Being American Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Being American - Essay Example The author intends that the readers understand about the American identity of American residents. Most of them are from diverse lands and their parents or grandparents have immigrated to America after which, America has taken its current form. Belonging to a diverse cultural background, I can relate to the poem. ‘To the Lady’ is composed by Mitsuye Yamada. She expresses anger towards Japanese Americans and other Americans’ silence when Japanese Americans were captured in war camps. She as a Japanese American represents the voice of her people. She talks about a report in San Francisco by a lady which â€Å"why did the Japanese Americans let the government put them in those camps without protest?† (Yamada 523)and shows her reaction about the pride of American people and existent discrimination on the land.She uses the sentences â€Å"social order moral order internal order† (Yamada 523) to show discrimination in America. She uses the symbols of war in the poem such as ‘bombed’, ‘self-immolation’ and ‘six million’ indicating towards killing of Jewish people. She further refers to the famous incident of murder of ‘Kitty Genovese’ who got murdered on street.Being an American, every happening can be related to us. ‘Facing It’ is written by YusefKomunyakaa who is an African American ethnically. Komunyakaa connects his experience of being Black with the memorial of Vietnam War. The poet is standing in front of the Vietnam memorial reading names of people and finding his own. He sees his reflection in the memorial and considers that the difference between the memorial and him is that of stone and flesh. He can feel the pain of his history while the memorial cannot. He says, "My black face fades,/hiding inside the black granite" (Komunyakaa 525) showing his connectivity with the memorial. He also refers to a name, ‘Andrew Johnson’ written on the