Blog Post # 1 "So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans"

In the poem So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans , Jimmy Santiago Baca uses a lot of ambiguous words and phrases. The first one that really stuck out to me was right in the title itself, "Taking" . By using the word "taking", in this poem it can be seen as saying that Mexicans are coming into America's workforce, and kicking everybody out, as if they are walking into an office building and demanding everybody leave so they can work. Also, that they are forcing employers to hire them. As if trying to say that there are no jobs out there for Americans, because the Mexicans have come and taken all of them away. The dennotative possibilites for "Taking" are capturing, or seasing. The connotative possibilites could be Mexicans are coming and stealing jobs from innocent Americans, and/or having Mexicans forefully remove Americans from their jobs, so they can work instead.
This ambiguous phrase struck me instantly, "clean-suited farmers living in New York". The dennotative possibilites for this phrase, are farmers who wear clean stuis and live in New York. Connotative possibilities for this phrase are business men from New York. People who know next to nothing about farming, we know this from the next6 line that reads "who've never been on a farm". In using this phrase Baca explains how these small American farmers, aren't loosing their farms/jobs because of Mexican but because of the business men that they sell their farms too,that either run their business into the ground, or don't care about anyone but themselves which leads to next to nothing pay, which causes the small farmers, to loose everything they owned.
"Trying to cross poverty to just have something" this phrase stood out to me instantly. Dennotative possibilites for this can be, leaving poverty if for nothing else, to be able to own something, to call something, anything their own. Connotative possibilites for this phrase, can include Mexicans crossing the border into America to be able to be free from their opressive government, being able to come to America to be able to own, not to feel owned.
The last phrase that I chose, is "The children are dead already" Dennotative possibilites for this can be children that are dead in America. The connotative possibilites for this can be, the children of America not having a bright future. America as a whole, not having a future. This phrase can be used as if to say, that the future of America is dead. By saying the children are dead he is saying that America is dead because it is always being sad that children are the future,therefore the future is dead.