Farah Jimenez
ENG 102
Jennifer Polish
October 13, 2017
Reading the poem “Brown Boy, White Boy” by Jonathan Mendoza made me very confused because I didn’t understand why the poem didn’t have any punctuation. After re-reading with some punctuation that I put on I said wait, he talking about being part of two different culture. Jonathan is using the perfect words to describe how some of us feel or have felt at one point in our lives. After watching him saying the poem three things got my attention; the white and black shirt that he was wearing, how he looks to one side when talking about “brown boy” and to the other when talking about “white boy”, also the expression of his face when referring to one of the boys. After that I got inspire to do a painting of a face with one side white, one black and a comma in the middle. Being biracial is not easy because its having a difficult time finding your own identity.
I put the comma on the middle of the face because being biracial is not having period instead is having a comma. It never stops, it just keep going on and on even though you want it to stop. At one point I tough he was going crazy but after relating the poem with my own life’s experience I had changed my opinion. He’s expression and the way of writing the poem it is exactly how it feels to be biracial. Being at mess with not dots just going on and on.
After reading the part that says “biracial boy during colored uprising does not know if he should sit down or speak up” this line totally hit me because it made me remember how I used to feel during my high school years. I was only 13 years old when I came to this country I didn’t know how to act or what to say because I was coming from another culture. I was enrolled in a high school that more than half of the population were Russians. It was really confused for me because I didn’t know the culture or the language. One part of me wanted to make the effort to fit in while the other one didn’t. It was really hard for me to be in that position for four years. Being a Hispanic girl around Russian was like being in another world. My family never understood when I told them what I was going through. It never had their support instead they blame it on me that I wasn’t making any effort. I usually felt that I had a battle in my head because one part of me knew what to do and the other one didn’t. Also the part that says “White cop does not know that boy is biracial, Starts talking immigration policy”, I never know how bad Russian’s people talked about Hispanics until I had heard it myself. I was constantly scared of defended my race because I was alone around a lot of them. “Biracial boy is welcome everywhere, Biracial boy is not welcome everywhere” the only places that I used to feel welcome was on my house because I was around my own people. In school I felt like an alien and what hurts me more that when coming to this country I came with a really open mind and feeling good about being different. All of that changed the moment my high school years began. Jonathan Mendoza did a excellent work and used the perfect words to explain this situation. I wish I had read this poem before but as they say “it’s never too late”.
Finally , the rhetorical choice that I made during my analysis is that being biracial is really hard, not only for me but for most of the people. By understanding the difficult of being biracial was easy for me to related with this poem. The process of peer review helps me a lot because a soon they started to read my paper they understand and went exactly where I want them to go. Next time, if they put their work on the blog with enough time before the do day it would be better because they would take more serious the comments that we give to them. I would bring my creativity to any future assignments.