My Spanish isn't enough.

My first tone poem is Elena by Pat Mora, on page 854 of the Norton.



This poem speaks of a Mexican woman's frustration as her children grow up Americanized and she can no longer relate to them. In a sense it is nostalgic, as she remembers "how I'd smile/listening to my little ones/.../Vamos a pedirle dulces a mamá. Vamos." However, the next line, "But that was in Mexico." halts the reader and reveals a more bitter tone which continues through the rest of the poem.



It appears that her husband does not speak English either (because "'...he doesn't want you/to be smarter than he is.'"), yet still she feels "dumb, alone." While the woman feels this inadequacy and self-consciousness, her husband just sits idly by and "drank more beer," creating some subtle animosity between them because he does not support her and creating a wider blanket of that which the woman feels bitter and frustrated.



The irony of how her oldest child addresses her, starting in Spanish with "Mamá," but continuing in English, shows exactly the way in which her children and her new country make her feel inadequate. Her own children can no longer, or at the very least no longer try to, speak to her in Spanish, even though she struggles with the language. The desperation she feels to connect with her children and the world around her is apparent when she locks herself in the bathroom, practicing "the thick words softly." She relates her inability to speak and understand English to being "deaf," making the reader realize the dire need and necessity she feels to work past her shame and learn it.