Reader: Sarah Wyly
Respondent:  Valerie Lawrence
Recorder: Lynn Starkey

"Coca-Cola and Coco Frio"

By Martin Espada  

Biographical Information:

Martin Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York.  His father was Puerto Rican and his mother was of Jewish descent.  Coca-Cola and Coco Frio is a true account of his first trip to Puerto Rico at the age of ten.  In an interview, Espada was asked what he was feeling when he wrote this poem and replied as follows:

"What I discovered at the time was that my family seemed to prize all things

'American' at the expense of the small daily miracles around them."

Objectives:

Literary Objective 2C - character by generation to identify and question the standard generational roles or identities.  The poem is narrated by a second generation immigrant, resulting in feelings of division between America and the Homeland.  This ultimately leads the narrator to stage five of the immigrant narrative; rediscovery or reassertion of ethnic identity.

Cultural Objective 6 - to acknowledge and criticize the different values projected on ethnic homelands and on America (ie. Homeland = strife, division, stagnation, picturesque ness.   America = equality, tolerance, extreme individualism, opportunity, chaos.)

Poem Analysis:

Coca-Cola and Coco Frio is a narrative poem, and reflects an actual life event of the author, Martin Espada. The poem follows a young American boy of Puerto Rican descent, along the path of reassertion into his native culture.  The title represents the narrator’s division between his two ethnicities; Coca-Cola represents America, and is a man-made beverage, while Coco Frio represents Puerto Rico, and is an all natural coconut drink.

First Stanza - By beginning the poem with "island of family folklore," the reader is expecting to learn about the roots of Puerto Rican traditions, and instead finds that the narrator’s family sings American commercial songs and drinks Coca-Cola. The use of "fat boy" may represent the wealthy and spoiled lifestyle the narrator was living in America, while "wandered" appears to refer to his ethnic crisis in that he is literally wandering between two cultures.  By wandering "open mouthed," it is implied that he is submissive and ready to embrace new things (ie. wide-eyed and open-mouthed).   Also, when Coca-Cola is likened to a "potion," it suggests the island residents are hypnotized by American goods, unable to acknowledge the plethora of gifts Puerto Rico has to offer.

Second Stanza -  When the narrator "open his mouth to Coco Frio, he literally submerges himself in his native culture, and allows a Puerto Rican ethnicity to emerge.  Cultural Objective six surfaces here, and the narrator expresses love and kinship for his homeland.

Third Stanza -   Here, Cultural Objective six and the narrator’s criticism of America fully presents itself.  The sagging coconut trees whose milk is unsuckled is an analogy to a mother (or the mother-land) whose natural and life-sustaining gifts have been ignored by her children (the Puerto Rican citizens).  The narrator was able to find the cultural nourishment he longed for from his native country.  He also relays frustration towards his family, who does not appreciate the gifts of their homeland, however his feelings may be over-romanticized, as often is the situation when visiting foreign lands for a short period of time.

Question:  In what way would this poem have varied had the narrator been a first or third generation immigrant?

Discussion:

Sarah - Associated course objectives Literary 2C - Third generation narrative and Cultural 6. Explained that it was a true account, that Espada was a Puerto Rican and Jewish mix. Quoted an interview where he talked about his relation to the reader. Read the poem. Discussed the use of words i.e. title, family folklore to the extended family i.e. coca-cola/jingles. Description of fat boy to show gluttony, wealth, spoiled, wandering equal to wandering in  own life? Exposed relationship of the coconuts laden with milk in the trees and him wandering with mouth open as a symbol of a mother and her milk ready for the infant. Commented that Puerto Rico is not coca-cola or Brooklyn and neither is the author. Author says that coca-cola is a potion that the people were hypnotized, but he is already familiar with American commercialism and not taken in by it. Posed question: How did readers think poem would have been different if written by a member of the second generation?

Natalie:    Not so relaxed

Julie:  He would not admit a need or desire

Sarah:  The third generation is able to open up

White:  Is this stage 5?

Sarah:  Yes, third generation

White:  Thoroughly Americanized

Valerie:    He is rediscovering his ethnic identity while the family is losing it

Sarah:  The family seems to have neglected it

Angela: So it is sort of the assertion we want what we don’t have and take for granted what we do have.

Sarah:  I didn’t think about that. Maybe Puerto Rico’s gone along with the commercialism

Angela: What’s wrong with commercialism…the idea?

Ginger: It’s like Indians and white people. The John Wayne disease

Will:   Puerto Rico wanting something new

White:  Cultural Objective 6 - the homeland, picturesqueness

Sarah:  Like a poor Arkansas family

Julie:  There are multifaceted needs in the poem. Homeland means primal nature

Naomi:  The struggle for the American Dream