“There’s never been equality for me, nor freedom in this homeland of the free.” America never was America to me! Both poems were written about the American Dream and how it benefited some people, while not so much for other people and the two poets wrote about how America seemed at the time they were living. “I Hear America Singing” and “Let America be America Again” are two popular poems from history and they have their similarities. Both of the poets are writing about America. More specifically they are writing about the American Dreams based on opportunities. They both live in America and they state the way they see things through their own eyes. Throughout each poem they list the individuals in which they are describing and talking about
Within Ellis Island by Joseph Bruchac, On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley, and Europe and America by David Ignatow there are different views of what the American Dream is and what it means to immigrants. Each author writes about their own experience of immigration and life in America, which shapes their view of the American dream. The common theme between the three poems is the variable nature of the American dream and how it has different meanings for each person coinciding with contradictions between leisure and suffering.
“I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek.” In the poem “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, the reader here’s from two different speakers, and how they both seperately want America to change. One of the speakers wants America to go back to what it was before, while the other responds in small comments, building up to say the quote you read at the beginning. In the poem “Let America Be America Again” the author has two separate speakers with contradicting thoughts, the author relates to problems that were happening in the real world, and how the author’s rhyme scheme is a vital component to how this poem reads.
In some of the pieces of literature like “I, Too, Sing America,” “America and I,” “The Bill of Rights,” and “Veterans Day: Never Forget Their Duty” the authors have different ideas of what it means to be American. They also express their ideas using different strategies: negation, classification, and function. With these ideas and strategies a more complex definition on what it means to be American was developed. Being an American means being patriotic, having freedoms, and believing in a dream of something amazing. Having patriotism is part of being American.
America is a place where countless diverse ethnicities have accumulated over time, mingling together to establish the American culture as we know it today. Although the pieces themselves are differing from each other, they actually have a few similarities. They both discuss the point that America is from a plethora of cultures and there is no “stock” American. For example, an excerpt from A Quilt of a Country:”That’s
America is a land of immigrants. People come from all parts of the world to experience the American dream. These two pieces of literature are focused on Japanese Americans and Mexican Americans. In the Poem which resembles a letter, In Response to Executive Order 9066 by Dwight Okita. The author is writing about a fourteen year old Japanese girl.
American Dream Does the American Still hold the American dream? I believe that it is very possible for a citizen of America to live that tradition American Dream; paying bills without worries, giving their children a start to an even better life then they had and still save enough to live comfortably after they retire to live that happy free life. In reading "Let America Be America Again," it sites in line four of the poem "seeking a home where he himself is free." That represented the people's freedom and with the Declaration of Independence that will protect our freedoms and rights .
Hi Azaliaiza, I totally agree with you when you say that both authors focuses on how they feel unaccepted by society in the United Sates and Mexico. Nevertheless,it is true that both authors express the struggles of being Mexican American but also in Americo Poem he expresse the advantage of being Mexican America when he says that we get to celebrate more holidays since we come from two different cultures.
“Choices made, whether bad or good, follow you forever and affect everyone in their path one way or another.” J.E.B. Spredemann. The theme I chose to analyze is choices and consequences. For this type of writing assignment, I’ve decided to choose the following readings. The poem titled Harlem was written by Langston Hughes in 1951.
The tone of Langston Hughes’ poem “I, Too, Sing America” is determined and talks about how “tomorrow” he will do what he pleases instead of doing what his master
The beginning of the poem implies the land, mines, office towers, and factories belong to the rich, but the end of the poem implies all these things belong to the American people as a whole. The most obvious display of repetition is at the beginning and end of the poem. In the beginning of the poem, it says, “That the land might be ours, And the mines and factories and the office towers” (Lines 14 and 15). It goes on to say “That the plants and the roads and the tools of power be ours” (Line 17). The second example of this repetition is at the end of the poem, “Takes land, Takes factories, Takes office towers, Takes tools and banks and mines” (Lines 58-61).
America is well known as the land of the free and the home opportunity. Although it is said everyone is equal in every way, that has not always been the case. Langston Hughes is a poet who tried to emphasize the idea of equality among all human beings. Hughes underlined the basis of the American Dream with what is and what should be in the societal era he lived in. In hindsight he believed his poems helped others realize the injustices that all minorities had to face during this era.
In the two poems the reader can see many examples of figurative language. In the poem, “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman
First, they are written around the same time period and both about blacks being discriminated. Both the poems gave African Americans a little bit of hope that one day they will be allowed to be around whites and looked at as the same. These poems may be different, but they both have the same meaning. If anyone is going through a rough time in their life, they can overcome it. Blacks were treated terribly and went through some of the roughest times, but they never stopped fighting and never lost hope.
Poetry, perhaps more than other genre of writing, often sparks controversy and discussion. Authors Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes are two authors in American Literature whose poetry is both debated and praised by critics. "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman and "I, Too, Sing America" by Langston Hughes have sparked many discussions on their controversial content. Walt Whitman was the first of the two authors to write, followed by Langston Hughes who was influenced by Whitman's work. While Whitman's poem, "I Hear America Singing" reflects the happiness of the American people, the poem written by Hughes takes a different approach.
The second speaker also reshapes the first two lines of the entire poem into a plea to the majority. Beforehand, the first speaker uses those lines as a call for the old American spirit to be revived: “Let America be America again / Let it be the dream it used to be” (1-2). Both speakers change the meaning of the lines to express their thoughts on America. As a result, the poem expresses the desire for everyone to be treated equally in the land of freedom. The readers can relate to the speaker because they wish that everyone has equal rights in the country that proclaims itself to be the symbol of freedom.