Poetry Analysis Essay on Martin Espada

Poetry Analysis Essay on Martin Espada

                Martin Espada is a 57 year old Latino poet who was born in Brooklyn, New York. Martin grew up with a father who was a leader in a Puerto Rican community, and an activist in the Civil Rights movement fighting for equal opportunities of Hispanic groups. As a result, Martin grew up with a strong understanding of politics which would later have a strong positive influence on his career as a poet. In 1892, he published his first political poetry book called, “The Immigrant Ice Boy’s Bolero.” Many of his poems contain strong and emotional connections to Latino culture and history. Consequently, many contain powerful themes such as racism, racial prejudice and cultural differences. In three particular poems he wrote, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3^rd, 1877,” the common theme between the three is the negative effect of ignorance on the Latinos.

                In “The New Bathroom Policy at English High school,” a principal, while using the bathroom, hears his name spoken by a young group of Latino boys. Because the boys speak Spanish, he can only understand his name and automatically assumes that whatever the boys said were harsh words and consequently bans the speaking of Spanish in the bathroom. In this poem, the ignorance of a single being has a negative toll both emotionally and mentally on a large community of people.  The line “Now he can relax” makes me think that the anxiety and stress of not knowing in what context his name was used was overwhelming. This shows his ignorance in that he did not even investigate the situation to find out whether or not what the boys said was mean or wrong.  Even if they said something disrespectful, it shows his misuse and abuse of power.

The poem “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson” shows ignorance in a different way.  In this poem, a narrator who I presume is Latino has his name mispronounced to the point where he begins to fantasize how he would release his emotional anger. The narrator says that he would “hijack a busload” of tourists who are Republicans from Wisconsin. He then says he would force them to sing anti-American chants in Spanish while a bilingual SWAT team asked him “to be reasonable”. I have never had my name mispronounced but I have had it misspelled which I think has the same effect. You feel as though you have been disrespected and someone couldn’t care less about your name. For many Spanish speaking immigrants that may relate to the narrator in this poem, their name is the only reminder they have of their home nation. Therefore they can build an emotional bond to their name.  Also, because Martin Espada bought a massive stereotype into this poem of Midwestern Anglos being ignorant with names, I think he might have had a personal experience with this issue.  It could be possible that they did it on purpose or didn’t even bother to ask because they were ignorant and ultimately because they might not have thought his name was that important to him.  Either way it’s extremely upsetting.  He also might have used that stereotype for all Americans, not just Midwesterners.  Many see the US as an overruling country full of ignorant people. For the most part this is untrue but there are exceptions.

In “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3^rd, 1877” a group of white vigilantes hang to Mexicanos in Santa Cruz, California. They then crowd next to the two hanging corpses to be apart of a photograph. In the first three of the four stanzas, the narrator begins by saying “more than,” which leads up the last stanza where he says “remain the faces of the lynching party.” As he’s looking at the photograph he notices “A high-collar boy smirking, some peering from the shade of bowler hats, but all crowding into the photograph.” Just from that line you can see the ignorance of the lynchers. They committed a horrible act and show no dignity for the men they hung. I would have thought that the site of two men swinging by their necks from a rope would have been tragic enough to be the focus of the poem. However, what was even more tragic for the narrator was the ignorance of the lynching party crowding into a photograph as though it was a picnic.

The narrator in all three poems seems to be Latino. However, you don’t have to be Latino to feel sympathetic for the victims in these poems. Each poem describes a situation where ignorance has negatively affected a group of people: in this case the Latinos. Maybe Martin Espada wanted us to think how ignorance has affected our lives or someone else. How ignorance can lead to far worse things such as abuse of power and racism due to cultural differences.