Juan Matlala

In Martin Espada's poems  "Revolutionary Spanish lesson," "The New Bathroom Policy at English high school," and "Two Mexicans Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877," he makes the reader think about abuse of power, and racism because hHhe shows the reader different examples of racism and abuse of power against Latinos.

            The poem "New Bathroom policy at English High School" makes the reader think about abusive power. An example of the text that makes me think this is, "The only word he recognizes is his own name/ so he decides to ban Spanish."  This is wrong because the students are talking Spanish and the only word he understands is his name. He doesn't find out if they were talking good about him. He just bans Spanish.  This shows the idea of abusive power. This makes the reader understand that some people should not be given power.     

      Martin Espada's poem "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" makes me think that about people abusing their power because in the text it says "When someone mispronounces my name… I want to…hijack a busload of Republican tourists from Wisconsin." He wants to do this because he wants the average American to respect his culture and when people mispronounce his name he feels disrespected. We don't think he wants to actually want to do that but this shows an exaggeration of his frustration.

            Espada`s poem "Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California May 3, 1877" makes me think about racism. We think about this because two Mexicans were hung just because they were Mexicans. They were taken from the jail and they weren't given a fair trial and were lynched this makes the reader think that everybody should receive the same treatment no matter what race they are.

            In conclusion these three poems by Martin Espada make the reader think that there is a lot of racism, and abuse of power in the world. And we the readers should stand up for those abused.