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In the poem “What It’s like to be a Black Girl” written by Patricia Smith in 1999, the author inscribes about her days as a kid. She demonstrates how it is hard to be Black in a white dominated culture. She did not want to be identified as a Black individual as she did not want to admit to herself as being one, but no matter how much she attempted she could not merge with the White people(Gross, 1972).
“Child of the Americas” is a poem by Aurora Levis Morales written in 1986.In the poem, the author tries to tackle communal diversity. The poem is about an American who originated from a combination of a variety of ethnicities that define her legacy and personality as an American. The writer is a settler or a descent of a settler, but that is what she perceives as her sole characteristic and the classifying personality of her as an American.
The theme of this paper is to compare and contrast how difficult it is, for immigrants to blend in a race and culture that is not their own in reference to the two poems, “What It’s like to be a Black Girl” and “Child of the Americas”. They differ in that in “What It’s like to be a Black Girl”, the girl desires to recognize with the society and likeness of her African American predecessor’s slave possessors, while in that of the “Child of the Americas”, the girl desires to hold and rejoice her African Latino legacy.
The attractive thing concerning America is the entire diverse lifestyles that wander the land. Regardless of where one goes they will meet a dissimilar ethnicity. Yet, most of the people still believe in one item, autonomy. While some people are settlers, others are born there, but are off springs from another nation.
No matter where one originates from, the important thing is accepting who they are. Immigrants feel unacknowledged due to their race or the way they were brought up. However, the way one expresses him or herself, puts the other person in a position to interpret the message differently (Clugston, 2010).
The two poems “What It’s like to be a Black Girl” and “Child of the Americas” center on the awareness of two women that are of African descent, overwhelmed by the way American society view them due to their ethnicity (Samuel, 2008).
The negative insights played a significant part of the authors’ minds due to chauvinism, which misinterpreted and twisted the mentality of these juvenile African American girls. In the poems, the two young girls who are from diverse American marginal sub-cultures observe themselves in two complete diverse perceptions.
In “What It’s like to be a Black Girl”, the poem captures a glance into the psyche of a black girl in a culture that is stimulated with racial discrimination and unfairness both in terms of race and sexual characteristics. This individual illustrates the transitioning from a juvenile black girl into a juvenile black woman and the frustration she undergoes in trying to accept her altering body (Samuel, 2008).
She had been trained to be embarrassed of who she was, what she appeared like, and where she originated. Thus, she wanted her skin tone to seem like those of them who were acknowledged in the culture. She inscribes, “It’s being 9 years old and feeling like you’re not finished,” “like your edges are wild, like there is something, everything, wrong.”(Smith, 1999)
What this part of the poem is saying is that, the girl observes her body altering right before her eyes, but she also can distinguish herself, as civilization perceives her because she has been trained that what she looks like is not the way it is supposed to be.
When Smith states that her “edges are wild”, she was implying to the transformations her body was familiarizing with, for instance, the enlargement of her breasts and the part underneath starting to stimulate her. She considers it very rough in her individual skin. She believes that being black is awful or shameful.
Her self-esteem is affected by the torment that the male put on her. By inscribing, “its smelling blood in your breakfast”, she shows the sufferings that she undergoes and this makes her feel frustrated. She demonstrates the sufferings a black individual must bear and go through on a regular day situation by addressing the non- blacks, in order to show them the difficult situations the blacks go through just because of their race.
In contrast, the “Child of the Americas” opens by grasping the real meaning of the whole poem in the first lines. The author says she is an offspring of a settler or a settler herself, but according to her, the factor categorizes her as an American. In implying the above, it shows that the author is proud of her ethnicity. She does not want to make justifications for being the way she is, but want to show the pleasure she experiences for being the way she is.
She establishes no way to alter herself, but demonstrates that record has made her to be just the way she is. She demonstrates a component of her society, the distinction in uniqueness, as well as a settler successor. As the poem addressees pleasure in legacy, it also points out the irritation towards a society that does not appear to be understood in the reality that it is diverse by nature.
First, Morales discusses about integrating races, and she does not recognize precisely which one she fits in or in which one she feels right. She inscribes, “I am not African. Africa is in me, but I cannot return. I am not Taina. Taina 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 (Spanish-English). I was born at the crossroad and I am whole” (Morales, 1986). By these lines, Morales shows that she cannot discover her true race. She has so many identities to identify the one she can call her own. That is why in the poem she finishes by saying, “I am whole.” This is due to the reason that she wants to convey her uniqueness with her ancient times, while similarly, she desires to put herself in her current life situation.
Secondly, she talks about integrating of cultures. She inscribes, “I am Caribena (Caribbean woman), island grown, Spanish is in my flesh, ripples from my tongue, lodges in my hips, the languages of garlic and mangoes, the singing in my poetry, the flying gestures on my hands.” (Morales, 1986). From these lines, one can think of garlic and mangoes as so Caribbean with which she partially identifies. In this manner, she is not ashamed to describe her identity, but is proud to show her true origin.
Since both are written in form of poems, they possess more similarities than differences. Despite being reflective poems, they differ in that in “Child of the Americas”, the author knows her voice, and does not struggle asking about her identity. She knows where she comes from and where she is going and she has nothing against it (Custodio, 2011).
On the other hand, in “What It’s like to be a Black Girl”, the author imagines things other than experiencing them. She imagines being a white girl and receiving all the honors that come with it, making it hard for her to accept her true origin and embrace it. In both poems, the authors use metaphors, similes, diction, personification and other symbols to show the message they want to pass (Clugston, 2010).
Both poems differ in the style used by the authors to convey their messages. In “What it’s like to be a black girl”, the author shows the phases of how one scrupulous black girl’s mind-set and pitch altered all through her life. The author uses rough sentence arrangement and physically powerful language to illustrate to the reader the importance of the issue (Clugston, 2010).
Despite the fact that the girl was undergoing puberty, and hence changes in her body, the issue seems to have been made more difficult by the very rough society. The entire tone appears to be irritated and sour, but if you glance nearer, it really does transform (Gross, 1972). In the start, she talks of when she was nine years old. Her pitch then seems depressing and she does not comprehend why she is dissimilar. The little girl appears so annoyed of everybody’s approach towards black girls.
On the other hand, she cheerless that the community does not acknowledge her as she is and has to go to immense extents to be acknowledged by others. She develops into more bitterness towards the conclusion when she articulates, “Its learning to say fuck with grace, and fucking without it” and “it is smelling blood in your breakfast” (Smith, 1999). She immediately sounds so pessimistic and sour in that part and for the remaining part of the poem.
She says the bitterness is brought by the fact that she has to become skilled at letting things slip. She uses symbolism when she asserts, “it’s dropping food coloring in your eyes to make them blue and suffering while they burn in silence.
It’s popping a bleached white mop head over the kinks of your hair and primping in front of the mirrors that deny your selection” (Smith,1999). The food complexion in her eyes and the lightening of her hair are signs used to represent her desire to grow into the more “acknowledged” form of culture; the white, tender, blue eyed and light-colored hair people.
As opposed to “What it’s like to be a black girl” in “Child of the Americas”, the author tries to express how living as a marginal in a prevailing culture is similar to the process of being consumed up in total. The poem uses symbolism, metaphors, epitome, and speech to express this theme.
The author discusses of the past surrenders and the upcoming confront, consecutively, to stop her individuality from being consumed completely by a prevailing society that frequently posits a substandard “whole” on those it considers the “other”. She also uses symbolism when she says, “Each plate is different”, by this she means that the continuing fight to stay alive is one that they will not give in to through self-destruction just for the reason of being dissimilar (Custodio, 2011).
In addition, she uses metaphors, symbolism, epitome, and speech, to express the retrieval of the natural right to live and be complete for every individual. She indicates that her citizens remain mysterious because their names have not at all been on paper anywhere, and so they had to depend on their first forename or other nicknames, for identification.
She maintains, “Spanish is my flesh, ripped from my tongue, lodges in my hips”, “the language of garlic and mangoes” (Morales, 1986). By this, she means that numerous settlers in America undergo dissociation from their own legacy and the white society.
Morales is a legitimate person who employs such imagery to uphold that she, as a creation of nature, has as much right as anybody else to live free from domination or labels as an alternative of becoming unseen to leading ethnicities due to rank or ethnic differences. She upholds that it is the moment to “lay that dish cloth down” and to “eat, dear, eat” (Morales, 1986). By this, she emphasizes the suggestion that legacy and personality are not a black and white theory.
The author provides us with an account of her background and ethnicity, maintaining from the outset that, “I am what I am, Eat, dear, eat, History made us, we will not eat ourselves up inside anymore, and we are whole” (Morales, 1986). This is in order to demonstrate how the marginal are frequently subjected to the responsibility of the “lesser other”. The author also, employs an immense deal of nature metaphors to illustrate her association with nature.
She says, “I come from the dirt where the cane was grown” and I am Caribena (Caribbean Woman), island grown”. “Africa waters the roots of my tree, but I cannot return” (Morales, 1986). Here she means that in her mother country, she and her ancestors were underprivileged; a community that did not go to feast parties precisely since “they weren’t invited” (Morales, 1986). This same diction is the one she employs when she says, “I am of Latino America, rooted in the history of my continent” (Morales, 1986).
This metaphor is important because settlers are frequently consumed by the prevailing society in which they inhabit. She persists to use nature metaphors and epitome in order to demonstrate her association to, but also division from any particular society or location (Clugston, 2010).
Actually, garlic and mangoes have no verbal communication, but the author resorts to such imagery in order to assert her official character and survival. In addition, she uses the epitome method so that she can recognize with nature. By inserting that, “I was born at the crossroads and I am whole”, Morales highlighted that from beginning to end at a crossroads the reality is that there is no “ordinary” or “archetypal” American since Americans originated from a dissolving pot of ethnicity.
These different cultural legacies, ethnicities, and authorities are joined collectively to form the American society. A society made from a dissolving pot of integrated social stimulations that became essential to every American.
Lastly, Morales asserts that there is no “ultimate” or “untainted” American for the reason that even by tracing down American record, such an individual is not real. Each American was born at a crossroad a fact that makes everybody complete.
This pressure makes the person truthfully American, which is truly an exclusive society on its own, in a manner that individuality and understanding is through a set of a society made through unstable past, an effort of incorporation, and protection of society. It is in the familiarity of this assortment that Americans are called Americans.
Through the above research, it is clear that it is very hard for one to feel embraced and acknowledged in a culture that is not their own. When settlers go to new countries, they face many challenges in trying to fit into the population. This is shown in the two poems “What it’s like to be a Black Girl” and “Child of the Americans”, where both authors try to fit in the prevailing culture without success.
In “What it’s like to be a Black Girl”, the author feels unaccepted by the society and this makes her to even try to transform herself, so that she can look like the prevailing populace. The fact that the society does not acknowledge her makes her feel unwanted and no matter how she tries, she just cannot blend in.
On the other hand, in “child of the Americas”, the writer shows how much she celebrates her original identity despite not being recognized in the prevailing populace. The two poems teach us that no matter where we come from, we should accept ourselves for whom we are and treat others the way we would like to be treated, despite the differences in race or ethnicity.
References
Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridge point Education, Inc.
Custodio, L. (2011). An Analysis on the Poem “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levins Morales”. Web.
Gross, B. (1972). The “Uninhabitable Darkness” of Baldwin’s Another Country: Image and Theme. Negro American Literature Forum, 6, 4, 113-121.
Morales, A. L., & Morales, R. (1986). Getting home alive. Ithaca, N.Y: Firebrand Books.
Samuel, G. M. (2008). Identity, Oppression, and Power. Journal of Women and Social Work, 23, 1, 5-9.
Smith, P. J. (1999). The queer sixties. New York: Routledge.
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