5.3 The Latin Deli

The Latin Deli:
An Ars Poetica

Background Context

Who is Judith Ortiz Cofer?

Ortiz Cofer and her family moved to the US from Puerto Rico in 1956. In the decades that followed, many Latin American families did as well. The population of Latinos living in the US increased from 6 million people in 1960 to over 50 million people today.
Ortiz Cofer's family moved to Paterson, NJ and later Augusta, GA, both home to diverse communities of Latin American immigrants for whom stores like the one described in "The Latin Deli" are important links to the culture of the places they left behind.

"English is my literary language. The language of the country my parents brought me to. Spanish is my familial language, that lies between the lines of my English language. Because I am a daughter of the Puerto Rican diaspora, English gives life to my writing."

Background Knowledge

What is an "Ars Poetica"?

An "Ars Poetica" is a type of poem that lays out the proper methods of creating a certain artform.
It is the "art of poetry," and in this poem, the art of owning a profitable Latin deli built to remind immigrants of their home countries.

Multiple Select

Where are the customers in the deli from?

• Puerto Rico

• Cuba

• Guatemala

• Mexico

Open Ended

How did discussing Ortiz Cofer's perspective on why she writes in English shape your perspective of the poem?

Multiple Choice

The poem is written in the tense, from a point of view.

• past; first-person

• present; third-person

• future; second-person

• present; first-person

Multiple Choice

What does the following passage mainly reveal about the deli customers (lines 13–19)?

to the Cubans perfecting their speech
of a “glorious return” to Havana—where no one
has been allowed to die and nothing to change until then;
to Mexicans who pass through, talking lyrically
of dólares to be made in El Norte—

all wanting the comfort
of spoken Spanish

• The customers are homesick.

• The customers are dissatisfied with the store’s merchandise.

• They refuse to speak English.

• The customers all share the same nationality.

Multiple Choice

Which inference is best supported by the following passage (lines 29–38)?

• The old man in the winter coat secretly writes poetry.

• The ports are closed because they received smuggled items.

• The deli is for many people their last link with a home now inaccessible to them.

• The old man has a ravenous appetite but cannot afford to purchase food from the deli.

Multiple Choice

Which line from the text best supports the answer to Question 3?

• Slicing jamón y queso and wrapping it in wax paper

• the hunger of the fragile old man lost in the folds

• whose needs she must divine, conjuring up products

• from places that now exist only in their hearts—