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Poem Analysis Of La Migra By Pat Mora

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La Migra is a poem written by Pat Mora about the Mexican - American immigration issue. It’s purpose is to acknowledge the emotions and sentiments of the Mexican immigrants who try to come to the United States illegally. The denotation of the poem’s title means immigration and the connotation is referring to the police officers standing at the Mexico-United States border. The poem is divided into two stanzas to acknowledge immigration through the different perspectives of the illegal immigrant and also through the eyes of the border police. The first stanza is through the perspective of the male border cop, who thinks his power and nonessential items make his superior to the immigrants. The cop is shown as an arrogant and proud American who takes pride in his first world luxuries. He talks about having boots, sunglasses and having a badge, jeep, and handcuffs, making him seem superior to the Mexicans who can “hide and run” but can not beat the cop’s …show more content…

She knows her superiority over the border cop by showing that her knowledge is worth more than his luxury items. She shows that his Jeep could “[have] a flat” and the sun could spot him, making his sunglasses of no use, and beyond that he has no knowledge of the desert whereas she does (22). She knows “where to rest, where to drink” and everyone around her speaks the same dialect and language as her (28, 29). She can sing and communicate with the desert and its natives and he wouldn’t understand a word of it. She expresses that her knowledge and Spanish is beyond his gun and boots. In the second stanza, when she says something in Spanish, she is indicating that his lack of knowledge of the Spanish language will hurt him as he doesn't know how the desert turns and behaves, even with all his “heavy” luxuries he wouldn’t be able to survive, that line is expressed with a tone of content that she won the game without the cop even knowing it

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