Immigrants by Pat Mora Term Paper

Immigrants" by Pat Mora

There are three underlying themes in the poem by Pat Mora entitled "Immigrants." The poem's main purpose is to convey what immigrants experience as they attempt to settle down into their new lives in America. The first theme has to do with the process of assimilation that immigrants try to have their families undergo through here. The second theme has to do with immigrants attempting to retain parts of their old cultures in their new homes. Finally, the third theme has to do with the anxiety immigrants often feel over whether or not their children will be recognized as American citizens.

Mora's most dominant theme within the poem has to do with how immigrants attempt to openly assimilate their families, particularly their children, into American society. Many instances of assimilation are mentioned here, beginning with the figurative meaning behind wrapping babies in the American flag. In order to successfully turn their babies into full-fledged American citizens, they have them adapt to various aspects of its culture.They have them eat American foods, give them popular American names, buy them well-known American toys, and try to speak to them in English. This is supposed to be accomplished while the children are very young, particularly from the time they are not old enough to walk yet.

Several instances of parallelism are made to reiterate this major theme continuously throughout the poem. Most of these have to do with parallelism of words and phrases. One of the beginning lines mentions about feeding them "mashed hot dogs and apple pie," which are similar in that they are types of American foods. This is parallel to the second and third instances of parallelism. The second instance occurs in the line where it is mentioned about immigrants naming their babies "Bill and….....