Jimmy Santiago Baca's "Immigrants in Our Own Land"

I chose this poem because I live in Arizona, and as the entire county knows, Arizona has recently passed the most radical immigration bill in America. I do not agree with the bill, and find it hard to believe it could pass in the first place. Some radicals have even proposed that children born to illegal immigrants in the United States should not be considered American citizens. This proposal is a direct violation of the 14th amendment to the Constitution, and it is amazing to hear our government officials acting like such ignorant buffoons.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs his mouth about having had a couple of policemen killed by illegal immigrants, and claims that is one reason he is so tough on illegals. This is ridiculous to say, because many more police get killed by legal citizens each year. His approach to law enforcement shows that he is indeed racist. He spends more time worrying about crimes that might happen with illegal Mexican immigrants than worrying about crimes being committed by other races.

I believe Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Immigrants in Our Own Land” is a plea to American citizens to stop being so prejudice, even if they don’t realize they are. He talks about how the immigrant comes to America with a head full of dreams, promised the opportunities they were never afforded in their home country. Unfortunately those dreams don’t often manifest in reality. The message he is shouting is an imploration to try to make the system better: We are a country of immigrants, and though it has only been a couple hundred years, the majority of Americans seem to have forgotten that. They seem to think they have more of a right to live here than others. I don’t like this view, and would like more people to remember the words on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Lady Liberty welcomes the old and broken down, the young and poverty stricken. Nobody is denied their liberty.

As in the life he describes, Baca’s poem seems to progressively become less hopeful and more cynical. The first lines of the poem read “We are born with dreams in our hearts/looking for better days ahead” (lines 1-2). Even while some Americans may still think this is the land of opportunity, a quick look around will tell you that is not as true as you may think. It is not only immigrants that have a hard time in today’s society, though they do have it harder than typical citizens. There are many cases where you must be born into wealth in order to accumulate it. In this country’s past, men could reach the top if they had good ideas and were willing to sweat and bleed a bit to see them get achieved. This is hardly the case anymore, the wealth in this country is controlled by monopolies. Every major industry is monopolized now, which makes it extremely hard for new blood to come in and make a profit.

In the second stanza he describes the expectations the immigrant has, and the consternation he feels when he sees his fellows, “The old men who have lived here stare at us/from deep disturbed eyes, sulking, retreated” (Baca lines 16-17). This is the first sign of deception they see. They were told they would be able to finish school, learn a trade of their own, “But right away we are sent to work as dishwashers/to work in fields for three cents an hour” (Baca lines 24-25). They are told that this is not how it will always be, but taking a look around at those old men with sulking, disturbed eyes tells them otherwise. Yet they go about their work, clinging to the hope that life will eventually get better.

Immigrants who came from countries with brutal dictators cannot escape the men “who wore blue suits and broke our doors down/when they wanted, arrested us when they felt like/swinging clubs and shooting guns as they pleased” (Baca lines 35-37). This is the situation we will be facing in Arizona soon if it is not already happening. Jan Brewer claims that this bill is written as to not permit racial profiling, but there is no way it can be enforced without racial profiling. Even if it could, and the bill were written in such a way as to not allow any racism, who in their right minds thinks that the police always follow the law? Police do not have to follow the law, they can break it and it does not matter unless the accused goes to court to fight the charges, and even then, the citizen has to spend his precious time and money fighting the people who are supposed to protect and serve them only to see a cop get a slap on the wrist if anything at all. Police are not perfect beings, there are constant complains of police corruption. Who is to say that a policeman could not be racist, and is now given more of a right to legally harass the targets of their prejudice?

I believe we really need to do something about the way we accept citizens into the U.S. and how we treat these people. It has not been too long since full integration in the United States, and while seeds of hate do and likely always will remain and grow, the country has improved greatly in the last fifty years. Many people have no problems sitting next to a black person, African-American culture has greatly influenced today’s generation of children, and we are seeing in the young children the least racism ever experienced. Children today are growing up in a melting pot, realizing that people are all just the same, no matter the color of their skin. We need more adults to realize this, and try to put themselves into an immigrants shoes before saying the shoes are too comfortable.





Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “Immigrants in Our Own Land.” New Directions Publishing Corporation. 1990. June 18, 2010. Web. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179708