Mora and Lim's Success and Failures in Essay

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Mora and Lim's Success And Failures In Defining American Identity

People from different, cultures, countries, and ethnicities have long viewed America as the land of opportunity. Pat Mora and Shirley Geok-Lin Lim offer differing views of what it means to be an American and how they define being an American. Because of their differing ethnic and cultural backgrounds, Mora and Lim conflict in their definitions of American identity. In "Immigrants," Mora explores American stereotypes of identity while simultaneously examining immigrant fears of assimilation and acceptance. In "Learning to Love America," Lim analyzes what America represents and how she views herself within American culture and society. Through a comparison of tone, theme, and definition of identity, Lim's poem and how she views herself is much more successful than Mora's poem and formation of identity.

Tone plays a major role in establishing Mora and Lim's perspective of America. Mora's "Immigrants" is reflective of her cultural and ethnic background, and reflects many of the fears associated with becoming an American. In the poem, fear is the prominent tone and helps the reader to understand the author's cultural background.

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In "Immigrants," Mora's fears are rooted in rejection and a failure to assimilate to a narrow definition of American, which includes extreme patriotism, hot dogs and apple pie, football, and speaking English in a "thick" accent (Mora ln 1-2, 4, 7). Mora emphasizes that parents' fears extend beyond the physical well-being of their children and often lead them to wonder, "Will they like/our boy, our girl, our fine american/boy, our fine american girl?" (ln 13-15). These ominous tones of fear makes it appear as though the immigrants in the poem are not secure in their own identities and are trying too hard to fit in and be accepted by American society. On the contrary, Lim's poem has a more hesitant tone that emphasizes her reluctance to embrace America as her country. Lim's hesitance can be seen through her repetitive use of the word because, which makes it appear as though she is trying to convince herself that embracing America is the right thing to do. Lim concludes her poem by stating,….....

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