Poem Analysis: Legal Alien By Pat Mora

Culture: the beliefs, customs, art, etc. of a particular society. Being a part of a culture is amazing, diverse, and interesting until the conflict from being a part of more than one culture becomes involved. This type of conflict can even change the way you see your culture. In the poem, “Legal Alien”, by Pat Mora, Pat Mora depicts her culture colliding with another, causing cultural conflict. In the poem, Pat Mora is expressing how she feels as if Americans and Mexicans both treated her like a different species. “Their eyes say, “you may speak Spanish but you are not like me”, (line 12 and 13). Here, Pat Mora is talking about how even though she speaks Spanish, and is a part of the Mexican culture, Mexicans don’t see her as a Mexican. To

“After losing everything in China…She never looked back with regret.”(Chunk 1 ¶3). Jing-Mei’s mother is a Chinese immigrant with the typical ‘everything is better in America’ mindset. Jing-Mei, being raised in America, had more of an American mindset. “You want me to be someone i’m not…I’ll never be the daughter you want me to be!” (Chunk 6 ¶10). Jing-Mei feels as if she will never be able to please her mother because of their cultural differences. This causes cultural conflict between the two because they will never be able to please each other because they both have different mindsets, which they cannot see past. In the movie, “My big fat Greek wedding”, the main character, Toula, is Greek. In the Greek culture, Greek women are expected to marry Greek men, so when Toula begins to like an American man, her family disapproves. This causes cultural conflict between the two families. It wasn’t until the American man (Ian) was baptized by a Greek orthodox church, that the family agreed that Ian and Toula could get married. Their cultures were very different but in the end, they worked things