Sunday, February 21, 2010

Go Espada

“The Bully,” by Martin Espada is a piece of historical criticism. This piece brought the past into the present with the use of cultural criticism. I love history as I have blogged before and this piece was added to my, “I Like Collection.” Espada’s description of the school was excellent. Espada put a lot of feeling into his writing. He was born of Puerto Rican parents so I feel this could possibly be classified as biographical criticism, what do you think? When reading this I kept thinking about the little guy getting the prize at the end of the race. It may have been a small thing to some but was tremendous to those who disagreed with what took place during and after the Spanish American War. I could write a small book on this issue, anyway, as it turned out there were territories that became American Territories. These people wanted their freedom from Spain but did not want to be controlled by another country. Theodore Roosevelt was viewed as one of the leading forces of this movement. In this writing the school began as a school named after Theodore Roosevelt for his heroic ride to free Latin America from Spain. There was a statue in the school that had remained there since the beginning. As time passed the school received a new name, Hernandez. Espada wrote, “Puerto Rico has invaded Roosevelt with its army of Spanish-singing children in the hallways, brown children devouring the stockpiles of the cafeteria, children painting Taino ancestors that leap naked across murals.” Wow, if that is not pay back at it’s finest. I know there are those that would disagree but it seems that our country has at times in the past taken away the rights of the minoritys who were not strong enough to stand by themselves. This piece has a strong political statement, good job Espada!

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