Juan Felipe Herrera: Farm worker’s son to first Latino United States Poet Laureate

FRESNO, Calif. ( KSEE/KGPE ) – The first Latino to be named the United States Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, is the son of California farm workers. Throughout his career, his accolades include becoming an award-winning poet, children’s author, and retired professor.

“If I grabbed a handful of words, that I have never really heard,” Herrera said in Spanish and translated in English, “I spread on a big paragraph, so I can write at least a story, a magnificent story.”

Words like these took Herrera from Fowler, a small California labor community, to the Library of Congress.

“Imagine,” Herrera exclaimed.

After serving two terms as California’s Poet Laureate, he became the first Latino United States Poet Laureate in 2015.

“And now you’re gonna go all around the United States. That’s going to be so much fun, and you’re going to meet audiences, they’re going to be giant audiences,” Herrera said.

From a young age, Herrera fell in love with the art of storytelling as his mother would sing him corridos – or Mexican ballads.

“A las once de la noche, estabamos desesperados, nos montaron en un coche para cansa mancornados,” Herrera sang in Spanish, then translated in English, “At 11:00 at night, we were out there, we feeling very desperate and the van came up and took us away with handcuffs on.”

The song told the story about border patrol agents taking the family away.

He came from humble beginnings, Herrera’s parents were migrant workers, who moved from town to town for work.

“I noticed the life we lived, later on, I could reflect on it and write about it.”

He was offended by the negative language the national media used to describe migrant workers, people just like his parents.

“Invaders, that’s what we are, so you tend to ingest all that and become that phrase.”

So, he set out to reshape how his community was portrayed, never thinking it would turn into a career.

“Only because we never talked about careers, we just lived day today to survive.”

Over the past 50 years, he’s published nearly 40 books in both English and Spanish, with the goal that readers can take away a better understanding of one another.

“There’s too many negative depictions of each other and of all groups and that’s what makes distance, fear, and anger boil up.”

As portrayed, his children’s book “Super Cilantro Girl” is all about a young girl who uses her newly found powers to save her mother crossing the US-Mexico border. The book was eventually adapted into a play and performed throughout California.

With his laureate days behind him, Herrera now spends his time making frequent visits to the elementary school that bears his name. An incredible honor, considering education was a privilege his parents did not have.

His father never stepped foot into a classroom and his mother only made it to third grade in El Paso.

“And that was a lot of grade, and she wasn’t able to go beyond.”

Playful at heart, Herrera knows exactly how to keep children engaged in his writing. He wastes no time instilling in them that, like him, they are equipped to do or become anything.

“I tell them, before I go, I want to let you know that you, everyone here, has a beautiful voice, and that’s who you are, that’s your inner self.”

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