“One day all these classrooms / will no longer hold any of us. / Leave no evidence we were here. / We exist in the whisper…” Lupe Mendez’s innovative new collection captures a unique time in Houston, Texas, “a sliver of a moment for Mexican-American and Mexican communities in the early 1970s,” that explores Houston ISD’s racist plan to integrate schools by sending Mexican-American children—labeled as white—to predominantly African-American schools, thereby satisfying federal desegregation laws.
Incensed that its children would have to travel to schools that were no better than the ones they could walk to, the Chicano community resisted by instituting a walkout, or huelga, and creating its own schools in churches, homes and neighborhood centers. Weaving poetry and history, the book contains “found” poems created from newspaper articles about the strike; oral history interviews with teachers, principals and students; notes from visits the author made to the sites where classes were held more than 50 years ago; docupoems created from official Huelga School papers; and historical documents such as photographs, charts, fliers and letters.
In his illuminating notes about the book, Mendez describes the methodology for creating this collection and includes a list of best practices for the “poethnographer.” His research revealed the racism that existed in this era, perpetuated by the majority white population and between brown and black populations forced to compete for every resource. Ultimately, Mendez asserts the Huelga School strike had a critical impact on Houston, both in the development of Mexican-American leaders who got their start in these “freedom schools” and the nascent collaborations between diverse communities. This creative, thought-provoking volume is a must-read for anyone interested in education, history and Mexican Americans’ fight for equality.
LUPE MENDEZ, the 2022-2023 Texas Poet Laureate, is the author of Why I Am Like Tequila (Willow Books, 2019), winner of the 2019 John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters, and Prayer Holding Night: New & Selected Works (TCU Press, 2025). He earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Texas at El Paso, and his work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast Journal, the Texas Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Split This Rock, Poetry magazine and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. He has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Macondo and the Crescendo Literary/Poetry Foundation poetry incubator. Originally from Galveston, Texas, Mendez now lives in Houston, where he has worked as an educator for more than 20 years.
Praise for We Exist in the Whisper
“This is a text that will be studied for generations as it pulls our attention to the power of social movements in caring for children and the future through education. It reveals an astute scholarly attention to history, unveils the interconnectedness of relationships within a community, and integrates deft storytelling through a deep understanding and implementation of the right poetic forms. In times of tumult, dehumanization, and constant attacks on immigrant communities, we need hope. We need to know the power of community. As Sonia Sanchez reminds us, ‘This is not a small voice.’ We Exist in the Whisper reminds us that a whisper can be a reshaping storm.”
—Dr. Raina J. León, 20262027 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and author of black god mother this body
“Mendez’ extraordinary collection locates, in the pulse of Houston’s Huelga School Movement, the turn toward one another that lives within us—we live in precarity AND we are all we have. Anthropoesía, as Mendez practices it, annotates, corrects and activates the record, making it both classroom and sanctuary. We learn the past from Mendez’ book and learn our future: we are here; we are taught so that we can learn, and continue doing so. Our whisper grows steadier, fuller, more assured.”
—Ricardo Maldonado, author of The Life Assignment
“In the spirit of investigative poets like Rukeyser, Wright and Reznikoff, but in the unflinching bold verse that Mendez is known for, we witness the Chicano community fighting back, launching a huelga and building freedom schools for the intellectual liberation of their children. This book is a must read for educators and families everywhere—and anyone who care about such things as breathing.”
—Tim Z. Hernandez, author of They Call You Back: A Lost History, A Search, A Memoir
