The poem I identified the most with was “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora. I identify myself with this poem the most because she explains the cultural tension present in the lives of Mexican Americans, and as a Mexican American, I know how difficult things can be just by being “bi-cultural” (653). For many people of both races, we can be considered to be too Mexican for the Americans and too American for the Mexicans. I come from a family where both my parents and. mostly all my aunts and uncles where born in Mexico, so Spanish was my first speaking language despite the fact that I was born in the United States of America. I learned English while I was growing up and did not go into a fully English class until second grade so my accent was still there by then. Now, I am “able to sit in a [classroom] drafting memos in smooth English, able to order in fluent Spanish at a Mexican restaurant” (653). By being a bilingual Mexican-American I sometimes also come across the struggles of wanting to make a Spanish word into English or vice versa, or you speak "Spanglish" without thinking about it and this language is very obvious in my casual conversation with friends to my papers for some classes. For Americans I am “definitely different” (653) because I look, may sound, and act as a true Mexican in spite of the fact that I am actually a United States citizen. In school, my friends always saw me as being "too…show more content… There is a Spanish phrase that goes like this, “Ni de aqui, ni de alla ‘. Translated this means, "not from here, and not from there”, and that’s exactly how I feel, to be constantly “sliding back and forth between the fringes of both worlds” (653), so we won’t be prejudged is difficult. As a Mexican American, having two cultures from which I am proud of, it is very difficult to say you are part of both but instead be part of none because you have characteristics that do not match each culture you are part
