Poem Analysis: Legal Alien By Pat Mora

Pat Mora, a Mexican-American poet, wrote “Legal Alien to portray the theme “all people- no matter what race, culture, ethnicity, etc. - are all created equal. The poems tone, conflict, and metaphors all builds this theme. In “Legal Alien” the speaker starts off saying she is “Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural” and continues to tell how easy it is for her to go from Spanish to English. This poem starts out to be calm and relaxing, but starting on line 8, the tone completely changes. The speaker states “American but hyphenated,” and continues to say, viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic/ Perhaps inferior, definitely different” when the speaker said this, she is really saying “To me I am an American citizen, but to you I’m an ‘American’” and “Because I wasn’t born or grew up on American soil others find themselves more superior, when in reality everyone is the same.” Not only is the speaker judges by American but she is also judged by Mexicans “An American to Mexicans/ A Mexican to Americas” Either way, the narrator is rejected. In the last lines the speaker just learned

How she has to live her life knowing she won’t be able to be truly accepted by everyone. The conflict also contribute to the real world. Alien is a foreigner, if an “Alien” were to come into a closed in group, not many will accept the new person. They may ignore them, or pass judgement on them because they are different. Aliens are “oddballs”, and them coming into a new environment is even more stressful than some may think. The speaker has to adapt to new lifestyles, and people she isn’t used to, the she also has to deal with the stress of leaving home. By leaving a country, an individual could encounter judgement for leaving. They could be living there for years, and moving would disrupt the social order. “An American to Mexicans/ A Mexican to Americas” also means your old life may never accept you again, and your new life also won’t accept