The poem I have choose to focus on was written by Lorna Dee Cervantes, titled “Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person Could Believe in the War Between Races”. Cervantes is known as one of the most highly regarded Mexican-American Poets. In this poem I will identify the issues regarding the cultural alienation and the perception of racism through the eyes of a Hispanic woman.
This poem serves as the discontinuity of the “Aztlan”, which during the civil rights movement Chicano activists coined this term to refer to United States land that had previously belonged to Mexico. She begins her poem by stating that she believes there are “no distinctions” and that “The barbed wire politics of oppression have been torn down long ago”. This is considered in a sense her utopian view of her native land in which these things no longer exist, and that they do not happen. She utilizes the imagery of “barbed wire” to deny any felt effects of this attempted political repression, between the United States and Mexican border. She wants to escape this border reality. For her, this border reality in which she describes in the first two stanzas is certainly a fairytale place, a place in which she wishes existed and where racial tensions were no longer. The border that exists only imposes physical, cultural, and emotional barriers upon the Americas.
The title hints that the young white man who asked the question, has no belief in racial strife. This is because he asks the woman, who he claims that she as an “intelligent” woman how she could ever believe that there is currently a war between the races. This claim is absurd to him because an intelligent and well-read man like himself certainly does not believe that this war exists, and many of his peers don’t either. Cervantes then goes to say,
Do you think I can believe in a war between races?
I can deny it. I can forget about it
when I’m safe,
living in my own continent of harmony
and home, but I am not
there.
For her this further confirms that the “continent” that she wishes existed is just a dream, it is unrealistic for her. But there is something that could be done to make this dreamland possible in some way, in the earlier stanza she says that,
I am not a revolutionary
I don’t even like political poems.
This will completely contradict her statement of not being a revolutionary, that because she is no longer in the continent of her own harmony; and that because there is justification as she is not at “home” suggests violence being directed at a human being based upon the color of their skin or heritage. This for her would make her involvement with the “revolution” completely acceptable. For her in this situation she shows the white man that there is no choice in believing that this war exists, it does as she lives it. It is her choice to live, and to live she must fight for herself. This is the metaphor of war that she utilizes to explain war and why she is directly involved in something that completely contradicts what she intends to represent.
She is angry because of this and goes on to justify why she believes in this revolution, which go beyond her personal beliefs.
I believe in revolution
because everywhere the crosses are burning,
sharp-shooting goose-steppers round every corner,
there are snipers in the schools.
She uses this imagery as her medium of portraying white patriarchal bigotry, specifically in this stanza hinting at references of the Ku Klux Klan, conservative politicians, and their “goose-steppers” who, indiscriminately follow a political movement with unquestioning support. This is where her idea of revolution stems from once again, and hints at her pride giving way to her identity as a Chicano. This for her, is all a result of the discrimination that she and her people have been subject to. She goes on to predict that the white man does not believe any of what she is describing by stating,
I know you don’t believe this.
You think this is nothing
but faddish exaggeration. But they
are not shooting at you.
By describing this situation that is unimaginable to the white man, she shows the distinction between their realities and the contrary world views that come into conflict. By doing this she shows that the society that is not subject the violence and discrimination that she is, is willfully blind to any type of oppression that the Chicanos/Chicanas were subject to in America. It is difficult for her to form any connections between the world she knows and the world of the white man, without having to endure any sort of violence; in which he views as a “faddish exaggeration”. She then says that,
I’m marked by the colour of my skin.
The bullets are discrete and designed to kill slowly.
They are aiming at my children.
These are the facts.
Let me show you my wounds: my stumbling mind, my
‘excuse me’ tongue, and this
nagging preoccupation
with the feeling of not being good enough.
This is her final expression of the conflicts that she and her people are faced with. She helps distinguish her case and make it clear by using the “us” and “them” comparison. In closing she says that
Every day I am deluged with reminders
that this is not
my land
and this is my land.
I do not believe in the war between the races
but in this country
there is war.
This is her view that her and her people have been designated as second-class citizens, and is her reason in which she is part of the revolution to overcome the injustice that is being done.
I find certain common themes in both Cervante’s poem and Malcom X’s Message to the Grass Roots. Both in their own way describe the common experience of each minority regardless of their political or religious beliefs. In a way they both share and embody a common enemy in the land they live, white people. They both advocate for a revolution. Although written in a different context, I believe that Malcom X and Cervante both felt some of the same emotions, although Malcom’s seemed to be more extreme as he called for a creation of a solely black nation (separation rather than an integration) and that this nation need be achieved by any means necessary. Even if that meant violence.
Both Lorna Dee Cervante and Malcom X were fed up with the social system and the injustices that had been implicated upon them. They both in a sense found a reason which they wished to distinguish a gap between, enslavement and liberation. This was directed at those who would never understand what they have dealt with and lived with every day of their lives. For them the injustices and racial discrimination that they experienced, made them know that this land was not theirs. But they both knew that they belonged here and would continue to struggle and advocate towards a home in which they are welcome in, regardless of the color of their skin.