Jimmy Santiago Baca's Immigrants In Our Own Land

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Recommended: Discrimination and prejudice in modern societies

Being discriminated, singled out, and not included is commonly seen or experienced in today’s society. Those that have seen or experienced it understand the true meaning of the “other”. The “other” can mean not human, unprivileged, and seen as a minority. In the poem “Immigrants in Our Own Land” by Jimmy Santiago Baca, a concept of the other is displayed. In the poem, the “other” are the prisoners along with the speaker. Baca makes a connection with the prisoners as ther “other” by displaying the mistreatment and suffering they are put through. In “Immigrants in Our Own Land” Jimmy Santiago Baca builds the other through diction, imagery, and metaphors. Baca crafts the “other” with diction because of his specific word choice throughout the …show more content…

In the fifth stanza baca says “I look down and see new immigrants coming in,” (ln 55). In the title and in this line the author refers to the prisoners as immigrants. He means this metaphorically because they are in their own land but they are immigrating to the prison. They are not immigrants as seen today from other countries but Baca does this to seperate them as the “other”. In the last stanza Baca wrote “Some will make it out of here with hate in thier eyes, / but so very few make it out as human” (ln 65-66). The metaphors “hate in their eyes” and “make it out as human” shows the reader a deeper meaning. Hate cannot be literally seen but metaphorically could be understood. As well as “making it out as human” the reader knows that they literally do leave in a human body but metaphorically they are not who they usto be and prison has turned them into “other”. Through diction, imagery, and metaphors Jimmy Santiago Baca creates the “other” in “Immigrants in Our Own Land”. Understanding the true meaning of the “other” can be displayed in a variety of ways in this poem. As well as displaying the definiton of the “other” the reader can have a personal connection or realation to the

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