american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang

146 AMERICAN POLITICAL POETRY
Even if upon first reading Mariano does not appear to “understand
his rights,” after some consideration it is obvious that he does. When
the Interpreter translates the Judge’s question for the Prisoner—
“¿Entiende usted sus derechos?”—the Prisoner replies with an
exclamatory expletive: “¡Pa’l carajo!” This phrase is an elusive one for
non-Spanish speakers. A colloquialism, it can be translated numerous
ways, including variations on “prick,” “shit,” and “damn it!,” but the
one most appropriate here is a resolute, angry “Go to Hell!”
The Prisoner, it appears, understands his rights quite well. He seems
to know that he has none, so his response is given in kind. As such,
the Interpreter has no choice—“Go to hell!” equals “Yes,” or more
appropriately, hell yes. The implication is that whether the migrantprisoner
responds actively or passively, the result will be the same.
Given the title, Mariano’s explanation of “Yanqui Colonialism” is just
that: “¡Pa’l carajo!” Mariano suggests that U.S. imperialism tells the
rest of the world, especially Latin America: go to hell; the only rights you
have are the ones we allow you. Mariano explains this colonialism
succinctly and venomously, but unfortunately seems to remain under
its boot heel.
To reiterate, it is important that we know nothing about Mariano’s
alleged crimes. I argue that they consist of his transgression of neocolonial
economic structures; his voice, moreover, is the migrant
Spanish-speaker’s voice, and it threatens “American” identity. Espada
thus opens the door slightly for the reader as “Interpreter,” suggesting
that bilingual readers are responsible for mediating between cultures
in contact, for facilitating real dialogue, and for insuring that the powerless
poor can speak in more than expletives. This potential voice represents,
in part, Espada’s notion of advocacy. Santa Arias sums up this
imperative in the suggestion that Espada’s work “has to be viewed as
a bridge between First and Third World culture and politics” (237).
Similarly, Gareth Williams “speaks of the need [for scholars] to mediate
rather than dominate discourses of cultural exchange between
Third World cultural production and First World institutional sites”
(qtd. in Gugelberger 16). Espada’s poem is just such a mediating
intervention, but one that creates a microcosm of the failures of
north–south relations in the Americas.
The relationship between constituents in this poem, finally, reflects
a variety of non-encounters between the powerful agents of Western
free-market capitalism and the migrants traveling from south to
north. In his essay on Levine’s poem about Hart Crane and Federico
García Lorca’s 1929 encounter in Brooklyn, “On the Meeting of
García Lorca and Hart Crane” (The Simple Truth 1994), Carl Good