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Analysis of “Child of the Americas”
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Check My Assignment!Many people in the American culture maintain some sort of archetypal concept of what an American should be. When one tries to explicitly define what it means to be an American one hinders his or her ability to see beyond race, religion, and culture; one ultimately creates a narrow-minded notion of America’s true nature and fails to fully acknowledge the main principle the country was founded on, an amalgamation of unique races, religions, and cultures. Aurora Levins Morales’ “Child of the Americas,” written in 1986, is an insightful poem that uses key literary devices, such as form, metaphors, and culture, to convey the message of what it truly means to be an American in a way that shows Americans come in many forms. The form of “Child of the Americas” has a unique impact on the reader in that the beginning of the poem focuses on what the author is, the middle of the poem focuses on what the author is not, and the end reasserts the main theme of the poem. Morales states, “I am a child of the Americas” and openly defines her own experience as an American (as cited in Clugston, 2010, 12.2). What is most interesting about her form in the beginning of the poem is that she explains she is an American, who she is, where she came from, and, most importantly, that she was born in the “crossroads” (as cited in Clugston, 2010, 12.2). With this simple explanation, she goes beyond her experience as an American and expresses the point at which all cultures collide and become one: the crossroads. According to the Universidad de Huelva (n.d.), Morales is expressing the idea that “diversity is a source of power and home is everywhere.” Toward the end of the poem, Morales tells us what she is not. She is not African, Taina, or European, although the cultures of those societies flow through her veins. She resides in no other place than America, but aspects of other places reside in her, thus capturing the true essence of an American. At the end of the poem, Morales states “I am new,” “History made m
