The Haunting History of the “Californios Muertos”
Cervantes’ “Poema para los Californios Muertos” is an elegy that mourns the dead Californios, of whom Cervantes is a descendant. Cervantes’ poem acts as a typical elegy in its expression of sadness, grief and anger, but unlike most elegies it does not immortalize the Californios. Instead, Cervantes states how the developments in the dead Californios’ towns and the people who live there do not reflect memories of the Californios, who once owned the land. However, she ends in a way that suggests that the suffering of the Californios is still remembered. The poem is written alternately in English and Spanish. Writing in Spanish, which some of her readers may not understand, highlights the feeling of abandonment and intimidation that the Californios felt; her use…show more content… In the last stanza, she says in the fifth line, “y estos de no los Californios,” that all the things she sees are “bitter antiques” and “yanqui remnants” which are supposed to remember the Californios but are misrepresentative and have no relation to them. However, she ends the poem in an unfinished and disturbing way. The last four lines of the poem,“ A blue jay shrieks / above the pungent odor of crushed / eucalyptus and the pure scent/ of rage,” are disturbing because one does not fully understand what she means. The unfinished ending of the poem suggests that the sufferings of the Californios have not been forgotten. The shrieking of the blue Jay and the pure scent of rage in the atmosphere may be Cervantes’ way of stating that descendants of Californios are still angry. The poem’s disturbing and brutal ending without a sense of conclusion conveys continuity of the memory of the dead Californios and could leave the reader with the unsettling feeling that Cervantes has about this occurrence in
