In Elisa Gonzalez’s poem, “Failed Essay on Privilege” she speaks about her life, where she came from, and how privilege affected her. Gonzalez introduces her poem with the line, “I came from something popularly known as ‘nothing.’” With that, we take notice that the speaker put quotation marks around the word, “nothing” as if to highlight that society has categorized certain people into specific groups. Additionally, with Gonzalez’s use of the quotations, we can assume that she feels as though she was categorized into the lower class group. “My parents didn’t speak money, didn’t speak college.” This line makes us aware of the fact that the speaker was poor as a child, which allows us to be moved by her next line, “Still--I went to Yale.” Likewise,