“I Ain’t Going to Hurry No More”                  

Jesse F. Garcia
pp.346-347

Reader: Audrey L. Dickson-Walker

Respondent:  Steven Lombardo

Primary Course Objectives that apply to this poem:

            Objective 4:  To register the minority dilemma of assimilation or resistance.

            Objective 6:  To observe images of the individual, the family, and alternative families in the writings and experience of minority groups.

            Jesse F. Garcia’s poem embodies several distinct social situations and/or responses that provide good examples for course objectives.  His writing provokes images of a Mexican American male who is “voiceless” and “choiceless” (objective 1b) in America (“the land of freedom,” – second stanza, line 6).  The picture he outlines is of a man forced to live a meager existence (objective 1a – “I ain’t got no money . . .” – second stanza, lines 8 -14), with no hope for improvement of the situation in the future, all because of his ethnicity (objective 3 -- third stanza, lines 1 and 2), and class (first stanza, lines 8-9 and second stanza, lines 2-14). Therefore, he rebels, but in a fairly safe manner that limits the severity of any resulting penalties he may incur (“I ain’t going to hurry up for the white man no more” – objective 4).

            The poet appears well-qualified to express the view of a working-class Mexican American.  Jesse F. Garcia was “born of migrant working parents in the early 1950’s in Devine, Texas.”  (They) “traveled the state and beyond throughout his childhood in search of cotton fields to be picked.  His work” was copyrighted in 1992 and “has been published in Red Dirt and Top Heavy (UA, pp 389-390).”

                                           (Reading of Poem)

            In a presentation by Yolanda Luttrell in 2002, she chose objectives 2b (to detect “class” as a repressed subject) and 3c (“The Ambivalent Minority”) to describe the poem.  Yolie also states “The poet is engrossed and fed up with his situation . . .” She also expressed that “he might see himself only as an American minority.  The poem liberates the author from his perpetually deprived life.”

            The minority dilemma as stated in objective 4 is shown in the first stanza , lines one and two.  The narrator expresses resistance with “I ain’t going to hurry up for the white man no more,” yet says in the next line “I don’t care if he calls me Mexikan Joe.”  The lines appear to denote a contradiction in his emotions, a type of paradox, but the “minority dilemma of assimilation or resistance” causes the minority member to ponder whether it is best to “fight or join the culture that oppressed you, (course syllabus, 4).”

 “Mexikan Joe” was (and still may be) a “name” used to stereotype Mexican males and designate them as all alike, rather than as individuals. Part of that stereotype depicted Mexican males as slow-working; therefore, the narrator is stating that he doesn’t care if he is called that name, he is not going to work at a fast pace. The narrator implies that he has been “hurrying up,” but he has received no benefits for it.

He goes on to describe his (minority group member) lack of necessities, money, and protection for his family in contrast to the relaxed lifestyle of the “white man” (dominant culture member) he works for.  Those inequities are shown in the “white man(‘s)” relaxing trip to “Disneyland, eating cotton candy,” while the narrator is “out in the hot sun Picking the white man’s cotton.”  The member of the minority group lives in deplorable conditions (no money, no car, no indoor plumbing, a shack), while the member of the dominant culture enjoys a care-free lifestyle.  The care-free lifestyle is at the expense of the minority member:  the narrator generates the economy for the “white man,” yet receives little of it.  The picture that Garcia paints vividly with words presents images of the narrator and his experiences as a minority group member, objective 6.

            The narrator explains the solution he has for his dilemma in the last three lines of the poem.  He is not white, so he has resolved that “there’s no future to life

I ain’t going to hurry up for the white man no more.”

GLOSSARY TERMS:

Narrator – The voice of the person telling the story, not to be confused with the author’s voice.

Historical Criticism – An approach to literature that uses history as a means of  understanding a literary work more clearly.  Such criticism moves beyond the facts of an author’s personal life and the text itself in order to examine the social and intellectual currents in which the author composed the work.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What does Garcia infer by saying “He’ll” (my son) “be sent out to kill for the white man, Protecting his fears?"

2.  Does this poem pertain more to the Mexican American as a member of a minority group or as a member of the working class?  Does it apply more to one group than to the other, or to both equally?