14<strong>CSUSB</strong>by Sam RomeroOn the way from Guadalajara to theUnited <strong>State</strong>s, his family rode throughdesert, jungle and towns, traveling fortwo or three days by bus and train so that hisfather could look for work. The family came often.They would stay for a year, two years, three yearsand then, for reasons not always clear to Juan,return to Mexico. By the early 1970s the frequenttrips to the U.S. turned into relatively frequentmoves from homes around Southern <strong>California</strong>.They moved from Chinatown to El Monte toColton to Rialto in just a few years, and Juan, only5 when he saw America for the first time, wouldcome to regard these early trips as central in thelaying of his landscape — the people, places andexperiences that shaped him. In his life, the familiarterritory of “crossing borders,” as he now tells it,has been a traveling companion throughout.Five years ago, on its surface, it just didn’t sitright for Juan Delgado, a poet, to accept a postas an assistant to the provost for academic affairsat Cal <strong>State</strong> <strong>San</strong> Bernardino. The high-powered,cool and configured halls of administration seemthe opposite of art. But Juan, a <strong>CSUSB</strong> Englishprofessor who’s crossed borders his whole life,slipped into the role without so much as a scrape.Energized by the challenge, he could be seen walkingthe campus in his black horn-rimmed glasses,dress shirt and rolled-up sleeves, tie and slacksor maybe jeans as he worked on special projects,such as the university’s accreditation report andmatters related to the university’s national classificationas a Hispanic-Serving Institution.After taking some professional leave earlierthis year to teach as a poet-in-residence at the<strong>University</strong> of Miami, he returned this past summerand hadn’t been back long when <strong>CSUSB</strong> askedhim to serve in another administrative position,this time as interim chair for the communicationstudies department. Making the move wasn’t foreignto him. Over time he’d grown comfortablewith transition, with learning new things and facingthe mystery of rediscovering who he was. Forinstance, in 1989, around the time he became anaturalized U.S. citizen and crossed that boundaryinto a new allegiance, his feelings floated betweenhis identity as a Mexican national and his standingas an American citizen.“One of the more important things aboutwriting when you’re creating art is not the endresult of creating a poem,” he says, “but goingthrough the process of discovery — what I wantto say … the issues and the questions and thedoubts. That’s much more meaningful.” The processof learning administration, he says, was justlike that.In a land where borders can be impenetrablebarriers to some and an invitation to explore forothers, it was less extraordinary for Juan to stepinto an Ontario, Calif., furniture store one day andread his poetry. He sat on couches with familiesand read and talked about poetry as they listenedand asked questions. While he’s never consideredFall/Winter 20<strong>04</strong>himself much of a performer of poetry, he doesconsider a furniture store, a retirement home, ahome for runaway children, a factory, a veterans’meeting, a community center for transvestitesand gays, a small general store on Olvera Streetin L.A. or continuation schools — all places he’sread — as fine a choice of venues for dispensingliterature as any quaint bookstore or grand hall ona college campus.Not one for keeping strictly to the prescribedart zones, Juan believes these are the very spotsart belongs. He likes to say, “Poetry is an act ofsharing,” and not only with the elite, erudite orcertifiably artistic. “Could you imagine somewherein the mall, in the corner, we were going to havefive poets read? ‘Come bring your family, share,listen.’ Why does that only have to happen at theuniversity?” he asks. “Galleries, bookstores, librariessometimes frame and create cultural placeswhere art can exist … where people can read. Ithink that’s wonderful. I guess my philosophy isthat we have to find other places to keep doingthat. In other words, we go to the furniture storeand by reading there people realize, ‘Wait, this canbe a cultural place.’”In art and education, Juan is a lot about theworking-class and the disenfranchised,anyone whose impedimentsto the cultural avenuesare intimidating or unyielding.He shares that view ofthe landscape with novelistHelena Viramontes, a Cornell<strong>University</strong> professor andauthor of the acclaimed book,“Moths and Other Stories.”She and Juan were among thefirst Latinos ever acceptedinto the <strong>University</strong> of<strong>California</strong>, Irvine’s M.F.A.program, Helenabeing the first Latinaever accepted to theschool’s fiction writingprogram. By the time Juancame to hear Helena read inLos Angeles years ago, she’dalready learned of him andadmired his work, recognizingthe voice she heard in hispoetry, because it was as muchhers as his. When they arrived atUCI, the two writers had broughtwith them the mind of the workingclass Latino, compressing intolines of rhythm or tone or meterthe message of citizens andimmigrants, laying open lifeand work around the fields,suburbs and city.“Because of the language,because of thedensity,” Helena says, apoem of Juan’s “speakswith different layers ofGrandfather was always a bit foggy on wherethe groves were in which he and his sonpicked fruit, but Juan remembers, and everyday on his way to the university he passes bythe mural that reminds him of the work hisgrandfather and father did around Mentoneand Redlands.Photographs by Robert Whitehead
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