Gabriel Perez

 Martin Espada's poems "New bathroom Policy at English High School''  "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,'' and  Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877," make me think about racism and how people can be racist and disrespectful, and how people having power can abuse it.

            The poem "New Bathroom Policy at English High School" makes the reader think about racism . An example from the text that makes me think this is," the boys chatter Spanish from the bathroom while the principal listens from his stall  and this constipates him/ so he decides to ban Spanish from the Bathrooms." This teaches the reader that just because someone doesn't know another language doesn't mean they have to ban other's languages making them only speak what they understand.

             Espada's poem "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" makes the reader think about how people disrespect other people's cultures. What makes me think about this is that the speaker of the poem says he wants to "hijack a busload of Republican tourists from wisconsin,/ force them to chant anti-American slogans/ in Spanish."  This teaches the reader that he wants us to pay attention Because he feels disrespected when his name is mispronounced.

            Espada's poem "Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877 "makes the reader think about  people taking power. An Example from the text that makes me think this is "more than the moment when forty gringo vigilantes cheered the rope that snapped two Mexicanos into the grimacing sleep of broken necks… remain the faces of the lynching party."  Even more than the lynching, the Mexicanos crowded to take a picture together is what bothers the speaker. They took the pictures because they didn't show any respect to them at all cause of being from a different culture. This teaches the reader just because you're from another culture doesn't mean that you should have fewer rights often people with power abuse it. And the "gringo vigilantes" took the law into their own hands.

            In conclusion, Espada's poem talked about racism about Spanish people, they also talked about people with power that  abuse it . And that some people could be really disrespectful to others. People should fight back or others should help at least defend people that don't now just cause there culture is different doesn't make them different.