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3005 Redefining AmericaNo Time to Wait Jos%u00e9 Olivarez Marcos Vasquez The son of Mexican immigrants, Jos%u00e9 Olivarez is the author of Citizen Illegal , a 2018 collection of poems that became a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and a winner of the Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. Olivarez has also co-edited a poetry anthology, and he co-hosts The Poetry Gods , a poetry podcast that, according to its website, will %u201cshow you how to not be wack.%u201d Most recently, Olivarez published a second collection of poetry titled Promises of Gold , in which %u201cNo Time to Wait%u201d appears. Each poem in the collection is published in both English and Spanish. KEY CONTEXT While we use the term %u201cspeaker%u201d when we discuss the narrator of a poem, some poems read more like autobiographies. Jos%u00e9 Olivarez%u2019s parents were, in fact, from the state of Jalisco, Mexico. They traveled to Chicago while Olivarez%u2019s mother was pregnant with him, because his father hoped to find work there in the steel mills. Therefore, this is arguably an autobiographical poem. In Promises of Gold, this poem appears in Spanish as %u201cSin tiempo para esperar.%u201d KEY CONTEXT While we use the term %u201cspeaker%u201d when we discuss the narrator of a poem, some poems kneeling in the pews, my parents prayed to the statue of Christ for protection. we were new to Chicago. we were new to the United States. alone you might think, but it wasn%u2019t just Christ in that church. there was the Mexican family that housed us. the Mexican family that connected us with immigration lawyers. the Mexican family that got my dad a job. the Mexican family that invited us to birthday parties. the Mexican family that showed us how to make calls back to M%u00e9 xico. there was the Mexican family gossiping behind our backs. alone? my parents couldn%u2019t drink a beer without someone%u2019s primo asking for a sip. kneeling in that church, there was salvation everywhere. give Christ the credit if you want, but he never did whisper the winning lottery numbers in our ears. in that church there was a priest offering salvation later & there were Mexicans with no time to wait. 2023 5 10 15 Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.