187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border Undocuments 1971-2007 By Juan Felipe Herrera 352 pages. Covering 36 years of Herrera’s creative work, this book is as much a hybrid of genres, languages, and styles as it is a blend of Mexican-American cultures and identities. His numerous poetry collections include 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007, Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (2008), and Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (1999). City Lights Author Juan Felipe Herrera Receives PEN West Poetry Award! Juan Felipe Herrera was born in Fowler, California, on December 27, 1948. Juan Felipe Herrera’s 187 Reasons Mexicans Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007 is meant to be political and personal, provocative and soothing, historical and imaginative.

The son of migrant farm workers, Herrera was educated at UCLA and Stanford University, and he earned his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. For his collection of verse spanning over three decades, 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border, Juan Felipe Herrera has been awarded this year's PEN West award for outstanding poetry. The son of migrant farmers, Herrera moved often, living in trailers or tents along the roads of the San Joaquin Valley in Southern California. City Lights. $16.95 (Paper).