Race and Ethnicity - What It's like to Be a Black Girl

Race / Ethnicity

What It's Like to Be a Black Girl (Smith)

Child of the Americas (Morales)

Two that are different but the same, each writer of color speaking about color but on different plans. One poem is about race where as the other is about ethnicity, knowing the difference in race / ethnicity is what set these two poems apart from each other.

Themes and Corresponding Works

Race / Ethnicity

First when comparing to different works one must know the differences in what is being compared, these two poems are alike in many ways but also so very different from one another. Ethnicity is not just a person race, ethnicity is about tradition learned behavior and customs. It's about learning where you come from and celebrating the traditions and ideas that are part of the region

Child of the Americas (Morales, 1986) was about her ethnicity not her race she was speaking of the people that make up the Americas. Morales states "a child of many Diaspora, born into this continent at a crossroads I am a U.S. Puerto Rican Jew" in this part of her poem she saying I may have been born of another country my family roots may not have grow here but now I am a U.S. Puerto Rican Jew.

However race is your biologically engineered features, the color of your skin, eyes hair color and texture. Race is not something we can change or disguise, no customs or global learned behavior. Morales provides the reader with an assortment of different images that emerge from a varied colorful history which the current American nation has been formed, bringing to the forefront that Americans are now a combination of all different kinds of people making for a unique American.

Themes and Corresponding Works

Race / Ethnicity

Morales, is speaking on the fact that now America is truly a melting pot of so many different cultures. She mentions how her " first language was spanglish" and now with Spanish being considered a main language like English soon most those that only speak it In their homes will be doing it everywhere. We have millions of people that travel long distances and work very hard to reach the land of opportunity ( America ) . She consideres herself as a "child of America's" since there is no supreme or pure American we can all relate to Morales on some level. Every Ameica was born at a crossroads and this is what makes everyone whole, and influence is one why or the other. Morales shows us that a person personality and realization is through a background of a culture made through turbulent past, and effort of integration and preservation of cultures. And that it's through the knowledge of the diversity that Americans are Americans. She took her coming to America and becoming one with the country in which she now lives and gave us a positive poem that no matter the cultural background from which you may have come from you can read it and smile about either your background on a personal level on that of someone you may know. Morales poem was about millions of American people of mixed heritage who have spent the majority of their lives as the quintessential "others in society".

Themes and Corresponding Works

Race / Ethnicity

What it's like to be a black girl ( Smith, 1991) For those