Hashan Azon                                                                                                                July 28, 2014

 

            In Martin Espada's poems "The New Bathroom Policy at English High school," "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson," and "Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California May 3, 1877," Espada introduces us to the theme of people abusing their power.

            The poem "New Bathroom Policy at English High School" makes the reader think about how people react when they encounter their fears. The boys are in the bathroom speaking to one another while the principal was listening in his stall.   They say his name and the principal assumes that they are speaking about him. The principal then "decides to ban Spanish from the bathrooms," because he doesn't understand the language and he is scared that the might be judging him. This makes me angry because that is not fair to the boys, even if they were speaking about him they have a right to freedom of speech. This is against their constitutional rights and is an abuse of power. The principal should have just walked away back to his office and not even cared about what the boys said.

            In Espada's poem, "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" he makes the reader think about how people get offended when somebody disrespects their culture. An example from the text that makes me think this is, "When someone mispronounces my name I want to hijack a busload of republican tourists from Wisconsin, and force them to chant anti-American slogans in Spanish." Espada fantasizes about doing this to cause people to respect him and respect his culture as well. This teaches the reader that Espada hates it when his culture is disrespected. He wants the reader to pay attention to this.

            Espada's poem "Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz" makes the reader think about how unjust people can be. An example from the text is "remain the faces of the lynching party: faded as pennies from 1877, a few stunned in the blur of execution, a high-collar boy smirking, some peering from the shade of bowler hats, but all crowding into the photograph." I think that what upsets Espada the most is that these gringos are crowding in to take a photograph with the lynched Mexicanos. This shows the reader that the gringos don't care about the mexicanos, they treat them like animals like if they weren't human beings, and this also shows that they don't care about the mexicanos culture because that is inconsiderate that they are taking a photograph with dead people.

            In Conclusion, Espada's poems "The New Bathroom Policy at English High school," "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson," and "Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz" share the same theme. Espada makes us think about how many people abuse their power. I think that people should stand up to people like this, who abuse their power.