My found poem is from a poem on an online poetry site. It was done by the user ninamariaselenia and it is titled “Being Latina.” In this poem, she talks about what being a Latina means to her. I chose this because I am Latina as well and I am very proud of my culture. Over the past few years, there has been a lot of media attention on Hispanic people because of the immigration policies. There has been a lot of name-calling and racism towards this group of people, and it is something that has always made me feel incredibly frustrated. To label Hispanics as things such as “aliens” and “criminals” is downgrading and although I am aware that not everyone thinks like this, it makes me upset that there are people in this day in age that do. With this poem, the author is highlighting many of the good things about being a Hispanic woman. I decided to white out a lot of the lines and choose the words that I thought were the most defining. My goal is to make people think about Latin culture in a positive light rather than negative.
While I was creating this poem, I kept saying to myself how hard the assignment was and I was extremely fixed on making it make sense. However, I realized that Found Poems are not supposed to be properly structured with the correct grammar, it is about being creative while still conveying how you feel to others. While I was reading through this poem over and over, it made me feel empowered about my culture. I hope that other Hispanic people that read this feel the same way. This assignment also gave me a new appreciation for Zong! because writing a whole book this way must have taken a long time. It also made me appreciate the words and looking for a deeper meaning, rather than looking at the scattered words and skimming right through them.
Hi Miranda! I really really enjoyed reading your poem and your abstract. In relation to the poem, I absolutely love what you did. As a young Latina, I see what you did and how you take pride in our culture. There are a lot of things that different cultures can learn from each other but we have to be open about it and allow ourselves to learn about how other people have lived. As a Latina I have been raised to be independent and confident of myself and who I am as a woman, so the fact that this was included within the poem speaks truth to me. I also loved your drawings! Keep up the good work!