Unity Or DiversityTwo Of The Poems
Unity or Diversity
Two of the poems which I found myself fascinated with are “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levins Morales and “To live in the Borderlands means you” by Gloria Anzaldúa. These two poems talk about the pride of each of the author's cultures and races. The authors do not want to make excuses for being the way they are but want to tell about the pride they feel for being the way they are, and they found no way to change themselves but show that history has made them the way they are. Both of them show a part of their cultures and the differences in identities as Latinas and as immigrants' descendants; Aurora Levins Morales is a Puerto Rican, and Gloria Anzaldúa is a Chicana from Texas.
I am interested in these poems because I am from a South American country, Venezuela. I never cared about my race before coming to the United States. The first day I came to college, I was asked to fill out a form which asked about my name, age and all my other personal information. But there was a question which shocked me; they asked me about my race. I was very confused, nobody had asked about my race before. I wrote down Hispanic-American, but I really was not sure about what I should put down. I knew that my mother's ancestors were from Spain, and my father's ancestors were mulattos (the children of blacks and whites) and mestizos (the children of Amerindians and Europeans). So, I do not feel that I am white, black or Indian. I am not any of them in my own nation either. I like Morales's and Anzaldúa's poems because they both talk about pride in their heritage, and at the same time, these poems are about the anger towards a culture that does not seem to be understood in the fact that that culture is different by nature. The authors want people to learn how to live with them and with each other in spite of the differences of race and culture. I found many similarities in their poems.
First, they both talk about mixing races, and they do not know exactly which
Two of the poems which I found myself fascinated with are “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levins Morales and “To live in the Borderlands means you” by Gloria Anzaldúa. These two poems talk about the pride of each of the author's cultures and races. The authors do not want to make excuses for being the way they are but want to tell about the pride they feel for being the way they are, and they found no way to change themselves but show that history has made them the way they are. Both of them show a part of their cultures and the differences in identities as Latinas and as immigrants' descendants; Aurora Levins Morales is a Puerto Rican, and Gloria Anzaldúa is a Chicana from Texas.
I am interested in these poems because I am from a South American country, Venezuela. I never cared about my race before coming to the United States. The first day I came to college, I was asked to fill out a form which asked about my name, age and all my other personal information. But there was a question which shocked me; they asked me about my race. I was very confused, nobody had asked about my race before. I wrote down Hispanic-American, but I really was not sure about what I should put down. I knew that my mother's ancestors were from Spain, and my father's ancestors were mulattos (the children of blacks and whites) and mestizos (the children of Amerindians and Europeans). So, I do not feel that I am white, black or Indian. I am not any of them in my own nation either. I like Morales's and Anzaldúa's poems because they both talk about pride in their heritage, and at the same time, these poems are about the anger towards a culture that does not seem to be understood in the fact that that culture is different by nature. The authors want people to learn how to live with them and with each other in spite of the differences of race and culture. I found many similarities in their poems.
First, they both talk about mixing races, and they do not know exactly which