She had written a poem in Spanish called “Ovarian Cancer,” filled with graphic imagery (she compared cancer to a bleeding fetus). Classmates had told her the beat pattern didn’t flow and criticized her use of rhyme. Ms. Narváez-Varela realized she had been unconsciously translating from English. She projected on a screen a copy of the poem, hand-edited by classmates, and an English translation, pointing out to the audience phrases she had originally conceived in English.

“Spanish, and the way it’s used to create music in poetry, differs radically in terms of syllables and rhyme,” she discovered. “It was a humbling workshop for me, but an enlightening one, too.”

Ms. Narváez-Varela went on to explore Mexican and American identities using Spanglish, the mixing of languages in the same sentences. In her poem “Real Mexican,” she describes, in raw and troubling language, a Mexican-American ex-convict so confused about his Hispanic identity he doesn’t know what name to call himself. In the opening line the character says: “Tony, Toño, Antonio, Anthony, it doesn’t matter, honey....”

“I had never before adopted a persona that explored Spanglish’s complexity and its meaning to me as a Mexican citizen naturalized in the U.S.,” Ms. Narváez-Varela said. “I realized this was a projection of my own anxieties as a Mexican-American. I had unconsciously judged others by the way they spoke Spanglish.” She said she was trying to show how the character’s use of Spanglish “is a vital manifestation of his identity as a marginalized member of both societies.”

Writing the poem helped her see the artistry of “a language as valid and beautiful as English or Spanish, as hybrid as African-American English, and therefore as deserving of a place in poetry.” Huizache, a journal of Latino literature, has just published “Real Mexican.”

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Many important Hispanic fiction writers have attended traditional M.F.A. programs. I spoke with three of the masters — Sandra Cisneros, Junot Díaz and Esmeralda Santiago — about how they bridge two languages in their writing and about their graduate school experience. Each said that their M.F.A. programs did not recognize the Spanish-speaking side of their identities, either by assigning Latino authors or by supporting the Spanish element of their work.