Jimmy Santiago Baca, "So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans," 115-116.

Reader: Caljean Harbin

Respondent: Charidy Kyslinger

Recorder: Shaista Pollard

Opening:

Taken from UHCL Library Data Base (ERIC)

Baca's efforts to reconstruct his own psyche and sense of identity immediately move him to reflect upon his connection to family and community. Present in Immigrants is Baca for the first time rekindling a connection to the collective meaning and past of his ancestors. His search for personal meaning emerges in Immigrants as an ever-widening series of concentric connections that lead him to an individual and collective examination of his incarceration. Each poem in the work to some degree answers the question "Who am I?" in the context of present and past circumstances.

Baca's chief concern in Immigrants is regaining a sense of self, which is obscured by the prison system's ability to strip the individual of dignity and self-worth.

Objectives:

3C. Mexican American Narrative: "The Ambivalent Minority" I use 3C because

Mexican families come to America for economic gain but suffer dislocation.

Objective 4

To register the minority dilemma of assimilation or resistance-i.e., do you fight or join the culture that oppressed you? What balance do minorities strike between the economic benefits and the personal or cultural sacrifices of assimilation?

5A. To discover the power of poetry and fiction to help "others" hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience.

5E. To emphasize how all speakers and writes may use common devices of human language to make poetry, including narrative, poetic devices, and figures of speech.

Style used to write the poem:

Metaphors

A Metaphor is a figure of speech that implies a comparison between two unlike things.

Narrative

Telling a story about one’s life. Used because in reading a book people tend to say to themselves, "I don’t feel like that", "that character is not like me" or "I can’t identify with this or that". In poetry each person interprets the poem in a different way, they come up with different ideas about what a metaphor is saying and symbolizes in the poem. Therefore, you get many plots, many ideas, and the story has many ending.

Recorder: Shaista Pollard

Baca connects to family and community

Personal meaning - immigrants

Poem- Who am I? Answers the question

Entity lost in prison

Education helped

Language - gift given to him

Lot of metaphors used

help others find themselves

Speaker stressed, in the poem, "So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans" who the real culprits are, not the immigrants, because the jobs they do, most American will not work. Mexicans take our jobs, but would you want to do that job? Speaker gave an example of the destruction of a local multi billion dollar company, dissolved because of the greed of men sitting on the 50th floor in air conditioned offices.

Reader saw the asthmatic leader in "So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans" representative of white collar crimes committed against working class people in America. They are the THEM in the poem taking our jobs. They are the THEM who would have working class Americans believe illegal immigrants are robbing, killing and taking our jobs. All these people want is to make a decent living and support their families.

Reader also gave example of immigrants building a brick house in 110 degree heat. A house they could not dream of buying. A response was made, "Yes, Americans would work in 110 degree heat, if they belonged to a union making $40 dollars an hour.

Respondents:

Karen: Illegal immigrants - "They are hard working people." "They are taking jobs, but CEO's are making the money".

Ginger:

"They work lots of jobs. Will work for more than one company, a few hours here and a few there. They have the drive to do so. They see opportunity."

Dr. White:

"Immigrants move up the ladder, vacate spots that are filled by earlier immigrants."

Reader: "Yes, I understand. Once whites worked on the highways, then Blacks moved into those positions, now Mexicans are building our highways".

Charity:

"First, Mexican Americans give up everything. To survive, they fight to live. They give up so much to get so little".

Reader: What do you think the author meant in the last stanza: "What they really say is, let them die, and the children too"?

Will:

"Politics - keep the working class fighting amongst each other. Categorizing classes, pointing fingers, distracting the masses, corporate welfare."

Amanda:

"Voiceless/Choiceless, They are afraid, cannot fight back"

Reader: Search for pearls in the darkest depth - people have all this money but they want more. Immigrants are just searching for that one pearl, not the whole string.

Charlie:

"Pearl, represents a light at the end of the tunnel"

Thanks to Shaista, she did a great job as recorder.