Juan Felipe Herrera (born in December 27, 1948) is an American poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist. Herrera was the 21st
United States Poet Laureate
The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the official poet of the United States. During their term, the poet laureate seeks to raise the national cons ...
from 2015 to 2017.
Herrera's experiences as the child of migrant farmers have strongly shaped his work, such as the children's book '' Calling the Doves'', which won the
Ezra Jack Keats Book Award
The Ezra Jack Keats Book Award is an annual U.S. literary award.
At the Ezra Jack Keats Book Awards Ceremony every April, the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation presents the New Writer Award (since 1985) and New Illustrator Award (since 2001) to an au ...
in 1997. Community and art have always been part of what has driven Herrera, beginning in the mid-1970s, when he was director of the '' Centro Cultural de la Raza'', an occupied water tank in Balboa Park that had been converted into an arts space for the community.
Herrera’s publications include fourteen collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and picture books for children, with twenty-one books in total in the last decade. His 2007 volume ''187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007'' contains texts in both Spanish and English that examine the cultural hybridity that "revolve around questions of identity" on the U.S.-Mexico border. Herrera was awarded the 2008
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Half the World in Light''. In 2012, he was appointed California Poet Laureate by Gov. Jerry Brown.
In 2011, Herrera was elected a chancellor of the
Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...
. In 2015, Herrera was appointed as the nation's first
Chicana
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American iden ...
or
Chicano
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
poet laureate.
On June 11, 2016, Herrera was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oregon State University.
Early life and education
Born in 1948 and son of farm workers María de la Luz Quintana and Felipe Emilio Herrera, Juan Felipe Herrera lived from crop to crop and from tractor to trailer to tents on the roads of the San Joaquín Valley and the
Salinas Valley
The Salinas Valley is one of the major valleys and most productive Agriculture, agricultural regions in California. It is located west of the San Joaquin Valley and south of San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley.
The Salinas River (Califo ...
. Herrera graduated from San Diego High School in 1967 and received the Educational Opportunity Program scholarship to attend the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
where he received his B.A. in Social Anthropology. Later, he received his master's degree in social anthropology from Stanford University, and his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Iowa. In 1990, he was a distinguished teaching fellow at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. After serving as chair of the
Chicano
Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...
and
Latin American Studies
Latin American studies (LAS) is an academic and research field associated with the study of Latin America. The interdisciplinary study is a subfield of area studies, and can be composed of numerous disciplines such as economics, sociology, history ...
Department at
California State University, Fresno
California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bachelo ...
, in 2005, Herrera joined the creative writing department at
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...
, as the
Tomás Rivera
Tomás Rivera (December 22, 1935 – May 16, 1984) was a Mexican American author, poet, and educator. He was born in Texas to migrant farm workers, and worked in the fields as a young boy. However, he achieved social mobility through educatio ...
Endowed Chair. He also became director of the Art and Barbara Culver Center for the Arts, a new multimedia space in downtown Riverside.
Herrera resides in Redlands, California with his partner Margarita Robles, a performance artist and poet. He has five children.
Influences
Herrera's experience as a
campesino
''Campesino'' means 'farmer' or 'peasant' in Spanish.
Campesino may refer to:
* Tenant farmer or farm worker in Latin America
* Los Campesinos!, an indie pop band from Cardiff, Wales
* Teatro Campesino, a theater group founded by the United Farm ...
has strongly influenced his works. Traveling from the San Joaquín Valley to San Diego's Logan Heights, and San Francisco's
Mission District
The Mission District (Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission (Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is ...
has left him three distinct Californias from which he draws inspiration. Growing up in the '60s and attending college in the '70s during the
Chicano Movement
The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States inspired by prior acts of resistance among people of Mexican descent, especially of Pachucos in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Black ...
and more experimental writing such as the
Beat Poets
Beat, beats or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area
** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols
** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men
* Battery ( ...
, writers like
Luis Valdez
Luis Miguel Valdez (born June 26, 1940) is an American playwright, screenwriter, film director and actor. Regarded as the father of Chicano film and theater, Valdez is best known for his play '' Zoot Suit'', his movie '' La Bamba'', and his cre ...
and
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
inspired Herrera. The great era of artistic experimentation has also inspired his writing style in which he challenges the borders between styles, forms, schools, and genres.
Herrera, a writer constantly crossing borders, often writes about social issues. Ilan Stavans, a Mexican American essayist, has said, "the past three decades in Chicano literature and his name is Juan Felipe Herrera. Aesthetically, he leaps over so many canons that he winds up on the outer limits of urban song.". ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' critic Stephen Burt praised Herrera as one of the first poets to successfully create "a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too."
Community arts
Herrera has received grants to teach poetry, art and performance in several different settings, including community art galleries such as the ''
Galería de la Raza
Galería de la Raza (GDLR) is a non-profit art gallery and artist collective founded in 1970, that serves the largely Chicano and Latino population of San Francisco's Mission District. GDLR mounts exhibitions, hosts poetry readings, workshops, a ...
'' in San Francisco, California, in 1983–85, develop community art and literature broadsides (1977–1978) in San Diego, California, teach poetry in prisons (Soledad Correctional Facility, 1987–88). His current work focuses on working with community colleges and schools in the Riverside country and in
Coachella Valley
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, location = California, United States
, coordinates =
, width =
, boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacint ...
.
After being named California’s Poet Laureate by Governor Jerry Brown in 2012, Herrera created the i-Promise Joanna/Yo te Prometo Joanna Project, an anti-bullying poetry project. Joanna was an elementary school girl who was bullied and killed in an afterschool fight. The first half asks students to send in poems about the effects of bullying. The second half of the project is to take action in preventing bullying. He hopes to collect the poems and publish it as a book in the future.
Awards and fellowships
* Americas Award
* 2008
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".PEN/Beyond Margins Award
PEN/Open Book (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing i ...
* 2010
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
California Arts Council
The California Arts Council is a state agency based in Sacramento, United States. Its eight council members are appointed by the Governor and the state Legislature. The agency's mission is to advance California through arts, culture and creativi ...
grants (awarded four times)
* Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice
* Focal Award
*
Ezra Jack Keats
Ezra Jack Keats (né Jacob Ezra Katz; March 11, 1916 – May 6, 1983) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the 1963 Caldecott Medal for illustrating '' The Snowy Day'', which he also wrote. Keats wrote '' A Letter ...
Award, for ''Calling the Doves''
* Hungry Mind Award of Distinction
* Independent Publisher Book Award
* IRA Teacher’s Choice
* Latino Hall of Fame Poetry Awards (twice awarded)
* ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' Book Award Nomination
*
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
Writers’ Fellowship Awards (twice awarded)
*
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
Outstanding Book for High School Students Award
* ''
Pura Belpré
Pura Belpré (February 2, 1899 – July 1, 1982) was the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York City. She was also a writer, collector of folktales, and puppeteer.
Life
Belpré was born in Cidra, Puerto Rico. p.58. There is some dispute as to ...
'' Honors Award
* Smithsonian Children’s Book of the Year Award
*
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
Chicano Fellows Fellowship
* Texas Blue Bonnet Nomination
*
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award
The PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award is for U.S. multicultural writers, to "promote works of excellence by writers of all cultural and racial backgrounds and to educate both the public and the media as to the nature of multicultural work. ...
* 2021 Los Angeles Review of Books/UC Riverside Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award
Bibliography
* ''Rebozos of Love.'' Tolteca Publications. 1974.
* ''Exiles of Desire.'' Arte Publico Press. University of Houston. 1985.
* ''Facegames.'' Dragon Cloud Press. 1987.
* ''Akrílica.'' Alcatraz Editions. 1989.
* ''Memoria(s) from an Exile's Notebook of the Future.'' Santa Monica College Press. 1993. oetry Chapbook* ''The Roots of a Thousand Embraces: Dialogues.''
Manic D Press
Manic D Press is an American literary press based in San Francisco, California publishing fiction (novels and short stories), poetry, cultural studies, art, narrative-oriented comix, children's books, and alternative travel trade paperbacks. It was ...
. San Francisco. 1994.
* ''Night Train to Tuxtla: New Stories and Poems.'' University of Arizona. 1994.
* ilingual children's story Fall 1995
* ''Love After the Riots.'' Curbstone Press. Willimantic, NY. 1996
* ''Mayan Drifter:'' Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America. Temple University Press. Philadelphia, Pa. Spring 1997.
* ''Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream.'' University of Arizona Press. 1999.
* ''Loteria Cards & Fortune Poems.'' City Lights Publishers. SF. Fall, 1999.
*
* ''The Upside Down Boy/El Nino de Cabeza.'' Children's Book Press, SF. 2000.
* ''Thunderweavers''. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 2000.
* ''Giraffe on Fire''. Poems. University of Arizona Press. Tucson. 2001.
*
* ''Notebooks of a Chile Verde Smuggler.'' University of Arizona Press, Tucson. 2002.
*
* ''Coralito's Bay / La Bahia de Coralito.'' Monterey National Marine Sanctuary. Monterey. 2004
* ''Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box.'' HarperCollins, Joanna Cotler Books /Tempest. New York. 2005.
* ''Downtown Boy.'' Scholastic Press. Scholastic. New York. 2005.
* ''187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007,'' (
City Lights Publishers
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ti ...
, 2007)
* ''Half the World in Light.'' University of Arizona Press. 2008.
* ''Notes on the Assemblage.'' (
City Lights Publishers
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ti ...
, 2015) .
* ''Every Day We Get More Illegal.'' (
City Lights Publishers
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ti ...
, 2020) .
;List of poems
Film, stage, and music
Herrera produced "The Twin Tower Songs," a San Joaquin Valley performance memorial on the
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
and writes (poetry sequences) for the PBS television series '' American Family''. His recent musical, ''The Upside Down Boy'', was well received in New York City, produced by ''Making Books Sing'', libretto by
Barbara Zinn Krieger
Barbara may refer to:
People
* Barbara (given name)
* Barbara (painter) (1915–2002), pseudonym of Olga Biglieri, Italian futurist painter
* Barbara (singer) (1930–1997), French singer
* Barbara Popović (born 2000), also known mononymously as ...
. Lyrics by Juan Felipe Herrera and Music by
Cristian Amigo
Cristian Amigo (born 1963) is an American composer, improviser, guitarist, sound designer, and ethnomusicologist. His compositional and performing output includes blues and soul, music for the theater, chamber and orchestral music, opera, avant-jaz ...
. Mr. Herrera is a board member of the Before Columbus American Book Awards Foundation and the California Council for the Humanities.
On September 8, 2015, at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
on the day that he was inducted as poet laureate, Herrera, the
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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Sandra Bland
Sandra Annette Bland was a 28-year-old African-American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on , 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Her death was ruled a suicide. It was followed by protes ...
", in Spanish, to honor the
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
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woman who had died in police custody in
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
. Sones de Mexico performed the song the next day.
In October, 2016, LightBox Theatre Company, a non-profit theatre for young audiences in Turlock, Calif., presented a world premiere production of ''The Super Cilantro Girl'', based on three Herrera's children's books. The play, written by
California State University, Stanislaus
California State University, Stanislaus (Stanislaus State, Stan State) is a public university in Turlock, Stanislaus County, California. It is part of the California State University system. It was established in 1957 and is also the only cam ...
professor Arnold Anthony Schmidt and directed by Stefani Tsai, is based on "The Upside Down Boy," "Calling the Doves" and "Super Cilantro Girl."
Theater
Juan Felipe Herrera founded a number of performance ensembles during the last three decades:
*''Teatro Tolteca'' (UCLA, 1971 – a choreopoem theatre utilizing jazz, spoken-word and movement),
*''TROKA'' (Bay Area, 1983, a percussion/spoken word ensemble),
*''Teatro Zapata'', (Fresno, Ca., 1990 – a student community theatre),
*''Manikrudo: Raw Essence'' ( Fresno, Ca., 1993, a culturally diverse, performance art ensemble and workshop),
*''Teatro Ambulante de Salud/The Traveling Health Theatre'' (2003, Fresno, Ca. for migrant communities in the San Joaquin Valley) and
*''Verbal Coliseum'' – A Spoken Word Ensemble (UC Riverside, 2006),
*''"Prison Journal,"'' an experimental play was featured at the University of Iowa Playwright’s Festival, 1990. Latin@ Theatre/Movement Improv training: Luis Valdez/Teatro Campesino, Enrique Buenaventura, Rodrigo Duarte-Clark, Olivia Chumacero,
Jorge Huerta
Jorge Alfonso Huerta (born November 20, 1942 in Southern California) is a Chicano scholar, author, and theater director. He specializes in Chicano and United States Latinx Theatre. He has written and edited several books specializing in Chicano t ...
Daniel Olivas
Daniel Anthony Olivas (born April 8, 1959, in Los Angeles, California) is an American author and attorney.
Biography
Daniel Olivas was raised near downtown Los Angeles, the middle of five children and the grandson of Mexican immigrants. He at ...
Words on a Wire
A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...