Richard Blanco Essay Poetry - 1158 Words

One Inaugural Today Richard Blanco is the son of two immigrants from Cuba: he grew up in a Cuban cohort in Miami, Florida. It was instilled in him at a young age that his ancestry and America were one in the same. They were both magical. His foreign home was talked about often, never condemned, while America was their physical home and their place to earn a better life than their previous one could afford them. Blanco’s poem, â€Å"One Today,† exhibits his cultural pride, optimism, and gratitude for life and his country: The United States. Blanco crafted his work in such a way that maneuvering from the inside out reflects the clearest picture of what I believe he was trying to say. We are all â€Å"one†: we can create subgroups and caste†¦show more content†¦This indicates the variety and differences in goals and aspirations that can encompass the American Dream, which is true for every individual, but they still are American dreams. As well, as raises t he issue of homosexuality. Blanco, himself, has admitted that it took him until his late twenties to come out of the closet and that he waited mostly because of how he was raised (being gay was thought to be unacceptable). What he wanted from his father was acceptance, approval: â€Å"fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise† (lines 10-1). This is a metaphor of himself and his wanting to be â€Å"approv[ed]† for what he was and is, and it is also representative of the countless others, that are all around us, who feel they must hide and be ashamed. Our differences, no matter how we tie them together, raise another issue in Blanco’s life and in everyone’s life: family. This is an issue everywhere, whether one has an adoptive, mixed, half, semi-normal, lack-of-a, or a nuclear family, family influences everyone, it unites us in humanity: casts judgment, gives praise, provides support, and frustration. Because even tho ugh, Blanco’s relationship withShow MoreRelatedLife of Dr. Jose P. Rizal6588 Words   |  27 Pagesadvancing unheard-of political ideas of freedom and individual rights which infuriated the authorities.[12][13] Despite the name change, Jose, as Rizal soon distinguishes himself in poetry writing contests, impressing his professors with his facility with Castilian and other foreign languages, and later, in writing essays that are critical of the Spanish historical accounts of the pre-colonial Philippine societies. Indeed, by 1891, the year he finished his El filibusterismo, this second surname had