Elena by Pat Mora

 My Spanish isn`t good enough

I remember how I`d smile

Listening my little ones

Understanding every word they´d say,

Their jokes, their songs, their plots

Vamos a pedirle dulces a mama. Vamos.

But that was in Mexico.

Now my children go to American High Schools.

They speak English. At night they sit around the

Kitchen table, laugh with one another.

I stand at the stove and feel dumb, alone.

I bought a book to learn English.

My husband frowned, drank more beer.

My oldest said, 'Mama, he doesn´t want you to

Be smarter than he is' I´m forty,

Embarrased at mispronouncing words,

Embarrased at the laughter of my children,

The grocery, the mailman. Sometimes I take

my English book and lock myself in the bathroom,

say the thick words softly, for if I stop trying, I will be deaf

when my children need my help.

This poems is told by a older woman who is struggling to fit in to a new culture and how she wants to fit in and learn the language so that she will be able to help her children if they every needed her.  She also has to deal with a husband who doesn't really like that she is learning the language. 

I picked this poems because i have seen it played out in the lives of several of my friends and their families and I know that it is a real struggle that alot of families have to deal with.

taken from Pat Mora's book of poems