Meditations on the South Valley, Part 23
Meditations on the South Valley, Part 23 - context Summary
South Valley Recollections
Baca's poem offers a brief, compassionate portrait of Pancho, a marginalized man in the South Valley barrio who drifts through daily life accompanied by imagined companions. The speaker recounts routine scenes—walking ditches, tending sheep, meowing in a tree—and the neighborhood's tolerant distance. Grounded in Baca's own South Valley experience and included in Immigrants in Our Own Land, the piece emphasizes human dignity amid poverty and local folklore.
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