187 Reasons Mexican’s Can't Cross the Border contains amazing poetry, narratives and insight from Juan Felipe Herrera. This poem is a mix of humor and truth, and in reading it you can watch the history of the Mexicano unfold before you. It is almost as though Herrera has painted a picture, a picture of love and hate. A piece of art that many socially conscious individuals interested in change and truth willingly accept yet others will walk right past never daring to look too hard. This wall is sometimes disjointed, uncomfortable, and awkward, but that is the life of the Mexican in this world, and that is the beauty of the picture Juan Felipe Herrera lays before his readers. Also like a picture in that you get little snippets of peace and war, of pride and self-consciousness. Each line of the poem gives glimpses, which are somewhat interesting, but in its entirety they become completed and together they form a whole. Reading through this poem, some of these reasons were very capturing, causing me to achieve a new level of understanding, while others were most likely targeting someone else and were above my head. Just as walking through an art exhibit some pieces you cannot tear yourself from, others you barely notice...and understand that each viewer/ reader will take home a completely different experience. Many people can read the same poem or look at the same picture and take drastically different things away from it but that is what gives something its beauty. Herrera does a good job of meeting you where you are while challenging the place you find yourself.

Herrera goes beyond these borders and also captures the relations between the Mexicans and the Mexican Americans. Most people are not aware that there is a difference between the two but Herrera goes out of his way to show us the differences and the similarities. The life of both Mexicans and Mexican Americans can be very difficult and most of us are not aware of this because were are not living as either but reading the struggles of someone who has went through them provides much insight. However, this is not only a text full of sadness, pain and suffering, it is just as full of pride, loyalty, love, and acceptance. It is a modern day call to all those who will hear, something that when read cannot be ignored. It is a cry mostly for truth, and justice. It is something that causes you to be prideful of your heritage, whatever it may be, to not give in to disguising differences, to not change the way you appear to yourself or to those around you. In 187 Reasons Mexicans Can't Cross the Border, Herrera displays one thing with the most prominence: injustice.