Public Platform Genre: Found Poem from TIME Interviews of DACA Recipients
For my public platform piece, I wanted to settle my attention on DACA, a contemporary issue from my contextual piece, by exploring the complicated personal, cultural, and legal realities of child immigrants' relationship to "home." While the concept of "home" involves layers of complexity for every person, "home" for undocumented immigrants not only involves a tension between one's country of origin and the place in which one was raised, but also involves navigating "home" being made into a political debate topic. Instead of seeking things that we all want our "homes" to include--security, safety, welcome--politicians erase the stories of undocumented people in their rhetoric as well as their focus on policy over people. To highlight the voices of child immigrants, this piece is a found poem, a poem constructed from other material by using only the words provided in the source text, but rearranging, repeating, or subtracting them to create something new. The raw materials of this poem came from a TIME Magazine article entitled, “We Are Americans, Revisited: The Dreamers, Five Years Later,” which consists of interviews with 15 of 30 undocumented people who were originally featured on the cover of TIME sharing their stories. Five years later, this collection of interviews was conducted to catch up with some of original interviewees and their relationship to DACA, especially in light of the Trump Administration’s threats to end the program.
When reading these interviews, I was captured by these words from Cesar Vargas, the first undocumented lawyer in New York and DACA recipient, “With the papers, I was an American, and this is my home.” In this poem, I chose to focus on Vargas’ words and rearrange them into different configurations, conveying different meaning with each one. Between these configurations are words drawn from a longer passage from another interviewee, aspiring journalist, and DACA recipient, Tony Choi. In structuring the poem, I wanted the poem to be anchored in the transient relationship between the speaker, “home,” “papers,” and “American,” while a narrative arc is formed by lines from Choi. His words expand on Vargas’s statement by contextualizing the experience of undocumented people within the social and political sphere of the United States. The key element at work in this found poem is the centrality of voices of undocumented people, who do not have a permanent solution to their immigration status, yet still have lives and voices that matter. While America is mostly content to allow undocumented people to exist as a source of cheap labor that maintains our economy instead of people whose "home" matters, I wanted my poem to reflect the work of the TIME interviews by centering the actual words of undocumented people instead of merely speaking about them
Rhodan, M. & Takeoff, E. (n.d.) We are Americans, revisited: five years later. TIME, https://time.com/daca-dream-act-jose-antonio- vargas-time-cover-revisited/
When reading these interviews, I was captured by these words from Cesar Vargas, the first undocumented lawyer in New York and DACA recipient, “With the papers, I was an American, and this is my home.” In this poem, I chose to focus on Vargas’ words and rearrange them into different configurations, conveying different meaning with each one. Between these configurations are words drawn from a longer passage from another interviewee, aspiring journalist, and DACA recipient, Tony Choi. In structuring the poem, I wanted the poem to be anchored in the transient relationship between the speaker, “home,” “papers,” and “American,” while a narrative arc is formed by lines from Choi. His words expand on Vargas’s statement by contextualizing the experience of undocumented people within the social and political sphere of the United States. The key element at work in this found poem is the centrality of voices of undocumented people, who do not have a permanent solution to their immigration status, yet still have lives and voices that matter. While America is mostly content to allow undocumented people to exist as a source of cheap labor that maintains our economy instead of people whose "home" matters, I wanted my poem to reflect the work of the TIME interviews by centering the actual words of undocumented people instead of merely speaking about them
Rhodan, M. & Takeoff, E. (n.d.) We are Americans, revisited: five years later. TIME, https://time.com/daca-dream-act-jose-antonio- vargas-time-cover-revisited/
"THIS IS MY HOME"
With the papers
I was an American
and this is my home
me
I was an American
and with the papers
this is my home
750,000 others
This is my home and
I was the papers
American
standing on
I was an American
and this is my home
with the papers
fragile ground
American is papers
Was I
my home?
government “of the people”
Was I with my papers?
This is American
people who do not like us
Home was American
I was the papers
and this is?
who don’t want us to be here
And American this is
with my home
I do have a future
I was
An American
This is my home.
With the papers
I was an American
and this is my home
me
I was an American
and with the papers
this is my home
750,000 others
This is my home and
I was the papers
American
standing on
I was an American
and this is my home
with the papers
fragile ground
American is papers
Was I
my home?
government “of the people”
Was I with my papers?
This is American
people who do not like us
Home was American
I was the papers
and this is?
who don’t want us to be here
And American this is
with my home
I do have a future
I was
An American
This is my home.
Photo used under Creative Commons from shixart1985