America
There is a saying called “The American Dream”, as said in an article it is “The dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.” America used to be the land people dreamed to come to. In “Let America Be America Again” Langston says “Let it be the dream it used to be … seeking a home where he himself is free”. This shows that America was the land to be. Now America is big on immigrants coming to America, there are so many rules. Most people can not come as they please as they used to.
In English B his poem talks about him being in school at 22. He points out that he is the only color in the room. In his poem, he expresses his feelings about being colored and he says “I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races.” Langston has a theme in all of his poems, and they all refer to how hard it is living in a world where he is seen differently.
In “Heritage” from the book “Our America” Michaels talks a lot about the minorities of those who are colored. At the beginning of the chapter, he asks “What is African to me?” He gives an answer to what it means to him, in the answer, he states “Denying the idea of a ‘cultural genius’ that could be identified with an ‘innate’ or racially ‘African..”. This sentence led me to believe that someone was denied due to their race.
In both the poems and the book, they talk about racism and how it feels to be a minority in America. They both share the same ideas, but different writing forms.
Cited
“Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes – Poems | Academy of American Poets.†Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again.
“Theme for English B by Langston Hughes – Poems | Academy of American Poets.†Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/poem/theme-english-b.
“The American Dream What Is The American Dream?â€
Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/lessons/american-dream/students/thedream.html.
Eugene Domingue
Huma 2319
February 20, 2020
Minorites in America
The United States of America is and will always be a nation of immigrants. The United States would not be the nation it is today with all of the immigrants that brought over everything they did from their homeland. Immigration makes America what it is and is formative for what it will become. (Martin, pg I).
When Michaels writes in “Heritage†our America; people that denies its past cannot escape being prey doubt its value today (Michaels pg 125), and it must be instead onto logical claim that we need to know who we are in order to know which past is ours. (Michaels pg 128) I feel he is saying that what he is saying is to never forget where you come from even if you are in unfamiliar ground.
In the poems written by Langston Hughes, he also writes about what it is like to be a minority living in an unfamiliar world, or world that sees him as different. In “salvation†(1940), he talks about how his aunt took him to a church in order to be saved. Hughes talks about how he felt nothing even though he wanted to. However, later Hughes says he felt something just so he could fit in with the rest of the crowd. This is a great example of how minorities feel, all they want is to be accepted and feel welcomed.
The theme for English B was another poem written by Hughes, talks about the struggles he has in class. Hughes states; I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like the same things other folks like who are other races. This shows exactly how Hughes feels in his class being a minority.
The advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria written by Hughes (1931) who pokes fun at everything it has to offer. Hughes writes in such a way that makes it feel, as it is only exclusive to rich white people. It is written in such a way that it makes it feel welcoming while at the same time inviting the minorities to enjoy lunch. But doing so in a way that talks down to them.
In both Heritage written by Michaels and the poems written by Langston Hughes, it discusses what it is like to be black or minority in America. Michaels writes what makes blacks black is rather “the shared experiences of being visually or cognitively identified as black by a white racist society and the punitive and damaging effects of that identification†(pg 133). The idea that minorities especially blacks are viewed differently no matter their status in society needs to change.
Work cited
Martin, Susan Forbes, A Nation of Immigrants, 2011
Michaels, Walter Benn, Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism, Duke University 1995
