Each year, the requirements that immigrants need to have access to the country have become more difficult with each new year. Apart from the legal requirements necessary to enter the U.S., this process can be affected by the race and origin of an immigrant. The authors of “The Border: A Double Sonnet” and “The New Colossus” share their perspective on immigration through their poems. Each author’s perspective has been influenced by their time, the privilege and restrictions they faced due to their race, and regulations due to the impact of their poetry about immigration in the U.S. Beginning with a long time between the events that happen in the poem “The Border: A Double Sonnet” written by Alberto Rios and the poem “The New Colossus” written …show more content…
Although she struggled with racism and sexism, she still positively portrayed the Statue of Liberty in her poem. Her poem “The New Colossus” expressed a vital message about the statue. She wrote, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” This quote inspired people to support the goal of building a base for the Statue of Liberty to represent all of the oppressed, rejected, abused, and just trying to live a better life in the U.S. Then comes the life of Ramos with his poem “The Border: A Double Sonnet” in more recent times. According to the biography of Alberto Rios on poets.org, he was born in Nogales, Arizona, in 1952. As a poet, he received numerous nominations and awards for his works. By background, he is not an immigrant, but Hispanics mostly populate the city of Nogales, and his last name shows he is part of the Hispanic
In a story of identity and empowerment, Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Borderbus” revolves around two Honduran women grappling with their fate regarding a detention center in the United States after crawling up the spine of Mexico from Honduras. While one grapples with their survival, fixated on the notion that their identities are the ultimate determinant for their future, the other remains fixated on maintaining their humanity by insisting instead of coming from nothingness they are everything. Herrera’s poem consists entirely of the dialogue between the two women, utilizing diction and imagery to emphasize one’s sense of isolation and empowerment in the face of adversity and what it takes to survive in America.
The female, adolescent speaker helps the audience realize the prejudice that is present in a “melting-pot” neighborhood in Queens during the year 1983. With the setting placed in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, the poem allows the audience to examine the experience of a young immigrant girl, and the inequality that is present during this time. Julia Alvarez in “Queens, 1963” employs poetic tools such as diction, figurative language, and irony to teach the reader that even though America is a place founded upon people who were strangers to the land, it is now home to immigrants to claim intolerance for other foreigners, despite the roots of America’s founding.
Gloria Anzaldúa writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created in and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzaldúa presents this information in various identifiable ways including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzaldúa is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously constructed borders, proving both problematic and a step in the right extremely ideal direction.
In the poem “Mexicans Begin Jogging” by Gary Soto, it tells the story of a Mexican man who is working at a factory during a border patrol raid. Soto’s boss yelled for everyone to run after the border patrol van doors opened. Soto shouted that he was an American and his boss replied “No time for lies,” and being a good employee he ran.(193) This is something that happens every day here in America at various factories and other places of employment. This country has had a broken immigration system for many years, and stories like this will continue to happen, until something is done to fix the problem once and for all. America has been faced with a host of problems from its inception, and like all of these other problems, with the use of hard work and compromise a solution can
The poem “La Migra” was written by Pat Mora in 1993, it is divided into two stanzas for two different points of view. They both depict a boy and girl playing a game in which they take turns being a border patrol officer and an illegal immigrant crossing the border. Throughout the poem some dangers faced by immigrants are indirectly referenced. The poem does a great job at explaining the scenario of illegal border crossing from the views of children as well as from two different perspectives, someone in power and the victim- the maid crossing over the border. Illegal immigration is seen as the worst thing in American culture from the perspective of racist Americans, however those people fail to take into account the obstacles and the dangers faced everyday by migrants
In the poem Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua, the speaker connects living by the physical border between the United States and Mexico to invisible borders that exists when people struggle to express their identity. While the physical border separates the countries, she suggests the presence of a hidden border that separates cultures. Experiencing the rigid mindset of cultural segregation, the boundaries people set cause them to lose their identity in the midst of conforming to a new one. She also discusses the issue of xenophobia, creating barriers between cultures. Using two languages in her poem, Anzaldua attempts to link American and Hispanic culture, establishing an example of a crossroad. Many authors also often grapple with ideas regarding borders and crossroads to search for the origin of
Bestseller journalist, Sonia Nazario, in her literacy non-fiction, Enrique’s Journey, describes a young man’s journey trying to reconcile with his mother in the United States, but has to go through many obstacles to reach her. Nazario’s purpose is to inform readers about how immigration affects children and their mothers in Central America. She adopts an optimistic/determined tone in order to reveal to her readers the difficulty and bravery the children have to face to get to the United States. Nazario begins her credibility with ethos to retrace an abandon teenager’s journey through Central America, pathos to follow the mother son relationship, and logos by giving facts and statistics for illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Jose Antonio Vargas’s article on My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant is a writing about his childhood journey from the Philippines to the United States as an Undocumented Immigrant. Vargas writes this article to emphasize the topic of immigrant and undocumented immigrant in the United States. He uses all three appeals: pathos, ethos, and logic in his writing, in specific, he mostly uses pathos throughout of his entire article with a purpose for the reader to sympathize and to feel compassion for him. The use of these appeals attract many readers, they can feel and understand his purpose is to ask for others to join and support other people who undocumented immigrant like himself. In addition, it gives other undocumented immigrant people courage
Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem sends out a powerful message without the use of a strict structure. The modest wording and simple structure helps the writer send his message across. In addition, with the use of imagery, symbolism, diction, and tone, Baca is able to argue and ridicule American stereotypes on Mexican immigrants coming to the country and robbing them of job opportunities. The use of figurative language helps support Baca’s point of view on how the American misconception is irrational and prejudice.
In “Into the Beautiful North,” Luis Alberto Urrea tells a well-known story of life for thousands of Mexican people who seek a better future. He presents his novel through the experiences of the lives of his main characters that have different personalities but share a common goal. Through the main characters we are presented with different situations and problems that the characters encounter during their journey from Mexico to the United States. Urrea’s main theme in this novel is the border that separates both the U.S. and Mexico, and the difficulties that people face in the journey to cross. But that is not just the only theme that is presented; there is love, heroes and inspiration in which all the characters
...community, equal rights and the right to follow your roots) with the central focus of the poem. As Susan Bassnett states in her essay Bilingual Poetry: A Chicano Phenomenon , there is a “Latin American tradition of the poet who occupies a prominent place in the struggle for freedom and national unity”, and as Cervantes and Gonzales demonstrated, the poet’s role in Latin America has not been diminished.
The language of Gloria Anzaldua’s “We Call Them Greasers” can be used to disseminate the culturally constructed codes and conventions which influence the realities of both the author, and the poems’ fictional speaker. The poem illustrates the intolerant and brutal nature of border rangers as they sought to rid Mexican border towns of their inhabitants. As well as its language, the subject matter of the poem, too, is telling of the author’s cultural influences, which influence the stance she takes on the subject matter. Anzaldua constructs the poem’s speaker, however, to be a person who holds views which are in staunch opposition to her own. This use of clear contradiction helps readers identify underlying messages meant to be conveyed and understood beyond the text of the poem itself.
Through diction, imagery, and metaphors Jimmy Santiago Baca creates the “other” in “Immigrants in Our Own Land”. Understanding the true meaning of the “other” can be displayed in a variety of ways in this poem. As well as displaying the definiton of the “other” the reader can have a personal connection or realation to the
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
When Gloria Anzaldua writes in The Homeland Aztlan “this land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is and will be again” one can assume or conclude that she recognizes that the land was taken away from the Indians by Americans. Therefore, you can say that she catecterize the border as Indian Land. To my way of thinking,Gloria Anzaldua blends poetry, personal narrative and history to present the view and experiences of people affected by living in the borderlands and to establish credibility to the poem. On the other hand, this chapter and the two poems present a connection because the three of them express the drwabacks of being Mexican- American.