Student Question
How does the poem "Legal Alien" represent cultural identity?
Quick answer:
"Legal Alien" by Pat Mora explores the complex cultural identity of Mexican-Americans, highlighting the duality and marginalization experienced by being "bi-lingual" and "bi-cultural." The poem portrays the speaker as "a token" caught between two worlds, perceived as "alien" and "inferior" by both Mexicans and Americans. This identity crisis is emphasized through language that reflects exclusion and objectification, illustrating how the speaker is judged and never fully accepted into either culture.
This poem by Pat Mora is about the cultural identity of being Mexican-American. Mora depicts this cultural identity as one that lies on the "fringes" of two worlds. She represents its duality through the use of Spanish phrases and words such as "Anglo," a term generally used by Hispanic peoples to describe those of European descent.
The phrase "bi-lingual, bi-cultural" begins the poem, and the word "bi-lateral" concludes it, but where "bi-lingual" and "bi-cultural" seem at first like enriching and beautiful things, the word "bi-lateral" is accompanied by the verb "pre-judged," expressing the truth of the speaker's own lived experience. In her experience, being part of these two cultures can often feel like being part of neither—Mexicans do not consider her Mexican, and Americans do not consider her American, so she is judged by both groups. She describes herself using the idiomatic metaphor of being "a token." As a token,...
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she can be passed from side to side without ever really being valued.
Mora's language to describe how she is viewed by both groups is discomfiting—"perhaps inferior," "alien." While she may be American, there is a condition attached: that of being "hyphenated" (i.e., Mexican-American). The speaker in this poem presents her cultural identity not so much as a coherent thing in and of itself but as a state of being exiled from both cultures from whom she derives.
What imagery is used in "Legal Alien" by Pat Mora?
Pat Mora's "Legal Alien" documents the difficulties faced by people who, like the poet herself, are "bilateral" or two-sided; they are "Mexican to Americans, American to Mexicans." The speaker in the poem describes the identity crisis as being "American but hyphenated"—the imagery here brings to legal definitions, indicating that the speaker is defined by her legal status, rather than by who she is as a rounded human.
The "bilateral" imagery reinforces this idea. "Bilateral" means two-sided, but it also has connotations of treaties and alliances, reinforcing the suggestion that the speaker's legal status is a divisive one which leaves her in a third space as "the other." The speaker is perceived as "exotic" and "inferior"; as a woman and as a Mexican American, she is objectified and viewed as a curiosity. She does not feel as if she fits anywhere.
Perhaps the most vivid imagery in the poem is that which depicts the speaker as "a handy token/sliding back and forth/between the fringes of two worlds." The speaker presents herself here as an object, able to move back and forth between two cultures but never able to rest comfortably in either; accordingly, she is deprived a share of her own agency. It is not up to the speaker to decide who she is or how she identifies: rather, she is "judged bilaterally"—both "sides" are prejudiced against her, wielding her as a token when it suits them and never letting her move beyond the "fringes" of their worlds into the center. The language of this poem is conducted entirely in fringes, edges, sides, and other extraneous spaces, highlighting the difficulty of the speaker's experience of never being allowed fully into any culture.