Martín Espada's poem (click to enlarge) What is literature’s political role? Should it offer solutions or just point out problems? As a product of language, is it a way for the marginalized to make themselves heard? It seems to me that it is meant to participate; to add another -hopefully, carefully constructed- voice to the conversation. In the best of cases it will inject succinctness, clarity, and provide the language that we need to push dialog somewhere closer to solutions to problems. After all, often issues become thorny because they are difficult to discuss. This resistance to opening our mouths results in underdevelopment of the words needed to discuss something in a fluid, multifaceted conversation. Lacking words means silence and instead of exorcising problems, silence ingrains them.
According to the 2010 census, the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts has a population of 76,377. Of those, 73.8% -or 56,366 people- self identified Hispanic or Latino. In the 1970 census, the city’s total population was 66,916 and 4% -or 2,677 people- identified as Hispanic. This demographic data shows a city in transition. Waves of immigration transformed Lawrence’s ethnic and racial identity in a relatively short period of time.
When a minority becomes a strong majority in this way, it should not be surprising to see social tensions. This is what happened in 1984 as groups of white youth clashed with Hispanics or Latinos in the city’s Lower Tower Hill neighborhood. The final balance saw several buildings burned by arson, a multi-day curfew, as well as over 300 arrested. A New York Times article from the time included quotes from people on both sides of the racial divide. First, the words of some of the whites who obviously felt race was the problem and who were ready for a fight:
According to the 2010 census, the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts has a population of 76,377. Of those, 73.8% -or 56,366 people- self identified Hispanic or Latino. In the 1970 census, the city’s total population was 66,916 and 4% -or 2,677 people- identified as Hispanic. This demographic data shows a city in transition. Waves of immigration transformed Lawrence’s ethnic and racial identity in a relatively short period of time.
When a minority becomes a strong majority in this way, it should not be surprising to see social tensions. This is what happened in 1984 as groups of white youth clashed with Hispanics or Latinos in the city’s Lower Tower Hill neighborhood. The final balance saw several buildings burned by arson, a multi-day curfew, as well as over 300 arrested. A New York Times article from the time included quotes from people on both sides of the racial divide. First, the words of some of the whites who obviously felt race was the problem and who were ready for a fight:
None of the white youths would give his name. They said the rioting had nothing to do with any family feud but was “strictly racial,” and they said they hoped there would be more trouble.
Next, despite the large exaggerations in his data (Lawrence’s unemployment rate at the time was 7.4%, about the same as the rest of Massachusetts), another man had low opinions of his new neighbors’ work ethic:
The feelings of residents against the Hispanic newcomers run remarkably high in some quarters. One businessman in his 60’s, who chose not to be named, said of the violence: “It had to come. This used to be a good city but you get all these Spanish people in here and 90 percent of them don’t work. I think they’re pushy people.” He mentioned daily crowds of Hispanic people outside the welfare office on Lawrence Street. “You never see a white person there,” he asserted.
The issue of employment was also on the mind of one of the city’s Hispanic leaders as she gave voice to the community’s general problems:
One Hispanic leader, Isabel Melendez, who works for the Greater Lawrence Community Action Council, said of her community, “There are a lot of frustrations: lack of housing, people unprepared to join the job market, poverty.”
She said Hispanic residents were also disorganized and politically powerless. There are no Hispanic elected officials in Lawrence.
In the midst of these tensions was the poet Martín Espada. His poem “Toque de queda: Curfew in Lawrence” is at once a reaction and a testimony. Like Ms. Melendez quoted above, Espada’s voice elucidates the Hispanic community’s frustrations. However, unlike the quotes of Ms. Melendez whose words are relegated to newspaper dust, Espada’s poetry is anthologized and read by people far from Lawrence and 1984. Perhaps this is what people are talking about when they say that literature can transport the reader to another place or time. The news provides historians with voices, but literature breathes air, scent, and feeling into that past. Taken together, they can help us to understand the many ways that the past exercises its influence on the present.
Works Cited
Colin Campbell. “Two Nights of Rioting Bring a Curfew to Lawrence, MASS.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Aug. 1984,
Works Cited
Colin Campbell. “Two Nights of Rioting Bring a Curfew to Lawrence, MASS.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Aug. 1984,
