"Mexican is Not a Noun" is a poem by Francisco X. Alarcon from the collection of poems From the Other Side of Night. The poem starts with a short description of the Watsonville cannery workers strike that occurred from 1985 to 1987. The dedication/description is made to students and faculty of UC Santa Cruz who were arrested while supporting the strike.

There are several themes present in this poem. For example, you could talk about the nature of oppression in the United States. A good line from the poem that relates to this idea is:

"Mexican"
is a life
long
low-paying
Job

This stanza focuses on the theme of minority oppression in the poem. The idea that being Mexican is an automatic sentence to low-paying work is a statement on the economic abuse that Mexican workers face in the United States. Economic discrimination is a way for the ruling class to ensure that immigrants and the children of immigrants do not compete or take part in the current system or gain power in the US.

Another possible theme could be on the dynamic nature of identity in the life of a person. "Mexican" is explained by the poet not to be a noun but rather as a verb. It is something that elicits action and does something to the person it defines. It can hurt, but it can also dream.

It's profound to think about identity as an active part of our lives, rather than something that describes us; if our identity just described us, it couldn't hurt us, and it wouldn't be something that we are made to feel ashamed of.