american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

136 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY
Mexican (im)migrants do have agency in their ability to transform
English, but there is something more invidious at work as well. In the
second line, Valdez’s speaker begins to suggest that what immigrants
will actually learn is service industry English. Although English is
“Latinized,” it is also “ingles con chile y cilantro” and “English
as American / as Benito Juarez,” that seedy tourist trap on the Texas
border. In a parodic voice the speaker urges her students to learn
English so that they can be subservient to white customers. The lines
lampoon actual fly-by-night ESL classes that promise future good
fortune if the potential student learns English. I recently noticed
numerous advertisements on New York City subway trains for ESL
classes. The Spanish headlines promised: “Aprenda Inglés. Conoce
Amigos” (Learn English. Make Friends). In the poem, Valdez’s
speaker makes unrealistic promises too: “Learn the language of
dolares and dolores, of kings / and queens, of Donald Duck and
Batman. Holy Toluca! / In four months you’ll be speaking like
George Washington.” Valdez’s teacher/advertiser initially mentions
that English is the language of money and sorrows (“dolares and
dolores”) in a remarkably fortuitous combination of Spanish
words that sound almost exactly the same—in linguistic terms a
“minimal pair.” After equating dollars with pain and sadness, the
speaker regresses further into the realm of fantasy. No one, except for
children, would want to speak like George Washington, cartoon
characters, or superheroes. The speaker here sells American culture
and fantasies about it, not language skills, just as the subway advertisements
prey on immigrants’ loneliness, insecurity, and desire for
acceptance.
Worse than the comic overtones of learning to speak like Donald
Duck, Batman, and George Washington is the likelihood for many
Mexican immigrants that they will spend their lives waiting on the
wealthy descendants of Washington. For this potentiality, after “four
weeks you can ask, More coffee?,” and “in two months / you can say,
may I take your order?” If the student is persistent or merely seeks to
survive in the United States, “in one year you / can ask for a raise,
cool as the Tuxpan River.” These lines are the most sarcastic of the
poem; they condemn the use-value of English when thought of solely
as a way for immigrants to earn money. They also implicitly denounce
the low glass ceiling for these same immigrants, but they also embody
a type of morbid humor, a laughing-at-the-gallows sensibility, and a
knowing subversiveness.
Throughout the poem, the speaker connects English with the
places, sensibilities, and languages of Mexico. The first metaphor