18 pages • 36-minute read
In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes
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Symbols & Motifs
Washing Dishes in a Tex-Mex Restaurant
The dishwashing job that the father has secured in a Tex-Mex restaurant in Durango, Colorado, symbolizes the type of physically demanding and low-paying work often available to unauthorized immigrants. Rather than valuing his individuality, the restaurant staff gives him a nickname—“Jalapeño” (Line 2)—that reduces him to a stereotype, highlighting the casual bias that can accompany such workplaces. As he carries out the repetitive task of washing dishes, the job becomes a quiet symbol of resilience in the face of adversity.
That the restaurant is in Durango, an American town that borrows its name from an important historical Mexican city, further underscores the irony. Durango in Mexico is regarded as part of a heroic state that long resisted the invasion and occupation of European colonialists. In the poem, this name serves as a backdrop to the father’s experience, blending pride in his origins with the realities of his life as a migrant worker.
The restaurant’s focus on Mexican cuisine adds another layer of complexity to the father’s story. It evokes questions of cultural exchange and appropriation while illustrating how migrants contribute to industries that thrive on their heritage. A proud and strong individual, the father now works in a role that might seem invisible to others, reflecting how immigrants can be overlooked or undervalued in the broader narrative of the so-called land of opportunity.
The Father’s Belt
Two elements of the father’s belt—the word, “Sangrón” (Line 5), embroidered on it and the buckle featuring the iconic Aztec eagle from the Mexican flag—symbolize different aspects of his identity and experience as an immigrant.
The word sangrón is a colloquial term that loosely translates to someone annoying or difficult, often someone others might choose to avoid. When stitched onto the father’s belt, it suggests a sense of self-awareness or even a quiet acceptance of his isolation. It hints at his feelings of displacement and the challenges of living in a place far from what he had once envisioned as his dream.
The belt buckle, on the other hand, connects the father to the home and heritage he left behind. The image of the eagle recalls the defining myth of the Aztec empire: an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its mouth, an image embraced by Mexico after gaining independence from foreign rule in the 19th century. The symbol speaks to the resilience and strength of Mexican culture, which the father carries with him despite his physical distance from home.
This duality is reflected in the poem’s closing stanza, where the speaker, the father’s son, notes that the snake, emblematic of the proud cultural legacy, is now “torn” (Line 34). The observation conveys both loss and the enduring complexities of identity.
The Work Shirt
“In Colorado” is a legacy poem in that it echoes the enduring impact of a father’s experiences on his son. The father’s life as an unauthorized migrant worker becomes an integral part of his son’s identity. The son acknowledges this connection when he declares, “I’m an Illegal-American” (Line 12), the hyphen suggesting that the son, now grown, is still suspended uneasily between identities, uncertain about who he is and who he is allowed to be.
This inheritance is symbolized in the closing lines, where the son wears his father’s old work shirt. As a child, the son often borrowed his father’s clothes, which did not fit him properly, while they constantly moved across the West in search of work. Now, as an adult, he has grown into the shirt, a reflection of how his father’s experiences continue to shape him. The poem describes the shirt as feeling tight, as if stitched to the son’s skin, emphasizing how this legacy—though uncomfortable—remains a permanent and defining part of his identity.
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