-Jimmy Santiago Baca
I've heard this ambiguity occasional times that Mexicans are taking jobs from Americans. Now the title already contains ambiguity, the title can imply that this poem is going to be about Mexicans stealing Americans jobs and the negativity of it, or perhaps that Mexicans are so mast in their population that they are beginning to uphold the positions that some Americans could of had. The word "taking" when used in this title could either mean that they are stealing these jobs forcefully or physically taking them or its second meaning could be that they are possibly filling up the position that is open due to their quality of work ethics and determination to succeed.
One phrase from the poem "We aren’t giving the children a chance to live." has a double meaning in which the denotative possibility of this sentence is stating we are not allowing children to live but instead are literally killing them. The connotative meaning perhaps is that we are not allowing opportunity for children of different ethnicity to grow and become something more of themselves. When stating we are not allowing a chance for them to live, it could mean we are not allowing them to be raised with adequate necessities, giving them a setback in life.
One last phrase "Below that cool green sea of money,
millions and millions of people fight to live," has a major connotative meaning. The cool green sea of money is similar to that of our small percentage of wealthy within America. The millions and millions of people "fighting to live" are the lower class and minorities of America. They are not literally physically fighting others to live, but fighting the economic struggle to support a family and maintain a life by barely making ends meet financially.
When I read this poem I took all of the symbols and examples to be exaggerated forms to prove a point on a grander scale with what is wrong with America. Like you in all of the quotes you stated I don't think any of them were meant to be taken literally. One thing that I thought was interesting when I read the title was the use of "Americans". I have spent two summers in South America and a pet peeve there is for people from the United States to claim themselves as "Americans". All the countries in North and South America are technically Americans, and I think many other countries take the United States use of the term offensively (or at least unfairly exclusive). The title is surely meant to stir up controversy, like the entire poem, and I'm not sure if that particular controversy fits in or not, but I thought it interesting.
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