William Carlos Williams Puerto Rican HeritageFifteen years ago, one might easily have known about the work of William Carlos Williams without being aware that his mother was Puerto Rican or that he grew up in a bicultural, multilingual household (his father, though English, was raised in the Dominican Republic). While some critics continue to ignore Williams's bicultural background - and thus maintain his image as the "non-ethnic" canonical figure...And we should not discount Williams's Latin American background altogether. Williams took advantage of his Puerto Rican heritage insofar as it provided him access to the language of his immigrant mother's culture as well as her assimilation process. At the same time, his discovery of Spanish literature also influenced his major work. Toward the end of his career, Williams turned to Latin American poetry, translating it and thereby transforming his approach to his own poetry.
