Grace Burrough 808


      Identity. It is you name, language and culture. In the poems, "The New Bathroom Policy at English High School", "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" and "Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877" by Martin Espada. It is amazing how your name, language and culture can be taken away so fast. How you spell or pronounce you name can be mad fun of or always mispronounced. Your culture, skin tone or language can be hated on. 

     In the first poem, "The New Bathroom Policy at English High School" by Martin Espada, the principal hear kids speaking in Spanish in the bathrooms and  all the principal could understand was his name being said. Then the principal banned Spanish from the bathrooms at English High School. This poem helps connects the idea of identity and how something as speaking Spanish can be taken away. The boys in the bathroom spoke Spanish because it was part of their culture, their language, it was part of their identity. The principal took that away from them because he did not understand what they were saying. Just because the boys said his name does not mean it meant something bad. The principal took their language away because he could not speak Spanish to understand the boys.

      Your name. Some people's names come from loved ones that might have died and some names are from your culture. The second poem, "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" by Martin Espada, is about a person and every time someone mispronounces the speakers name they want to turn in to Che Guevara. The meaning of this poems is to show the speaks culture and background is represented through the speaker name. The speak hates how some people mispronounce their name on purpose, the speak turns into Che Guevara, a Argentine Marxist revolutionary. He was a major figure of the Cuban Revolution.Your name is what most people call you, its how people know you; your identity.

     What is your culture? Where is your family from? What is you skin tone? Poem three,
"Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877" by Martin Espada, is about forty gringo vigilantes' lynching two Mexicans.  The whit folks killed the Mexicans because they took the law into their own hands, or what they thought was right into their own hands. The Mexicans were not given a trial or anything. They might not have even done anything wrong, the gringo vigilantes could have just lynched them because of their culture, skin tone or lagnuage.

     These three poems by Martin Espada describes how your identity, things that make you who you are, such as you name, culture, skin tone and lagnuage can be make fun of, taken away or even make people want to kill you.