18 pages • 36-minute read
In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes
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Themes
The Importance of the Father/Son Dynamic in Latino Culture
At the emotional core of Corral’s poem is the revelation in the closing lines that the son, who has been sharing fragments of memories of his father, now wears his father’s work shirt, its buttons shining in the moonlight of his desert walk. He has metaphorically become his father. The speaker focuses on his perception of his father and his father’s struggle to maintain dignity in a strange land where his strength, courage, and devotion to his son are tested.
Latino cultures, including Mexico, traditionally place a strong emphasis on the role of the father. As the central figure, the father provides guidance and emotional discipline, commanding the family’s respect. However, the father in the poem faces challenges as an unauthorized immigrant, working menial jobs across the West and enduring daily indignities while raising his son. These hardships affect his sense of self-worth, leading him to cope with alcohol and grapple with feelings of inadequacy.
He understands the weight of his poverty—unable even to provide his son with a simple goldfish for company. His spirit is broken, like the window he talks about one night after he had been drinking that can only be broken once (Lines 26-27). The advice he offers to his son as the two sleep, homeless, under the Arizona night sky, suggests the wisdom of surrender, of not fighting for one’s beliefs, of abandoning ideals and compromising values just to survive. He tells his half-asleep son not to bother refusing to do what eventually you will have to do anyway.
In the closing couplet, the son ponders what he has inherited emotionally and culturally from his father. He reflects on symbols of cultural pride, like the Mexican flag on his father’s belt, as a reminder of what has been lost or compromised in their journey.
The Impact of Cultural Displacement
Corral examines the realities faced by immigrants navigating cultural displacement and prejudice in the United States. The speaker, who identifies himself as an “Illegal-American” (Line 12), is torn between pride in his Mexican heritage and the reality of living in an American culture that often reduces Mexican identity to stereotypes.
As the father and son move about the American West, they find only humiliation and debasement. Their journey mirrors a reversal of the historical American westward expansion. Rather than finding opportunity, they encounter insecurity, humiliation, and a growing sense of rootlessness. Their identity feels fragmented, and they find solace only in gatherings with other immigrants, where traditional Mexican ballads rekindle a fleeting sense of connection to their heritage.
The father’s decision to enter the United States without authorization complicates the cultural identities of both father and son. The son, sorting through the memories of his father, struggles to find the father he can admire or the culture he can embrace. Neither fully American nor entirely Mexican, both father and son inhabit a space between two cultures. The poem does not offer tidy resolutions, leaving open questions about what the son will take from his father and how he will shape his own identity. Symbols of cultural heritage, like the father’s ornate belt buckle and nostalgic songs, contrast with the son’s uncertainty about his place in either culture.
Language as a Vehicle for a Transnational Community
The poem’s bilingualism and code-switching reflect the duality of the speaker’s identity and offer insight into how language bridges cultural divides. For example, Lines 21 and 22 describe the father entertaining his “cuates” around a campfire, playing a “guitarra” and singing “corridos.” Corral intentionally uses these Spanish terms rather than their English equivalents, requiring non-Spanish speakers to step outside the comfort of their native language and engage with the poem on a different cultural level.
Spanish words, historical references, and cultural markers appear throughout the poem, emphasizing the seamless integration of two languages. This interplay becomes a defining feature of the poem. After all, if the son of the unauthorized migrant worker struggles to understand his identity in a land in which he is and is not a part of, the poem itself defines a solution. By not privileging English, by creating a seamless fusion of English and Spanish, the poem achieves what the son cannot: a balance of two cultures, a cooperation of Spanish and English.
In the poem’s opening stanza, language is shown as a tool of exclusion and dehumanization. The workers at the Tex-Mex restaurant where the father washes dishes do not learn his name, instead calling him “Jalapeño” (Line 2), a derogatory nickname. Similarly, the son notes how slurs like “Beaner” (Line 25) and “Greaser” (Line 25) are used to demean immigrants. Yet, within the poem itself, language is reimagined as a means of connection. The blending of English and Spanish creates a transnational space that transcends cultural boundaries and offers a glimpse of what coexistence might look like through language.
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