A Place To Stand Jimmy Santiago Baca Analysis

Incarnation usually transforms an inmate, but sometimes it's not always for their best interest. Jimmy Santiago Baca, the author of A Place to Stand, did however learn how to transform to better himself and his future for after prison life. While in prison Baca teaches himself how to read and write despite being illiterate from a very young age. By teaching himself how to read and write, Baca transforms his life through his love of poetry. This also helped him survive in jail for the 5 years he was there. His poems “I Am Offering This Poem”, “Who Understands Me but Me”, and “Immigration in Our Own Land” convey multiple messages of character transformation and survival that Jimmy depicts within his prison memoir A Place to Stand.

In the beginning

His idea was basically is just to forget it. He looked at his mother growing up who left his father and married someone moved into a white community and totally disregarded her whole heritage. So he grew up not caring almost. Except when he gets thrown in the hole for the first time for a long period time he had sometime to think about his past. During this time he comes in peace with his culture. This is because he just sat there and thought and he realized that he's got all his emotions and feelings from his culture. He then sat down and wrote the poem “Immigrants in Our Own Land”. In this poem he speaks about the hardship the mexicans go through to get citizenship in this country. They come to this country for a better life, “we are born with dreams in our hearts, looking for better days ahead” (“Immigrants”). In his memoir Baca explains how his young life has prepared him for prison in the long run. He explains how he learned how to develop a stare that would intimidate other inmate. Also how to join a group and think of himself as against others. The exact quote would be "It was at the detention center that I first learned how to intimidate others with my stare, how to lie to the