Chris Anderson response to "So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans"

Response to Question #4

In analyzing "So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans," several words and phrases presented ambiguity. This ambiguity, however, gives depth to the poem and exposes the many facets of Jimmy Santiago Baca's work.

In the third stanza, the American is "walking home with a whore." The literal meaning of 'whore' is a woman who sells herself; a derogatory term for prostitute. But the poem doesn't refer to any one specific person, gender or classification other than American. This creates a deeper possibility that "you" could actually mean all Americans, and therefore all Americans have sold out and become slaves.

In the next stanza there is mention of an "asthmatic leader," another ambiguous phrase. A leader often a charismatic, youthful and strong person who can stand at the head of a group and direct all those under their influence. They serve as a foundation for everyone they lead. However, 'asthmatic' creates a connotation of sickness and plague to this leader. Based on the wording, this "wrinkled...rasping" leader who is surrounded with cameramen and people working, seems like an unhealthy leader both physically and metaphorically. This ambiguity between the expectations of a nation's leader and the portrayal of a sickly, weathered leader poses more questions about the nature of our country's citizens.

The poem later mentions "the poor marching for a little work," which holds a literal meaning of people of lower socioeconomic class getting together to protest their position in society. At the same time, marching and fighting for beliefs is hard work, and the poor people are putting in so much effort to receive very little work in return. This could parallel the later phrase "count their pennies" to mean that the poor work hard but are paid little for their effort and collaboration.

In the fifth section, the poem describes the farmers from New York as not knowing "the look of a hoof." This phrase carries a surface value that the farmers are simply unaware of how an animal's hoof looks. They do not have the literal knowledge of what hooves look like. The connotation, though, is that this knowledge would come from experience, and an experienced farmer would truly know every detail of each animal's hoof. The farmers from New York are inexperienced and therefore not suited for real farm work.

Towards the end, the poem suggests that "the children are dead." The obvious denotative meaning is that many children are actually dead. They have perished and continue to die and "We are killing them." 'Dead' can mean that someone is literally no longer living. There is a second connotation to both 'living' and 'dead' that refers to our experiences. This phrase could suggest that the children are no longer 'living' in the figurative sense and have stopped experiencing the joy and fullness of literal life. "We" (Americans) are not giving the youth in our nation the chance have experiences and we are robbing them of a full existence.

This poem is full of hidden meanings and multiple perspectives on the condition of America as a whole and the practices of each individual in relation to the 'mexicans that are taking our jobs.'