Different Faces of Multiculturalism in America in the Poems of Audre Lorde and Tato Laviera

In the late 20th century, writers and poets from different cultures and ethnicities like Audre Lorde and Tato Laviera started to take their places in American literature as representatives and defenders of their heritages as well as the multicultural structure of North American society. Because the literary perspective of the time was changing traditional ways and creating new styles, contemporary American poetry did not have a single style that defined it. Instead, each poet had their own distinctive styles that they adopted and adapted according to what they aimed to convey in their works.

While personal themes containing autobiographical elements from the poet’s life, like mental health issues or familial problems, were included in poetry, in the case of immigrant and multiethnic poets, the themes also consisted of the experiences of their people from their viewpoint. In the poems that belong to the aforementioned poets and will be taken as examples to evaluate in this paper, two different kinds of perspectives on the multiethnic atmosphere in America and its impact on the people are presented to the reader through different elements. Audre Lorde’s poem "Power" refers to the discrimination and hypocrisy towards black people in the US, and "AmeRícan" by Tato Laviera mentions the joy of having different cultures in one country and celebrates the perception of immigrants that changes for the better.

Audre Lorde uses a strong, brutal, and disturbing tone to express her rage at the mistreatment of people of colour by the dominant white culture and the government in her poem. The structure of the poem does not have a pattern to it, but the way the stanzas are split creates the effect of reading a tragic story with an introduction, development, and conclusion. At the beginning, Lorde sets a line between an oppressor and his defendants—or simply a person who preserves their silence in the face of violence—and the oppressed advocating for themselves against the injustice by comparing it to "The difference between poetry and rhetoric." Later, she depicts the death scene of a black boy who was shot by police because of his skin color, along with additional claims and criticisms of the police's lack of punishment and the people, including minorities, who accepted it as is. Lorde uses the lines "[...] the wetness of his blood / as it sinks into the whiteness / of the desert [...]" as a metaphor for the blood of innocent black people at the hands of white oppressors. She criticises the way people of colour are treated by the government, the police force, and predominantly white citizens. Finally, she concludes by projecting the governors' and citizens' actions onto the persona as an example, reflecting on society's hypocrisy. She unpacks the double standards of the people by writing, "and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed / a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time / Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are." With a serious and uncomfortable tone as well as a form like storytelling, Audre Lorde conveys her feelings and opinions about the situation of people of colour, especially the black citizens of the US, in this poem.

Tato Laviera’s poem, "AmeRícan", uses a melodic and joyful tone to reflect his excitement about the multicultural environment in the US through a celebration of a thriving and more peaceful America. The structure of the poem consists of three stanzas with the appearance of regular quartets and twelve stanzas starting with the same word, which stands out since they are indented to the right. This structure emphasises the pride the persona feels for being a part of the society he lives in. Several times, he uses the catchphrase "AmeRícan" to address minorities and his reader. He creates a mixed identity for the immigrants in the country with a new word, which indicates the fact that they are accepted as a part of this multiethnic land and are also allowed to preserve their culture and roots as a part of their existence, as he states in the following lines: "[…] defining myself my own way any way many / many ways Am e Rícan, with the big R and the / accent on the í!" Furthermore, he expresses this concept through cultural references like "[...] beating jbaro modern troubadours and crying guitars in romantic continental and bolero love songs!" Apart from the reflection of culture and the acquisition of a new identity, the reaction of people to these is also depicted and elaborated. In the eyes of Laviera, the citizens get more and more appreciative of this culture. He states that America is stripping itself of the hatred it had towards immigrants and different cultures, becoming a more embracing place through the following lines:

[…]

it all dissolved into itself, an attempt 

was truly made, the attempt was truly 

absorbed, digested, we spit out 

the poison, we spit out in malice, 

we stand, affirmative in action, 

to reproduce a broader answer to the 

marginality that gobbled us up abruptly!

Tato Laviera declares a new, peaceful, and admirable era for immigrants in the United States and appreciates the changing atmosphere in the country through the affirmative and excited tone, the structure that supports it, and the references as well as word plays.

The experiences and perspectives of the personas in these two poems and the poets are totally different from each other. Audre Lorde’s persona is angry and fully aware of the discrimination, hypocrisy, and hatred directed at marginalised people like herself. To reflect this, a serious and scolding tone dominates the poem with the help of the structure and figure of speech. On the other hand, the persona Tato Laviera created sees America as a fruit salad and appreciates the effort of including different cultures in one society. He presents himself and the people from the same heritage as being a part of this new community, which is colourful with different cultures, more loving, and more peaceful. The second persona’s experience with America’s view of minorities is a more positive one compared to that of the first one. Nonetheless, both poems depict the experiences of a multicultural country and how it operates through various styles, forms, and themes that challenge traditional poetry in accordance with the literary fashion and movements of the time.