Poems: Where You From? by Gina Valdez, Legal Alien, Elena by Pat Mora, ad Here by Sandra Maria Esteves

Furthermore, she talks about her "past and present" (Esteves 362). This can be explained by showing herself the same way in the past and now. The last two lines of the first section can summarize her cultural problems in terms of "cultural beauty and loss of cultural identity" (Esteves 362). I think she is a descendant of the Spanish line, but also states that she was "robbed of cultural identity".

In "legal alien people", the poet Pat Mora explores the cultural tension that exists in the lives of Mexican Americans. The speaker of this poem speaks English and Spanish fluently and explains a bicultural person who uses both languages ​​in both daily life and social life. This person is a standard office job and frequent visits to Mexican food restaurants. However, it is difficult for individuals to be fully accepted by the community. Americans think that this person is "exotic emotion", "inferior", "absolutely different", Mexicans think that this person is "alien" and outsider. As a result, individuals are regarded as a symbol of dual cultural experience that exists only at the edge of two cultural worlds from society. To protect yourself, individuals present external fronts to hide biased pain. Therefore, individuals are actually "legal foreigners" - people are not yet completely accepted by society

"Legal Aliens" appeared in Mora's poetry "Chants" published by Arte Publico Press in 1984. In this series, the theme of many poems is related to the different cultural experiences of people living in desert areas in the southwestern part of the United States. Chants received the Harvey L. Johnson Book Award from the Southwestern Latin American Research Council in 1984 and in 1985 received the Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library. As a writer for poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and literature for children, Pat Mora has been a spokesperson for Mexican-American experience.

In this verse, Pat Mora, although belonging to the Hispanic American cultural identity, belongs to the American community and the Mexican community, how they can truly integrate into the other party I am talking. It is boring and disapproved to always "go back and forth between the ends of the two worlds". The speaker stated that he or she always stood before him and said he or she had to hide the fact that it was "judged beforehand / bilateral". This is parallel processing of the first line containing two words "bilingual, bicurual". Speakers are not fully accepted by the two communities, but "Mexican Americans, American Americans" turns to both sides. Stereotype This poem emphasizes the irony of this situation. The lecturer is a citizen of the United States, but he or she is still "another person" and is still a foreigner. I belong but I am not affiliated