In Martín Espada's poems, "The New Bathroom Policy at English High School," "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson," and "Tw Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877," all explore ideas of racism in the United States. The first shows the discomfort of a principal, the second shows the anger of the speaker at his name's mispronunciation, and the final is the story of a lynch mob "executing" two Mexicanos. All three poems involve discomfort and often the transfer of it.
"The New Bathroom Policy," tells the story of a principal who bans spanish in the bathroom because of his discomfort. The principal fells that he must know what all of the kids are saying in order to fell in control. the poem states that, "The only word he recognizes/ is his own name/ and this constipates him/ So he decides/ to ban Spanish/ from the bathrooms/ Now he can relax." The principal is uncomfortable in the bathroom but by taking away the use of Spanish in the bathrooms, he isn't allowing students to speak their first language with their peers. Also, in reading this poem, the use of the word, "constipates," makes the reader feel discomfort, bringing them into the setting of the tension in the bathroom. While the principal believes he is justified by making himself more at ease, his students are forced to speak a language that they may not know well or speak fluently, causing a sense of alienation in them.
In "Revolutionary Spanish Lesson" the speaker transfers his annoyance of the mispronunciation of his name to people who he sees as racist and don't make an effort to assimilate. In the poem the speaker fantasizes going out of his way to make others uncomfortable by personifying their view of Latino men. The speaker imagines going to, "put on dark eye glasses/ push my beret at an angle/ comb my beard to a point." The speaker feels that he should represent the stereotype of how racists perceive latino men. Another way the speaker fantasizes about bring discomfort on the racists is by forcing, "them to chant/ anti-American slogans/ in spanish" The people he imagines doing this to consider themselves patriots and the representation of a true, "American" but being put in a position of being forced to speak an unknown language is similar to immigrant children in America schools.
In "Two Mexicanos," the speaker feels uncomfortable looking at a photograph of people crowding into a photograph after a lynching. Thee poem expresses how the speaker looking at the picture is most disgusted by the fact that all of the lynchers are trying to get in the photo after their actions. The first three stanzas are spent, "more than," one sad part of the picture, but the last stanza explains how the part that makes the speaker most uneasy is how the lynchers are, "all/ crowding into the photograph." Discomfort is also shown by some people in the photo graph. the poem states that in the lynching party, there were, "a few stunned/ in the blur of execution," showing how after lynching two men, some feel possible remorse, or don't want to be captured into a photo. In this poem the discomfort is mainly felt by the speaker, who is disturbed by the photo.
In his poems, Martín Espada, uses the ideas of discomfort to show the feelings of people both latino, and conservative, predominately white. Often times, in order to regain power and a sense of ease, someone who feels threatened tries to put others in discomfort. The principal takes away the comfort of language from students in the bathroom, a man angry about the mispronunciation of his name fantasizes about forcing Republicans into an uncomfortable position, and someone viewing a picture is disturbed by the eagerness of people to get in the shot after a lynching has occurred. But most of all, Espada tries to evoke discomfort in the reader causing strong feelings in them.
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