Literature III Poetry Assignment

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MY FATHER IS A GUITAR

My Father is a Guitar

Angelica F. Davis

South University Online

English 1300 Composition III/Literature SU 04

Dr. Charles Cannon

2/24/2020

Have you ever thought of the challenges that the immigrants living in the US experience? The outlook of the immigrant status in the US is exhibited in the poem "My Father is a Guitar” Martin Espada. The speaker’s father is a migrant from Puerto Rico who lives and works in the US. A serious cardiac condition has diagnosed him and the cardiologist recommended he stop working which he cannot. High cost of living forces the speaker’s father to put his life in danger by continuing working to pay the rent and avoid the imminent eviction. The speaker dad says “The landlord won't let me" (Espada, 2000, Line-6) stop working. He is also forced to work to buy the heart pills every month to manage his condition. One of the primary themes in this poem is poverty. Therefore, poverty is one of the fundamental challenges faced by immigrants in the US. It is facilitated by the inability to secure a well-paying job due to the lack of skills and needed academic and migration documents.

A portion of the poem that grasped my attention is "The heart pills are dice” (Espada, 2000, Line 7) in my father's hands, a “gambler who needs cash by the first of the month." (Espada, 2000, Line -10) Espada can see the danger and difficulty experienced by his father. The dad is struggling between the heart problem and the fact that he must work to pay rent and manage his heart condition. At the same time, his mother died, which accelerate the speaker's dad's health condition. After receiving the news of his mother's demise, the speaker says, "My father lurched upright in bed, heart hammering like the fist of a man at the door." (Espada, 2000, Line 15) This demonstrates the extent of struggle by immigrants' workers. The migrants are not allowed to obtain health insurance cover by the immigration status and even would not be able to pay the premiums if they had the chance. This increases the cost as they have to pay the medical expenses out of the pocket.

The poem builds a narrative that traces the family heritage from the father's experience as a working-class in the US poverty is one of the reasons that made Espada’s father migrate from Puerto Rico in search of a well-paying job and better life. However, the opposite of expectation is that the dad is still struggling in US due to the fact that he is a migrant and cannot get what he expected. Martin Espada employs vivid analogies and descriptive language with an aim of capturing the readers’ attention and the narrative of the poem. The first stanza creates an image of the scene of the dad with the cardiologist is created and imagine the bitterness when he says that his obligations cannot allow him to stop working. The speaker chose to directly use his father’s voice so that the reader can hear it directly from him. This scene develops a theme of the working class of migrants who still struggle with the high cost of living.

The statement by the speaker's father introduces the challenge faced by the working class and the conflict in the poem. The landlord is a symbol representing all the other institutions holding authority over the middle class. Espada’s dad does not voluntarily decide to put his life on danger, but rather, the circumstances force him as a result of rent and healthcare obligations. The institutions with authority hold the life and death of the speaker's dad, who represent the entire working class and, more specifically the migrants. Espada paints his father as a “Gambler who needs cash by the first of the month” (Espada, 2000, Line 9-10) to give exact emotional distress and pressure he undergo to pay his bills. The father passes the legacy of the working class and struggles with his son despite the dream he has for the dad.

Migrants have hopes of getting a well-paying job and experience better live. However, this is not always the case, as evident in Martin Espada’s poem. His dad struggles to pay the bills up to the point of putting his life in danger since the obligations cannot allow him to stop working. Access of affordable healthcare is one of the challenges faced by the working class which is represented by the speaker's dad. High cost of living in the other problem shown by the eviction notes from the landlord. The struggles to pay the bills by the working class cause emotional stress. The institutions having the authority hold life and death of the working class and can, therefore, be blamed for this situation.

References

Learning, C. COMPACT Literature: Reading, Reacting Writing, 2016 MLA Update. [South University]. Retrieved from https;//digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/9781337517867/