Martin Espada

Martin Espada, a poet, writes to give a voice to Spanish people by illustrating the hardships they face. He tells of the effects of discrimination through the viewpoint of a Spanish person. Martin Espada has written many poems such as, "The New Bathroom Policy at English High School", "Two Mexicanos Lynched  Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877", and "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson". In these three poems depict different levels of discrimination towards Spanish people.
    In the poem "The New Bathroom Policy at English High School", Espada tells of a Principal of an English high school. The Principal bans the use of Spanish in the school's bathrooms because he hears kids talking about him in Spanish. This enrages him because he doesn't understand the language. The speaker says, "The only word he recognizes is his own name/ and this constipates him/ So he decides/ to ban Spanish/ in the bathrooms/ Now he can relax". I think that what the principal did in the poem is an act of discrimination. The Principal believes that he has the power, and right to ban a fundamental aspect of someone's culture. He seems to feel like he is superior. This feeling of superiority led him to be openly discriminatory.
    Martin Espada writes about an almost forgotten event in the poem "Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877". In the poem, the speaker says, "when forty gringo vigilantes/ cheered the rope/ that snapped two Mexicanos/ into the grimancing sleep of broken necks". The speaker talks about a very violent and gruesome killing of Mexicans in the 1800's. The event described is both troubling and hard for the reader to absorb. Also, in the poem the speaker says, "remain the faces of the lynching party:/ faded as pennies from 1877, a few stunned/ in the blur of execution,/a high collar boy smirking, some peering/ from the shade of bowler hats, but all/ crowding into the photograph." The witnesses of the lynching seemed happy to be there, enjoying the suffering and killing. They were inappropriately lighthearted, to a point of absurdity. The poem depicts a violent act toward Spanish people. This event wasn't acknowledged by most people. Espada wanted to educate the world, to make them more aware, that Spanish people are discriminated against. He is pushing for recognition through his poetry.
    The poem "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" is about the inner emotions of the speaker when his or her Spanish name is mispronounced. The speaker in the poem says, “hijack a busload/ of Republican tourists/ from Wisconsin,/ force them to chant/ anti-American slogans/ in Spanish,/ and wait/ for the bilingual SWAT team/ to helicopter  overhead,/ begging me/ to be reasonable.” Espada is writing about how non- Spanish people don’t respect Spanish culture. He talks about something as seemingly insignificant as mispronouncing someones name, as a form of discrimination. Espada wrote this poem to bring awareness to this problem and to initiate change.

    Espada reveals the true hardships of Spanish people through his own experiences and emotions. By writing poems, Espada is able to educate the world by creating awareness. He is pushing for change for Spanish people, however the message of acceptance is universal and applies to all groups of people. He gives people another lesser known point of view that the reader is able to use. He wants his readers to be accepting of everyone, no matter what their differences.