Poetry Analysis Essay on Martin Espada

By Isobel Weiner 813

            Martin Espada is a Brooklyn born Latino poet. He grew up with his father, who was a leader in a Puerto Rican community and an activist who fought for equal opportunities for Hispanics. Because Martin was introduced to politics at such a young age, most of his poetry is political, specifically focusing on the culture and history of Latinos. The poems “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877”, “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson”, and “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” by Martin Espada make the reader think about how the abuse of power can affect people and cultures, specifically Latinos.

            The first poem, “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877” has great emotional intensity because the abuse of power is so violent. The white people, or ‘gringos’ abuse the power of their ‘superiority’ given to them by society because of their race, by turning a lynching of two Mexicanos into a spectacle and then celebrating the event with a photograph. The quote, “More than the moment/when forty gringo vigilantes/cheered the rope/that snapped two Mexicanos/into the grimacing sleep of broken necks”, shows how the gringos turned the horrific event into a public viewing and treated the Mexicanos like hunted animals. The power felt by white people is so inbred that this gruesome event becomes a celebration to record with a photograph, “a high-collar boy smirking, some peering/from the shade of bowler hats, but all/crowding into the photograph.”

            In the poem “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson”, the white Americans abuse their ‘superior’ power that is given to them because of their race by mispronouncing the narrator’s name and assuming that he is a foreign Latino immigrant and is therefore unequal to them. This is indicated by Espada referring to “a busload/of Republican tourists/from Wisconsin”, which represents the most traditional white conservative group. Power in the hands of ignorant people causes the narrator to imagine himself as the revolutionary stereotype “Che Guevara”, which is evident when he states “I want to buy a toy pistol,/put on dark sunglasses,/push my beret to an angle,/comb my beard to a point.” The narrator has obviously experienced this lack of cultural awareness multiple times, and the anger he feels towards the more ‘powerful’ white Americans is striking.

            The narrator in the final poem, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School”, demonstrates how the abuse of power by one individual can affect a whole group of people. In this case, the individual is the principal, who abuses his authority by deciding, “to ban Spanish/in the bathrooms” because he makes the assumption that students are talking negatively about him in Spanish. This is shown in the in the poem when Espada writes “The boys chatter Spanish/in the bathroom/while the principal/listens from his stall/The only word he recognizes/is his own name/and this constipates him.” He exerts his control over the students by enforcing this ban and no doubt causing the boys feel uncomfortable and excluded.

            In conclusion, each poem allows the reader to understand how the abuse of power can negatively affect people and cultures, and in Espada’s case, Latinos. The narrator evokes great empathy for the predicament of the Latinos when faced with the indignity of being considered inferior. Espada highlights how abuse of power can come from ignorance, racism, and disrespect, and how it can have such a deep affect on different cultures.