Reader: Anonymous (Blue)
Recorder: Joan Lynd
Respondent: Anonymous (Green)
February, 15, 2001 

"In the Good Old U.S.A."

by

Jose Angel Villalongo, Sr.

(Unsettling America, p. 328)

Jose Angel Villalongo is a poet and photographer born in New York City. His poetry has appeared in Temas, Footwork, The Mill Street Forward, Rainbow, The Newspaper Horizons of Newark, and The Passaic County Community College Artist Guild Anthology.

Cultural Objective 1A (To compare the immigrant and minority narrative)

The author has experienced both the minority and immigrant status due to the mix of his heritage. This has caused the poet to experience an even worse discrimination due to the era he grew up in, 1974. At this time, the mixing of races was not common and must have been harder for him to gain acceptance in the African and Hispanic communities. The most stark example is the line "where I am a prisoner with no rights to my own identity." I believe the imagery the author evokes is a steely, hateful inability of others to understand and accept his place in the world. This must have made him feel accursed.

I will also speak on the stages of narrative within the poem. Villalongo takes the reader from each stage starting from traditionalism versus the individualism in the second stanza. "The language passed on by generations is a curse" highlights the idea of the culture of his prior life in Puerto Rico to the present in the U.S. The journey to the New World is shown when he wonders about the welcome of America. This welcome can be contrasted to the words on the statue of liberty, "Give me your tired, your hungry, etc… ." He encounters discrimination by the father of his white girlfriend and his teachers in college. "You’re just another spic" he hears from his teachers. Villalongo then moves to the fourth stage in trying to assimilate to American culture. He "changed my name from Jose to Joseph…so I could be accepted by White America". He reaches the fifth stage "I am proud of being Afro-Puerto Rican. I am proud of my heritage."

Respondent:

The respondent had serious reservations about the narrative as a poem and though it would have been better as an essay. She added that Jose’ was not accepted because he did not accept himself.

Dr. White commented on the historical perspective that Puerto Ricans and African-Americans fought over available jobs and locations to live at that time. Because Jose’ experiences both the immigrant and minority narrative, he can identify and come to accept both.

Sylvia spoke that because he was an immigrant as well as a minority he is able to move ahead and go to college. The reader added the difference in his coming to America was that he wanted to be here. Dr. White noted the "n" word does not show up until an outsider says or imposes it on him. The reader said he had never really though of himself as a "nigger" before. The respondent offered as a different perspective that "nigger" was not seen as a negative in her home country until she moved to America.