn into the same.
In the first section the speaker subverts stereotypes around growing up in economic hardship. Jose notes that though his family was poor they were, “Fucking happy, because his parents showed us so much love.” He felt that if he had only collected his surreal poems, people would ask, “Where are your Chicano poems? Where are your poems about social justice?”
Then his book shifts to an impersonal, third person narrator. Many of the poems begin with “A Man Wearing a Rage Against the Machine Shirt…”, creating worlds symbolic of what the poet is going through, but in some instances Jose says, they are him playing with his imagination and world-building. Though the language in all of the sections feels approachable, the surrealism draws out images that are otherworldly, archetypal and surprising. They have in common their use of imagery from Mexican Culture and modern-day pop culture. The “Man wearing the Rage Against the Machine T-Shirt” might encounter a jaguar, an eagle, a pyramid a magician, or he might turn into the same.