Poetry Analysis: Things Chinese, Essay Example

portrays the way immigrants who come to live in America are affected by racism. The poem alludes to many issues, such as the way that the media talks about immigrants, which can stop them from progressing towards obtaining an education.  Within the poem Su discusses immigration and how these people within society are affected by the amount of money they do or don’t have.Throughout the poem, the author develops the argument that immigrants bring culture into our society, through language and traditions, and so we should be more willing to abolish inequality and racismin order to give these people a chance at making a better life for themselves.

Adrienne begins her poem by discussing her experiences with America.  In America, she can create herself as a whole new person and see new places and from these experiences, she can create a whole new poetry. In America everyone is free to do anything they want, this is the definition of freedom, which she refers to as liberty. She goes on to discuss the places where she lived in the past.There, they were far away from everything, from everyone. They had their own rules and ways to manage their lives. The major thing that managed their relations in the new world was the cultural diversity. In the old, there was a very uniform way of living in the past, centered on the roles of gender and sexuality.She relates this all to racism, which she talks about a lot in this poem.

The poem itself is her way of talking about the racism she was born into.  She says that it “Eliminated most of [her] family, starting with the grandparents”. In this part she wants to show that the inherent racism within how America perceives its history. There is a relationship between her writing about racism and her grandparents. Two of her grandparents stayed Chinese to their final days while the other two did not. Instead they are defined by their Chinese way of living and their traditional food. The author tried to learn this from them.

Facing these challenges shaped the author’s outlook on life in various ways. First, it stopped her from going to the university that she was attending because it excluded the only foreign language she could talk in which was Chinese. Second, it changed her parents in their early years in America. They converted to 1950’s Georgians, which was a very important part of racism in U.S. history.  It converted them even though they lived like anyone else. They attended church, schools, and lived like anyone there.  She gave an example of how her father never asked anyone for anything. She says, “My father had never paused at two water fountains.”In this way, Adrienneshows us that her father had self-esteem.

The author discusses how people can transfer their knowledge and beliefs fromone place to another through migration and the things the immigrants brought with them to the places that they migrated to.They took with them their ideas and hobbies, their music, and gifts, and even their pictures.  The author mentions the importance of In Seventeen’s Solo, which is kind of music that was popular in Taipei – the capital of Taiwan. They took everything so that they could remember who they were and where they were originally from. They did this because it’s hard for someone immigrate to another place.

They also brought their language.  People who immigrate to the United States talk their original language in addition to English. This brought them and their children together because they didn’t need to explain what they are talking about to one another, there was no need for it.When a country has a lot of different nationalities it will alsohave a lot of languages that are in use.It can be a benefit to where they migrate to by making them adept at learning a new language and how to talk with the people in the new area. Adrienne’s mother brought all of these things to the United States, in Gainesville.  Her mother had never intended to immigrate anywhere.  When they did move to America, she took with them their way of life and their language.

Next, the author discusses the relationship between the media and native people.She says that she “couldn’t write anything decent, because banned information kept trying to enter”.  She needed the freedom of information to be inspired.  She also mentions Bungled Idioms, a T.V. program that gives information about and airs speeches on the foreign people living within the United States. In the end, she couldn’t push herself to write because she received so much negative information from the media. This, the author claims, is how immigrants feel.They cannot focus on their lives or on work because they are bothered by so many things T.V. and radio.

The author mentions the Health Maintenance Organization(HMO) and why she disagrees with them.The HMO works from within the totalitarian Chinese government.  She disagreed with the HMO because they wouldn’t pay for a specialist when one was needed. She was disgusted with how they are paying for the people who die. She was thinking about an idea that she has hoped for.   This is to exceed the unholy condition of worldly being. She wants to reach this hope through the use of dissolution of description and story-telling.  This, she believes, could be a secondary thing if she tried it with the people.

In the last stanza, she talks about the economy and its relation with humanity. She noticed that everywhere she went there was always the circumstance in which people are respected based on the amount of money they have.This tendency is everywhere and anyone can see that those who have money can get respect from others, but those who don’t have it can also get a respect, but not as much as the others.The author states at the end of the poem that “all of it strangely tainted by [her] very presence”.  By this she means that when people live together bad and unusual things can happen.

“The hope was to transcend the profanity of being through the dissolution of description and story, which I thought might turn out to be secondary.”  The first noticeable poetic device used by Su is alliteration, the repetition of consonant sounds.  “Person, place, and poetry” starts the poem off in a way that draws the reader’s attention. There is also a hint of rhyme at the beginning, between the words “diversity” and “sexuality” and so forth. In this way, she further advances an interest from the reader that keeps them moving forward. Another device used is repetition, the repletion of certain lines such as “Two of whom.”  This repetition is a good way for her to drive home the idea that the two were as one despite the issues that they faced.

Throughout the poem, Su uses rhythm to continue to draw the reader’s attention by creating a slight meter.The line “Like bungled idioms in the speech of a foreigner” is an example of simile, comparing one thing to another, and she does it in order to compare the awkwardness of foreign speech to laws banning foreign practices. Finally, the author uses hyperbole to describe her experiences.  “But everywhere I went there was circumstance, all of it strangely tainted by my very presence.”  In this way, she shows how racism shaped her view of the world in a negative way.

In conclusion, Adrienne Su talks about many things in “Things Chinese poem”. First, she talksabout the media and how it can affect people’s minds. Then, she talks about her town in china and what control the relation there. She discusses the racism in the United States and gives examples of how it affected her grandparents. Later on she talks about immigrant and how it is difficult for people to move to a new place. When they go to a new place and live there, they bring with them everything from their homelands. This includes their language, their way of thinking, and their traditional ways of life.After a while, they start to change their way of living here in America.

She also shows how these people have a strong sense of self-worth and they will never ask anyone for anything.  She discusses the HMO and how they stoppedpaying for the poor patients. Her poem is a relation between racism and money.  It shows how so many things depend on money. In the end, Things Chinese is a poem that gives stark example of various types of racism and how it has affected immigrants insociety both abroad and here in the United States.

Works Cited

Su, Adrienne. Things Chinese. Sanctuary. Manic D. Press. 2008. April 2014.