Leandra stood in her small bathroom of her one story ranch house, just off the famed Buchanan Drive, naked and shivering, staring into the fogged bathroom mirror fresh out of the shower.
She wiped the mirror with her damp towel, after having dried her hair and pale beige body, now naked in front of the clear mirror. Her figure was thin and tall, close to 5′ 10’’ in stature, her breasts perky yet already starting to droop.
Her hair was straight and black, cut just shy above her shoulders, much like a French actress named Juliette Binoche, whom Leandra had always detested since a little girl.
She considered herself more like the actress Madeleine Stowe–American and motherly, caring and passionate, like some great harlot in a romance novel. The actress was simply the best.
As Leandra stared in the mirror, the thought suddenly struck her to put on her much beloved Empathy Machine, a device she had invented as a child prodigy that allowed the wearer to capture the inner visions of other people, even the person wearing it. Why she named it the cringe worthy “Empathy Machine” was a secret she mostly kept to herself. The truth was she didn’t let anyone else use the machine despite owning the patent to the device and using it for psychological research in a field that often didn’t have much use for psychoanalysis.
If true psychological therapy was dead, she thought, there was always authorship and monetization of her device, a prospect she quietly dreaded but deep down knew was eventually going to come to fruition.
Despite her fear of the Empathy Machine falling into the wrong hands, Leandra mostly kept that a secret as well. It was true that she had used it with her female friends in her university days, but that was more experimental and kept hushed. What wasn’t much of a secret was that Leandra eventually made her focus of research on men who had troubled pasts, as if on a quest to understand why the male species behaved the way they did.
It was an immature pursuit, one that had become her bread and butter as a psychological researcher, even coming to the attention of her local city government that agreed to a three year contract with her exclusive use of the machine, one that allowed her to incorporate the device’s prying abilities on men being charged with crimes, usually felonies.
She didn’t care for the clients much, or the field of research, but it did provide fascinating insights to men who truly were broken, and sadly, rarely innocent.
But today she was getting ready for work, and as she stared at her thin body, unsure of whether or not she was attractive or too bony, she found inspiration from the goddess Epiphany to use the Empathy Machine on herself.
How it worked was far too complicated, but generally, but generally, it picked up on the images being generated by the brain, like a television of sorts, though released through neuronic synapses in the brain on a cellular level.
Crafted like a small earphone or cochlear implant, the device sat around a single ear of the user, devoid of having to actually physically connect with any body part. Rather, the device merely had to be worn to work, though some self-discipline was required.
Normally the device could be used on people in close proximity to it. For example, people sitting in a small room together, though the device could be used on one’s self as well.
What it actually recorded was even more intriguing, as though Leandra’s first attempt was to build a radio-like device that allowed for receiving and transmitting telepathic communication. What she actually had stumbled upon was a machine capable of recording visions of the mind through an actual video recording, almost like a person’s hallucination or daydream, to give a better description.
She was fully aware that subconscious thoughts being manifested visually could be a dangerous endeavor, but also knew that the results could be astounding as well.
Curious of what her mind would create as she looked at herself in the mirror, Leandra slipped on her device that was on the bathroom shelf next to her dainty sink, putting it on over her left ear with right left hand, as she allowed the impulse to slowly grip together with her conscious. The Empathy Machine was snug against the outer top portion of her ear, creating a warmth where its circular design pressed through her thin hair against her scalp.
Standing there now dry and nude in her mirror, she peered into her eyes, blue and depressed, trying to figure out what exactly she was hoping to see. Leaning forward, she pressed her bare stomach against the cold edge of her white porcelain sink, looking at her eyes even closer. The thought struck her that perhaps they were a little too dry, though they were not red in any way. Leaning closer, to the point her pointed nose almost touched the mirror, she reached with her right hand and began to pull down the bottom eyelid of her right eye, exposing the horrifying red and pink meat of whatever part of the flesh that was exposed. Staring silently, she shivered as the thought of a humanoid figure, much like an ape-like woman, stared back at her. She shivered again, knowing she lived alone in the small house, with no sound of human activity to keep her feeling safe.
Regretting not having a roommate, she quickly turned off the Empathy Machine with the push of a small switch on its top side and removed it from her ear.
###
Sitting at her dining room dinner table, a small rectangular design of oak that could best be described as quaint, she turned on her silver laptop and connected a white cord with a mini USB to a small port on the side of the Empathy Machine, the other end of the cord fitting with a firm push into the USB slot of the computer.
Lifting the top of the laptop, her custom designed software opened automatically, as a blue bar popped on the screen above the software, showing the progress of the footage captured on the Empathy Machine automatically being uploaded to her laptop’s hard drive.
After a few moments, the bar showed it was full, signifying the upload of footage was completed. The bar disappeared, leaving the custom video player open. Leandra pressed the digital play button on the software, as a static image of her nude body appeared, her right bottom eyelid being pulled, slowly revealing the thought driven image of a female ape-like creature in the mirror.
“Creepy,” she whispered, again feeling another chill on her back, causing her to shiver. She wasn’t expecting her thoughts to freak her out on such a sunny spring morning. The video was short and quickly finished playing. Sensing she would be late to work, Leandra looked at the time on her laptop and saw it was 7:30 and said, “Shit! I got too carried away!”
She closed the laptop with a quickness that caused a loud slam noise, and hurriedly unplugged her precious Empathy Machine from the computer. Placing the device into a custom built navy blue plastic case, she stood up from the smallish dinner table not having a chance to eat or drink any orange juice. She was out of the front door of her house in no time, making sure to turn and lock it before heading to her gray Honda Civic in the driveway, and was just as fast off to her workplace…
Is it bluegrass or country music, I thought to myself as I listened to the song “If I Die Young” for the billionth time on my phone.
Is the band of siblings from Tennessee? Arkansas? Definitely not Pennsylvania…
Thoughts of Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem The Raven popped into my head.
This has to be bluegrass. Bluegrass is considered country music, isn’t it?
Written by a dreamer, the song is dreamy, if not wistful. This has to be one of the most haunting songs I’ve ever listened to.
A memory: The year was 2014, and I sat in the driver’s seat of my father’s cobalt blue Ford Escort, listening to this song on the adult contemporary station of his Sirius radio.
My eyes became misty, as I thought of my own failures and humiliations.
Before Lady Gaga was pissing off Anglican Catholics with her supposed worship of a Latino Judas, there was the music video “Like a Prayer” by Madonna, pushing her own supposed depiction of a black Jesus and Mary to the dismay of a very similar Anglican Christian mindset in the United States of America.
The video, directed by Mary Lambert, made the stirring decision to correctly draw parallels of the persecution of Yeshua to the plight of stolen Africans in America, being massacred by Anglican and very racist Ku Klux Klan members.
The video opens with a white woman running from her home. She stumbles to the ground where she looks and sees a burning cross. We then see a flashback to a conflict with an unnamed group of men attacking a woman, perhaps in a rape attempt, tho the explanation is never given.
Back to the present, the white woman, portrayed by Madonna, finds refuge in a nearby church where she witnesses a sculpture of a black Yeshua crying. She then proceeds to lay down and has a hallucination of falling thru the sky, as a black Myriam, mother of Yeshua, holds the Madonna character in her arms, allowing the protagonist to have an epiphany.
Reflecting on the USA’s often ugly past, the idea that Yeshua would have felt a spiritual connection to a black people in the early 20th century being persecuted isn’t quite that shocking.
Nonetheless, the fact that this did cause a controversy for the artist in the USA in the late 1980s is hardly even more shocking. The very thought of humanizing Yeshua, often erroneously thought of as a stand-in for Yaweh himself, must have evoked the prophetic message Yeshua himself gave in the Gospels, when he said that “many will do great signs and wonders in [his] name, but to these people, [he] will tell them, ‘You never knew me!'”.
The metaphor presented in the video is a simple yet profound theme, most likely in my humble estimation to be one of the most significant artistic statements of the made in the 20th century.
Naturally, the video ends with the Madonna character being arrested by a white police officer, correctly predicting the controversy that the video would undoubtedly stir.
Hitting on inward bigotries of a very white MTV audience must have been a powerful statement for Madonna, who was looking to captivate a more mature and adult audience, rather than the younger fans she had acquired early on in her career. The idea that Yeshua could be portrayed as black, rather than the typical white man European and American artists often depicted him as, surely struck a nerve that perhaps Yeshua would identify more with people who were being actually persecuted, rather than what was simply en vogue at the time. Nowadays, this visual motif is seen as a component of critical race theory, but the idea that Yeshua would be portrayed as a white man with flowing brown hair, blue eyes, and lean and muscular six pack of abdomens is honestly no different.
Yeshua could be anyone, and to some, like Madonna, that would happen to be a black man. I frankly would have to agree.
The idea of going away to summer camp can often be a frightening one for your average elementary student.
You’re in the 6th grade, just beginning to notice your first zits as puberty slowly overcomes your body, and you are away from your parents for the first time in your life.
Reflecting on the sadness of how a child has to mature at this time in their life, the contemporary poet Sharon Ols captures the heartbreaking themes of loss, independence and growing up in her observational poem “The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away From the Curb” .
In this poem of the week, we’ll perform a thematic analysis that explores the small recollection of a bus pulling away from a neighborhood curb, that upon further readings, becomes more profound in all that entails.
The poem is as follows:
The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb
Whatever he needs, he has or doesn’t have by now. Whatever the world is going to do to him it has started to do. With a pencil and two Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and grapes he is on his way, there is nothing more we can do for him. Whatever is stored in his heart, he can use, now. Whatever he has laid up in his mind he can call on. What he does not have he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one folds a flag at the end of a ceremony, onto itself, and onto itself, until only a heavy wedge remains. Whatever his exuberant soul can do for him, it is doing right now. Whatever his arrogance can do it is doing to him. Everything that’s been done to him, he will now do. Everything that’s been placed in him will come out, now, the contents of a trunk unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine light.
Initial Observations
An initial reading certainly raises the question of who the narrator keeps referring to as “he?” within the poem.
Clearly the subject matter is about a boy who, as the title of poem informs us, is leaving for Summer-Camp. Without referencing his name especially, the narrator begins with an impression and a simple grounded observation: “Whatever he needs, he has or doesn’t have by now.
He is a blank American boy, one that we as the reader of the poem have to identify with.
This impersonal declaration of pronoun quickly sets up the narrator’s use of impression to establish who this he is in our minds, suggesting as most Americans can deduce, a child probably in elementary school.
The narrator reinforces this idea of childhood and age by specifically mentioning “a pencil and two Hardy boys,” a popular book series traditionally associated with male elementary students . The narrator goes on to add that this “he” has with him “a peanut butter sandwich and grapes,” using the childhood lunch to quickly cement their age and establish a familiarity perhaps in our own lives.
Personal Reading
For my reading, the poem is firmly rooted in American traditions of growing up and becoming independent.
I personally attended summer camp in the sixth grade, as was tradition for my local public elementary school, though the use of “Hardy Boys” references a book series that was already dated by my youth.
While the reference may be outdated, I find that it helps to recreate a sense of nostalgia and time period.
Publishing Notes
This poem was first published in 1984 in the author’s book The Dead and the Living, a collection of poetry that covers themes of marriage and parenthood.
I personally first came across it in the twelfth grade when writing an essay over Olds’s work.
Images of the movie Stand by Me came to mind back then, which clearly was a significant film in my childhood.
As we grow older, reading about a child or group of children reminds us of our own innocence and loss.
Remembering my own time in summer camp, I personally felt the pain of being awkward and unsure of myself, unable to deal with the loneliness of not having many friends.
My reading may differ, of course, from others, but for the first time I felt the sadness that a mother would have on seeing their child go on without them.
Use of Metaphor
What clearly is a matter-of-fact observation, quite possibly from that of a mother, is an acknowledgement that this “he” is quite simply on their own.
Capturing this frank theme of maturation is the reinforcement of the loss the mother or narrator must feel, driven home by the metaphor comparing the Summer-Camp bus pulling to that of the folding of a flag at the end of a ceremony, such as for a funeral.
It is a formal tradition, signifying duty and honor. The mere act of folding the flag, quite like the Summer-Camp bus pulling away, is one that shows reverence for the symbol we are observing.
The bus, in this instance, I would argue represents maturity. This mother can only watch and remark that the boy is now on his own.
Poetic Technique
I don’t pretend to know much about Sharon Olds, though I had the pleasure of attending a local reading of hers while attending the University of Toledo in the early 2000s.
Olds, to me, has always been an inspiration to my own personal writing because of her frank retellings and controversial subject matter. She is an autobiographical poet who often reveals explicit and intimate moments in her personal life.
A modern contemporary to relate her to would be Lena Dunham, another writer not unaccustomed to controversy.
While “A Summer-Cam Bus Pulls Away From the Curb” is not shocking nor vulgar, it’s just as rooted in this intimacy that we can expect from the poet.
Of course, her structure, like many contemporaries, is sloppy, featuring liberal use of enjambment and asymmetrical rhythms and line breaks. While contemporary in form, being written in free verse, I would argue that it’s Olds’s voice that makes this poem so personal.
Whether we agree on her style being any good, Olds uses repetition and imagery to evoke the profoundness of growing up to elevate what is essentially broken prose into an expression we can call poetic.
She builds a rhythm with her use of the word “Whatever” to keep coming back to this point, that as a witness to the boy leaving, she as a narrator simply cannot do anything more for him.
A Simple Image
Olds ends the poem on the image of the boy’s trunk laid open on a bed, his contents being spilled out for all to see.
With everything laid bare, it’s simply now or never. He will simply succeed or not.
Such is the frank reality of growing up. This idea of independence and adulthood seems to be a turning point for the author, who must confront her own age and adulthood, without stating it out loud.
The whole point of going away to summer camp is to learn to get by on our own, away from our parents’ guidance.
It’s in this realization that we feel just how profound it is to let go of a child that soon will no longer be a child.
Rooted in American Tradition
While I would never argue that Sharon Olds is a master of language and word choices, she deliberately uses a matter-of-fact and plain English style to convey all that she implores us as readers to feel by this bus pulling away.
Using specific references to the boy’s lunch and reading materials, she evokes just how rooted in American mythology her poem is.
Summer camp is a rite of passage that I would argue almost becomes mythical as we nostalgically reflect on our own time away from our parents.
It’s no surprise that a global audience can find relevance from the poem in their own lives, but make no mistake, Sharon Olds is an American author.
She does not pretend to use sophisticated or complicated terms to create fluffy music, but rather evokes the homespun style of other famous American authors that came before her.
Mark Twain specifically comes to mind, with his own observations about boys growing up in such popular works as Tom Saywer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
It’s in this simple American vernacular that I actually find the poet to be so relevatory. While other popular contemporary poets such as Rupi Kaur or Gabbie Hanna yearn to impart the profound through simple idiomatic expression, that does not automatically qualify their sparse language poetic.
Voicing is crucial to modern masters like Sharon Olds, and I would argue that a poem such as “Summer-Camp Bus” is a prime example of how effective she is at the technique.
Final Thoughts
To read “The Summer-Camp Bus Pulls Away From the Curb” is to feel the heartbreak that a mother goes through when observing she can no longer help her child.
By evoking images of a flag being folded, she hints at the loss felt, as if watching a funeral.
Rooted in rather homespun and plain matter of fact language, Olds elevates what is a simple observation to a far more intimate revelation into the heart process of a mother.
While not as explicit or shocking as other poems she has written, the loss imparted is as expected from such a personal author.
Lesson 23: Exploring Prose Poetry: Blending Narrative and Poetic Elements In this lesson, we will explore prose poetry, a unique form that blends the elements of poetry with the structure of prose. Prose poetry uses poetic devices like imagery, rhythm, and metaphor while abandoning traditional line breaks and stanzas. Students will learn the characteristics of […]
Welcome to Poem of the Week. In today’s reading, we are going to explore identity in “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levins Morales.
Hopefully you will find this poem analysis useful.
Introduction
Originally published in 1986 for her co-authored poetry book Getting Home Alive, the poem is a bold declaration of identity expression and what it means to be a new American.
Flavored with multicultural teasing of language and word choices, Morales declares her own originality when acknowledging who she is as a child coming from a melting pot.
The poem is as follows:
“Child of the Americas
I am a child of the Americas, a light-skinned mestiza of the Caribbean, a child of many diaspora, born into this continent at a crossroads.
I am a U.S. Puerto Rican Jew, a product of the ghettos of New York I have never known. An immigrant and the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants. I speak English with passion: it’s the tongue of my consciousness, a flashing knife blade of crystal, my tool, my craft.
I am Caribeña, island grown. Spanish is in my flesh, ripples from my tongue, lodges in my hips: the language of garlic and mangoes, the singing in my poetry, the flying gestures of my hands. I am of Latinoamerica, rooted in the history of my continent: I speak from that body.
I am not african. Africa is in me, but I cannot return. I am not taína. Taíno is in me, but there is no way back. I am not european. Europe lives in me, but I have no home there.
I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish. I was born at the crossroads and I am whole.”
Initial Readings
At first glance, the poem seems simple, even unpoetic in its free verse structuring and use of asymmetrical line breaks. But upon a closer look, one will notice the use of repetitions and specific word choices that are a unique declaration of identity and expression.
Clearly a contemporary poem, we’ll find thematic significance in this style. While coming from a long line of historical tradition in literature, the idea of being new is crucial to contemporary identity and expression that breaks free from rigid line structures and rhyme schemes of the past.
This tradition of experimenting with meter and free verse can be traced back to Emily Dickinson and her own experimentation with meter and verse, though not quite as radical nor liberal as employed here by Morales
Take the opening line of the first stanza for instance. Evoking the Biblical declaration expression “I am”, Morales begins her triumph of cultural assertion by stating she is “a child of the Americas.”
A confident voice emerges, coming straight from the book of Genesis when God told Moses to tell the Pharaoh “I am” if asked who sent him.
It’s a powerful yet simple phrase that Morales will go back to often in the poem, repeated numerously throughout to reinforce this notion of what her identity actually is. The phrase opens every new stanza, and even closes the poem on the short but profound last line: “I am whole.”
As you should know as a student of poetry, whenever something is repeated in literature, this signifies thematic importance and clues us in on how to interpret the author’s intent.
In this case, identity and what it means to be a child of the Americas is clearly dear to our narrator’s heart. While acknowledging her own rooted connection to historical cultures, Morales uses these ties to the past to break her own chains to of all things, her ties to the past.
Specifically, the author uses every new stanza to add in another ingredient to the melting pot of who exactly she is, slowly culminating in a final recipe that has never been tasted before. She expands upon the first stanaza’s mention of being “a child of the Americas” by elaborating on what it means to be a “US Puerto Rican Jew”, then Caribbean with “Spanish flesh”, followed by a turn in what she is not, which is African, Taían, and European. Finally, in the last stanza she sheds her cultural indebtedness by simply stating she “is new” and “whole”, which is a slight twist on the original set up of the stanza that came before.
Death of Author Does Not Apply
While I often try to distinguish the narrator of a poem from the actual author, in this case I believe the death of author theory really does not apply.
For the unfamiliar, death of author theory simply argues that the meaning of a text is not determined by the author’s intention, but rather by the reader’s interpretation.
While I tend to agree with this theory, the subject of personal identity in “Child of the Americas”, at least for my reading, implores for we the readers to identify this poem with its author, rather than a blankless narrator.
Of course, there is always room for disagreement and different readings into the poem, but let it stand that for this instance I reject death of author for sake of autobiographical and historical contextualization of how the poem reads from a diary like entry intertwined in more poems when first published.
For me, the poem is so coded in Morales’s identity that historical and autobiographical context simply must be taken into account.
Publishing Background
As stated, the poem was originally published in a book co-authored by the author’s mother, Rosario Morales.
The book, Getting Home Alive, is filled with diary styled poetry that evokes the great works of Maya Angelou and other feminist authors from the twentieth century who used identity expression to showcase their confidence and comfortability with who they were as American authors.
This poem similarly comes from a long line of feminist tradition in English and American literature, being found as early as in the works of Jane Austen and Harriet Tubman, but does so rather subtly by refusing to succumb to the explicit hardships faced in the past, and rather celebrates all that the author’s historical cultures have to offer.
Similar Roots
Published in 1986, cultural politics were slowly beginning to shift away from a racially divided world towards more fights for inclusion and affirmation.
During this decade the Berlin wall still stood in Germany, no one had heard of Hillary Clinton, and artists that weree classified as a minority like Michael Jackson, despite being a major musical presence, had to fight to be aired on the emerging American channel MTV.
When taken into historical context, you can begin to understand why the importance in identity was so crucial to women in the Americas during its time, and why it remains so relevant today.
Similarly, female artists such as Madonna and Cyndi Lauper were finding new lyrical expressions while claiming their indebtedness to popular female artists that came before. In songs like “Like a Virgin” or “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, one can hear the expression of female identity spoken in explicit ways that would have seemed improper before.
More so, films such as Do the Right Thing by director Spike Lee would later be released that decade, bringing to the forefront the need to address racial relationships in America. More explicit were the emergence of hip hop and more hardcore rap from groups such as NWA and Public Enemy, that made race relationships a focal point of their early music.
Clearly, racial and cultural identity was a major theme in the 1980s–one that could be traced back to the Civil Rights and feminists movement of the 1960s and much earlier. While battles had been won and fought, there was still little representation in mainstream American outlets for many cultures which many voices argue is still true today .
Whether you believe this or not, there is no doubt that expression of identity has been a major theme among artistic voices in the Americas, throughout its history and one that had not been heard from a Puerto Rican author with such mainstream attention.
My only knowledge of Puerto Rican representation in mainstream media comes from the film West Side Story, released in the 1950s, which, did not even feature a full cast of Puerto Rican actors, highlighting the need for a poem like “Child of the Americas.”
While more recent Puerto Rican artists have emerged in popular culture, representation in poetic readings from my own educational background are severely lacking.
More so, by the 1980s, women had begun entering in professional workspaces traditionally dominated by white men. Modern readers might scoff at the idea of women being excluded in the workforce, but by the 1980s this was just becoming less of a harsh reality.
Even today we still fight to see women like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris become president of the United States,. While both presidential bids have failed, we at least by 2025 can claim to have had at least a female vice president in the United States.
Clearly, identity remains just as important now as it was in 1986.
Like other poets and artists of her time, Morales uses her own voice to plant her personal flag in the sand of a long line of authors and poets that came before her. She declares “history made me” at the end of this poem to reaffirm her personal roots in a sparse but prominent lineage of literary tradition, while refuting to be relegated to something that isn’t original.
Author’s Background
Born in Puerto Rico, Aurora Levins Morales had a very diverse cultural upbringing.
According to her Wikipedia page, her mother was born in Harlem, while her father was from Brooklyn and of Jewish and Ukrainian heritage.
Living in a territory that still is not recognized as a state in the US, Morales must have felt deeply the hurt of not being recognized in a society that still grapples with cultural oppression to this day.
Indeed, the author states in the second stanza that she “speaks English with passion,” asserting her own command of a historically oppressive culture rooted in slavery and imperialism. She goes on to add that it’s her “tool” and “craft”, making no mistake that she is indeed a new American author
Evoking that cultural oppression, Morales continues on to declare herself “of Latinoamerica”, and notes her roots in Africa while not actually being African, having Taíno in her while not being Taína, as well as coming from Europe while not being European.
Interesting to note is how she doesn’t capitalize the words “african”, “taína”, nor “european”, subtly injecting her poem with a hint of political charge by robbing the terms of their own right to being formatted as proper nouns, and therefore, proper cultures.
By deliberating using these specific key terms she forces the reader to define and understand her own academic and layman’s knowledge of who she is.
Going further, Morales also uses the words “mestiza”, “taína”, “diaspora” and “Spanglish” to evoke her own multicultural background.
To clarify, a mestiza, according to Oxford Languages, is a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry. A taína, on the other hand, refers to Indigenous people of the Caribbean. A diaspora is a dispersion of people from their original homeland. Finally, Spanglish is a colloquial term that refers to a blend of the Spanish and English languages.
She also evokes the fruit “mangoes” and “garlic” spice to reinforce her cultural ties, while noting the “ripples in [her] tongue” and “lodges in [her] hips.”
While referencing her unknown ties to ghettos in the United States in the second stanza, Morales specifically uses the word “immigrants” to make explicit what her historical ties to the American continents actually are.
Historical Significance
Again, rooted in 1960s identity politics and feminism that was finding a mainstream renewal by the 1980s, confidence and identity was crucial to establishing her own voice in an ever-changing cultural landscape that is the Americas.
I personally am reminded of the song “Buffalo Soldier”, released by Bob Marley and the Wailers in 1983 that also expressed what it meant to be born in the Americas.
Marley’s song similarly deals with the roots of being born in a new land, though his use of history is more explicit in its conflicted roots. He uses lyrics such as “stolen from Africa” and “brought to the Caribbean” in his song to contextualize just what it means to be a buffalo soldier, which as Wikipedia states is an African American soldier that fought for America during the 19th century.
While the themes of identity in the poem resonate with Bob Marley’s own contextualization of what it means to be born in the Americas, Morales refrains from making the politic history of her cultural heritages explicit.
Historical relevance aside, many readers may find the poem still pertinent to today amidst last decade’s Black Lives Matter political movement and other mainstream fights for equal justice among all cultures in mainstream representation.
The continuous need to assert newer identity for younger Americans while acknowledging those that came before us is still a fight worth having. Just as was the case in the 1980s, the Americas still remains a melting pot today.
Unlike Bob Marley, Morales evokes her own cultural injustices by merely acknowledging where she came from. While not as outright politically as the Marley’s song is, using historical and cultural context, it’s not hard to read a political intent in the poem, especially with the aforementioned lack of capitalization of of proper nouns.
Morales does mention words such as “ghetto” to evoke the hardship of where he father was raised, but I would argue chooses to rely on the connotation we as reader, especially if we were reading in 1986, would associate with such a charged word.
Not to Be Defeated
Rather than find loss in such a mixed identity, I believe Aurora Levins Morales celebrates coming from a mixed heritage.
She opens the final stanza of the poem with an acknowledgment of those that came before by stating she is “new” because “history” made her. This reinforcement of what it means to be American is built on the idea of remix and originality. To be something new, we must come from something old. We indeed are the products of what originated before us.
Like the great feminists and cultural forbearers that came before her, the author refuses to let such a mixed identity bring her down. Rather, Morales ends the poem on a declaration of triumph, as she proudly states: “I am whole.”
It’s in this acknowledgment of what has come before her that she claims to be complete because she indeed has come from a long line of authors who needed to find their own validity. Confidence and ownership of identity is crucial to being a multicultural author while still retaining an air of authenticity and originality.
This still remains a literary tradition today.
Final Notes
While the poem is a nod to her cultural influences, it would take further readings of her other poems to grasp a sense of the newness that Morales’s claims to be.
Sadly, as of writing this, the cheapest paperback copies of of her original book Getting Home Alive are going for over $200 on Amazon, though readers and enthusiasts may find copies of her work online and through other literary anthologies.
This version of this poem was found through a PDF copy of it’s insert in the book Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings -An Anthology, edited by Roberto Santiago and published in 1995 by The Random House Publishing Group.
The Verse Universe 