Texas Republicans have elevated a poet who’s been standing up to them for a decade
He doesn’t have to. The post carries no official responsibilities — or pay. The Texas poet laureate doesn’t even have a set term: the appointment is made by the Legislature, which begins its next regular session in January.“I’m super-proactive,” Mendez told me Friday. “I’m going to take my one year, or nine months, and try to liven it up and find ways to sneak as many party opportunities in for the time that I’ve got.
Republicans such as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who played a role in Mendez’s appointment, are invited to these parties too, of course. If they turn up, though, they might get the vapors.Indeed. Mendez is a Galvestonian by birth, born and raised on the island, who’s built a successful career as a poet and community leader in Houston while also working as an educator in the Houston ISD. His first collection, “Why I Am Like Tequila,” was published in 2019 to acclaim.
Mendez is also part of the Librotraficante movement, a group that coalesced in Houston a decade ago after Arizona passed a law banning in that state’s public schools and pulled dozens of books from school shelves, most of them by Black or Latino authors.In fact, Mendez has been doing battle with the Republican lieutenant governor for nearly a decade. In 2013, as a state senator, Patrick put forward a proposal to restrict how U.S. history requirements could be fulfilled by students at Texas public colleges and universities.
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