Thursday, October 11: Other Hispanic Americans: Immigrant/American Dream Story  or Minority?

Poetry reader: Christina Holmes

Poem: “Coca-Cola and Coco Frio” UA 125

Martín Espada

 was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently, The Republic of Poetry (W. W. Norton, 2006), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and Alabanza: New and Selected Poems (1982-2002) (2003), which received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library Association Notable Book of the year. Espada is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he teaches creative writing, Latino poetry, and the work of Pablo Neruda.

Coco Frio- a chilled coconut, then scalped by a machete       

Inside is a coconut flavored clear milk with mild sweetness.

                          .              

Objective 5- to observe and analyze the effects of immigration and assimilation on cultural identities.

Primary focus- observing and analyzing assimilation on cultural identities

Puerto Rican culture identifying with the American culture;

“At every table, some great-aunt would steer him with cool spotted hands to a glass of Coca-Cola” (125).

Effects of assimilation:

Efforts to sing the Coca-Cola jingle using all the English she was privy to.

Significance- Despite being in their homeland of Puerto Rico the aunts were so eager to show him that they now had- Coca-Cola, just like in America. This displayed that they were embracing the American “Dominant” culture.

Objective 2- To chart the dynamics, variations, and stages of the immigrant narrative

Primary Focus- variations of the immigrant narrative as characterized by generation

Effects of assimilation- He was so familiar with the beverage of choice in American, Coca-Cola, that he was bored with it and was in search of something different-

Then, at the roadside stand off the beach, the fat boy opened his mouth to coco frio, a coconut chilled, then scalped by a machete so that a straw could inhale the clear milk. The boy tilted the green shell overhead and drooled coconut milk down his chin; suddenly, Puerto Rico was not Coca-Cola or Brooklyn, and neither was he (125).

 *As if to say- surely there is something different here it can’t be the same as back home, otherwise what the purpose of the trip.

Significance;

Stage 4- Assimilation to dominant American culture and loss of ethnic identity- in his familiarity of his home, America, he  already familiar with Coca-Cola –“He drank obediently, though he was bored with this portion, familiar from the candy stores in Brooklyn” (125).

Stage5- Rediscovery of ethnic identity- in tasting the Coco-Frio he is reminded that he is not American but Puerto Rican. “... suddenly, Puerto Rico was not Coca-Cola or Brooklyn, and neither was he” (125).

Questions/Discussion

*        What exactly was the boy anticipating on his first visit to Puerto Rico?

*        How do the aunts view themselves? 

*     In viewing the aunts, have they assimilated or showed resistance to the American Culture?

*     What about the boy?--assimilated, resistant, or somewhere between?