Immigrants by Pat Mora

¶ … 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 Daisy" which are examples of popular American names.

The third instance occurs in the lines that mention about two types of American toys, which are "blonde dolls that blink blue eyes or a football and tiny cleats." The second major theme within the poem has to do with how immigrants subtly attempt to have their families retain certain aspects of their old cultures.

It is briefly referred to by Mora when it is mentioned that immigrants should "whisper in Spanish or Polish when the babies sleep." This is in contrast to the poem's dominant theme, which is that immigrants should "speak to them in thick English." The contrast is used to demonstrate that while immigrants must openly reveal how they are assimilating into the dominant culture, they can only inconspicuously try to keep their families familiar with aspects of their old culture.

The only instance of parallelism that occurs in relation to this theme involves parallelism of clauses. The parallel clauses "speak to them in thick English" and "whisper in Spanish or Polish" are similar in that they are both forms.