Poetry is the aloud expression of feelings, is a mixture of cultures and at the same

time is a completely new culture. We realize that poems reflect all those conflicts
that people usually have in their communities.

The movement using poetry started by 50s but it was not recognized until the 90s,
and it was used to capture moments that Chicano people knew were important for
all the community.

Chicano culture have many different topics as we can image, but one of the more
important topic for us is the identity, we know that Chicano people are always in
the middle of two cultures and most of the times they are no accepted in any of
those cultures, but the main problem became when they does not feel in any of
that cultures.

As the poem “Skin I’m in part two” it reflects the feeling of a girl that is in the school
feeling completely different and how she proudly talks about her body and colour
but she notice how white are better treated than colour people, like in the bus,
white people are always at the front and the black people or colour people are at
the back, it is a very horrible thing, but it was part of that time, white people used to
believe, and many of them still thinking like that, white people are always better
than them. So young students thought that they were not part of that students but
they actually were.

A lot of people used to think that they are American people, but they were not
accepted as part of them just because their skin and another important part of that
poem is: My mom is real dark, Miss, she don't look nothing like me. Miss, do you
think I look like a Mexican? I don't look nothing like a Mexican. I'm a Latina.
There's no such thing as a Chicano, it's something people made up, either you're a
Mexican or you're not. What does that mean-Hispanic? I'm Cuban, Puerto Rican,
and El Salvadorian, from Belize; Honduran (We got black Hondurans, Miss) That’s
the colour of skin thing.” And then racism started to change how people feel, and
we realise that even “little things” affect how people see themselves and their own
opinion, like if I am not accepted here, I should be accepted there, but I am not, so
what should I do?

Poetry helps to make all those personal problems to become public and make
people realise that they are hurting and if they do not care, may be some Latinos
would care about that and they will do something because the purpose of Chicano
poetry is not just to write and sound pretty is to make people feel and make them
know about their problems and that they should talk about Chicanos because
some of them are American people and they also are Latinos.
Skin I'm In Part Two
Only little black girl at school and her white friends admired her ‘tan’
–“I'm brown all over” she told them, proudly motioning to all her body.
But skin color can be an issue
I remember the back of the bus-
although we rarely rode it because of that.
I remember for colored only water fountains
segregated schools and lunch counters for whites only.
I remember the caste system at my high school- black step back, brown stick
around, white you all right.
I think Langston Hughes captured the cadence of it.
Bright skin girls were queens and princesses, beautiful and fair.
Black girls were well, BLACK and that was supposed to be a negative.
And then a funny thing happened on the way through the sixties-
BLACK was beautiful and the skin color dynamics began to change.
It came out of the closet and was addressed by white, black, brown, red and
yellow people.
Now skin color is celebrated in all shades and hues although
I still hear teenagers at my high school (I'm a teacher now) say things like,
"I'm not sitting out here in no sun, I don't want to get any blacker than I am."
And of course prejudice has not disappeared it has mutated and we do have
stronger defenses against it in some cases.
Interestingly even skin color defines some of my "brown" students.
They react to the "darkness" of each other and their parents, relatives and
friends.
"My mom is real dark, Miss, she don't look nothing like me."
"Miss, do you think I look like a Mexican? I don't look nothing like a Mexican."
"I'm a Latina."
"There's no such thing as a Chicano, it's something people made up, either
you're a Mexican or you're not."
"What does that mean-Hispanic?"
"I'm Cuban, Puerto Rican, and El Salvadorian, from Belize; Honduran (We got
black Hondurans, Miss)” That’s the color of skin thing.

Bloody Bloomin Rose's

Ah, the bloom was on the Rose
yet, the taint of alcohol and drugs
looms nightmare like behind her baby pink cheeks.
Porcelain skin tones, raspberry rogue
nails to scratch and lift bits of dirty lucre.
She was clawing her way up,
and hopefully out, he hits her, “Slut,” he screams at her.
a sometime replacement sat beside him.
His Chicano inner-city drawl hurt her ears
and the fake diamonds studding them.
The new girl beside him
giggles…

When we realize how words, why do we really need to be so aggressive with people that
are a little bit different than us, it is pretty amazing how words hurt and how we use the
words in order to make us feel better, just because we believe that they should not be
accepted as part of them.

How we transmit all those negative feelings? They realize that Chicanos need to be
working in order to pay all those things than “American people” don not need to do, is like,
they need to do so many things in order to survive but they are not accepted at all, so they
are not part of them we could see this as part of the next poem:

Identity is how we really express ourselves, no matter where we are, is part of our
expression and how we take our roots and try to make a new culture when Chicanos
mixture their mother culture to the new culture, and sometimes we help to develop that
hate even here in México, when we look at them and then think “they are not Mexican
people they are pochos” because we already have an identity, and we do not realize that
we are not the ones that should point them out and say things, because we already have
problems with our identity, because of the age, of the problems, of the things that we have
in mind. Chicanos have so many things in mind, sometimes more than American people or
us, and they are looking for their place somewhere.

She’s due at work by nine,

grabbing a smooth wrap-top and a mock
grey skirt, she rushes from the room to the bank.
She can still see his long fingers playing in other girls cleavage.
Rose, well, Rose pays the rent. She strikes a teller’s pose
behind the formica countertop...

Long days, counting other peoples money

kindness, and sweetness sucked from her
like a ripe plum on a summers day.
She needs work, more work.
I asked her to help in the garden.
Long blonde, buxom, bending over weeds,
only six months to go to graduation
an associate degree…

Rose chuckles, “Look who I’ve been associatin’ with?”

I eye the twenty-five thou lottery ticket in my jean pocket.
“You want to move here Rose?”
“What would they do without me?”
I sigh, thinking of her alcoholic mother
off bingeing and her “boy fiend”.
The lottery windfall went for Rose’s college tuition.

The bloom is off the Rose now,

two hundred plus pounds later
strung out beside her Mom on a ratty couch,
she eyes the Diploma in it’s cheap black frame,
and rocks her baby girl
some things, never change….

*Names have been changed, and the amount given, but part
of the ending has truely come to pass already [sigh].
The rest is all true.

http://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/bloody_bloomin_roses_276744

As a manner of conclude this essay we should thing, are we really aware of all that
problems? Are we empathetic enough?
We learn during all the semester how we should difference the Hispanic, Mexican, Latin
and Chicano people, but even people that are living there are using different terminology
as the next example:
“I originate from this land, this continent,” said 30-year-old Cordova, who prefers to be
identified on both government documents and in social circles as Mexica. “It gave me
more firepower to prove it to other people.” (Pulido, 2012)
As we can see is pretty difficult for them to define who they are, how they should behave, which
traditions are going to follow? How are they going to talk to each other?

We can read so many thing, articles, novels, stories, poems, and so many different things but we
need to actually think over all those problems, compare the problems with all the written part and
share what we actually know, because the real reason of write all those things and murals is
because they want to be listen by the people around them.

However most of the people in united states believe that they are “ok” and they do not need to
ask for rights, but they are hurting people, because they do not let them be as part of the
developing their personal believes and be really sure of who are they and how proud they need to
be of being Chicanos.

To develop an identity is very important for society, as part of groups and countries, then we
develop our identity as part of social groups. We feel that is very difficult for teenagers here or in
U.S.A but is more difficult to try to develop an identity trying to fit in places that the rest really do
not want you there, and when you know that you may be accepted in other country, some of
them try to fit, as an example Chicanos (Mexican-american) that try to be happy in Mexico, but
when they are knowing the new country reject them because they are not a real Mexican.