How the poems, “So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs away from Americans and “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” challenge prejudiced beliefs and Stereotypes about minorities in America?

How the poems, “So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs away from Americans and “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” challenge prejudiced beliefs and Stereotypes about minorities in America?

Introduction

Poetry is one way by which the authors use to pass the information on the status quo in the society or a way in which they communicate their feelings to the audience. “So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs Away from Americans” and “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” are seen to tackle the issues faced in the American society. Both poems are seen to be directly relating to the livelihoods of the people in American society. In as much as the poems reveal the feelings of the authors in American society, they also tend to tackle some issues affecting people in the community. The perception of Americans about employment opportunities and cleanliness in contradicted by the authors who seem to be passing a message that Americans have negative stereotypes of foreign cultures. Despite the notion of America displaying maturity in equality, the authors of both poems carefully detail their experiences in America, which showcase the challenges the minority groups go through in the United States.

How the poems challenge American stereotypes about minority groups

In “So Mexicans are Taking Jobs from Americans,” Jimmy Santiago Baca is seen to be opposing the views of Americans regarding the Mexicans in the American Job market. The poem touches on the relationship between Americans and Mexicans, whereby the Mexicans immigrants in the United States are considered to be illegally in the country and that them having jobs in America is perceived as illegal. As per the diversity of the American population, the Mexican immigrants can be classified under the minority groups; hence, the reason, they face the constant challenges in the United States. The claim that the Mexicans are out to take away the jobs from the Americans does not go down well with the author, who thinks the Americans are using the excuse to display laziness in looking for jobs. “O Yes? Do they come on horses With rifles and say, Ese Gringo, gimme your job?” (Baca, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3). The author tries to imagine how possible it is for a foreigner to come in the United States to snatch a job opportunity from a local. From the way the author brings out his content in the poem, it is visible that he fails to understand the stereotypes the Americans have against the Mexicans. Maybe it is an inborn stereotype that makes them not to be in good terms with the Mexicans. Despite the author being an American, he finds it disturbing on the way Americans have not yet come to terms with the presence of foreigners in the country. They seem to be uncomfortable with the foreigners working in the country while still being ignorant of the statistics of the working population, which shows that the prevalence of the majority groups in the corporate world. The few Mexicans in the jobs are seen in the negative perception as if they prevent the other workers from getting a chance in the job market. As per the poem, the author seems to be challenging the American perception of the honoring of everyone’s right to survival in the country by asking them to work hard indirectly instead of just sitting and hating on the works of the Mexican immigrants in the United States.

Mohja Kahf, in “My grandmother puts her feet in the sink of the bathroom at Sear,” showcases the Muslim culture in the United States. In this poem, the minority group highlighted in the American context is the Muslim community who have had to deal with the negative perception held against them by the Americans who, for many reasons, think of all Muslims as terrorists. The author in the poem is a Muslim immigrant in the United States and believes that living as a Muslim in the Christian dominates state is very stressful. It is alleged that before the 9/11 attack on the American towers, that left the country torn in pieces and with several Americans developing hate on the Muslim community. As per the poem, the author had gone with her highly religious grandmother to the supermarket when the grandmother decides to perform the usual religious ritual at the supermarket’s sink. Because she has been with her for the longest time, she understands the reason as to why the grandmother is washing her feet at the sink. However, being in a foreign country, it seems complicated for other people to understand what she is doing. “Respectable Sears matrons shake their heads and frown as they notice what my grandmother is doing, an affront to American porcelain, a contamination of American Standards” (Mohja, 2.1, 2.2) People who are assumed to be Americans in the poem tend to have a wrong perception about the Muslim community in the country. The poem is seen to focus on the discrimination the minority groups in the United States tend to go through in the country as a result of being affiliated with the Muslim religion. The author, in the same context as Jimmy Santiago Baca, is seen to be challenging the American population to take up the role of respecting the cultures of other people in the same context they respect themselves. I believe the poems are meant to pass the right message to the people of the United States about the impact of the discrimination activities on the minority groups as they are the most hurt by such vices. Living in the United States as a foreigner can be perceived as challenging due to the ability of one to be vulnerable to such discriminative activities like the discrimination the grandmother of the author of the poem faced when she tried to perform a religious ritual in the public arena. America is challenged to take up the ribbon of cultural diversity and get over the mentality of downgrading other people’s cultures like the immigrant cultures and, according to all people the respect they deserve.

Jimmy Santiago Baca, in his poem also, showcases how Americans have developed a misinterpretation about the role of the minorities in the country, especially the Mexicans. Through the use of different literary devices, the author showcases how people have become more focused on minor issues in the society that they fail to identify the real issues affecting them in the same society. As per the tone of the poem, the author sounds bitter about the misconceptions among the majority in the American population about the Mexicans taking away their jobs. For the author, it makes no sense how Americans can sit around lazily and then, in turn, blame the Mexicans for taking away their jobs. The misinterpretation of the Mexican duties in American society is seen to have developed to become a common problem in the United States as the people fail to recognize the real effort put in by the immigrants in developing the nation through the provision of labor. By the stereotypes held against the Mexicans, Americans are of the idea that all the jobs in the country are preserved for the original Americans and that the Mexican immigrants are up to no good for the country with their labor. Americans fail to realize that Mexicans are taking part in the development of the nation.; therefore, their services are not appreciated; instead, they are only envied on how they are accorded a job that was to be accorded to an American. The speaker in the first stanza accords the Mexicans the bad tittle they have in the American eyes; for instance, they are seen as bandits who snatch the jobs away from the Americans. “Do they mug you, a knife at your throat? Saying, I want your job?” (Baca, 2.3, 2.4). With such sentiments about the Mexicans, the author may be referring to how the Mexicans are categorized as per the dark Mexican past; they are seen as illegal people in the United States who are out to cause harm to the people in the society. Instead of being viewed as taking jobs from the Americans in an honorable way, the author showcases that the people think how they are out to snatch the jobs forcefully from the Americans. The poem is used to challenge the stereotypes held against the Mexicans in American society.

Through her poem, Mohja Kahf is seen to use the discriminatory incident she experienced when the workers gave them a dissatisfying look after her grandmother’s action of performing a ritual in the public avenue. The ability of the author to have been in the United States for an extended period made her understand the dissatisfaction of the other people to her mother’s actions. Instead of being embarrassed, she understood them and gave them a smiling face to communicate to them that all was okay and that such an act was not in any way offending the American culture. “I smile at the midwestern women as if my grandmother has just said something lovely about them and shrug at my grandmother as if they had just apologized through me” (Mohja, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4) The author, uses the incident to show the way the discrimination activities in the United States sank to low level to the extremes of criticizing religion. It is alleged that since the 9/11 incident, some Americans tend to be sensitive about Arab Americans. Therefore, the country should come up with specific alternatives to help in reducing the misunderstandings between the Americans and the immigrants.

Both the authors of the two poems tend to be pointing the finger at the American society for failing to recognize social diversity in American society, which incorporates people from different ethnicities. All the immigrants in the United States are subjected to unfair treatment by the Americans and are viewed as illegal people who gained unlawful access to the country. The authors are seen to challenge the American people to come up with appropriate evidence to support their unfair treatment of the other tribes in the country. Most of the foreigners in the United States fail to secure the required respect they need in the country as the majority population in the United States tend to be stereotypic against their wellbeing in American society. As per the poems, America is understood to be a metropolitan country in that it accommodates people from different nationalities ranging from its immediate neighbors like Mexico to people in distant continents like Asia, which is the origin of the Arab Americans. “I have washed my feet in the bathhouses of Damascus over painted bowls imported from China among the best families of Aleppo And if you Americans knew anything about civilization and cleanliness, you’d make wider washbins, anyway” (Mohja, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11). Both authors challenge American people to embrace diversity and appreciate other people’s cultures.

Conclusion

Poetry is seen as a critical weapon in the fight for the rights of minority groups, especially in the American context. Most minority groups in the United States tend to have it rough in surviving in the country due to the discriminatory acts they are subjected to by the majority American population. As per the poems, the authors not only highlight the plight of the immigrants in American society but also drive a message to the people on the need to appreciate and honor the presence of other people in the United States. America became the world’s superpower after the end of the second world war, and the acquisition of the title made it the number one destination for many immigrants, including Mohja Kahf, who is one of the authors in the poem. Therefore, the presence of several immigrant communities in the United States is a wakeup call for the Americans to embrace equality and acknowledge the existence of different cultures in their society. The poems generally challenge the Americans to take up their real responsibility of building the nation and shun away from ethnic discrimination.