“It’s Hard Enough Being Me” by Anna Lisa Raya presents itself as a short story about the cultural awakening of a female college student that occurs when she goes off to college in New York. It becomes very apparent, after a close reading, that the short story is nothing more than a forum for Raya’s own agenda. The author’s anti American agenda can be broken down into three distinct areas. Those areas are nationalism, prejudice, and propaganda. In the first paragraph of the poem, Raya describes the student as discovering that she was Latina. It was very apparent after that statement that there would be no references to the student as being an American.
In fact, Raya states that ” she was always just Mexican” (1010) or she “was just Puerto Rican” (1010).
It is good to be in touch with your heritage, but the sense of Hispanic nationalism is just put on a little to strong. Raya even goes a step further about the discussion of some Puerto Rican writers and uses some kind of Latina jargon to describe them. She refers to them as ” Nuyorican’s” (1011) instead of referring to them as American writers that live in New York and share a Puerto Rican heritage. Raya them makes another statement that completely portrays her anti American Nationalism. Raya states, ” not knowing the language of my home countries is the biggest problem” (1011).
It would be safe to assume that Raya is not making reference to English. Furthermore, The student has many home countries, but none that she speaks the language of. Therefore America is not her home country since she can speak English even though she was born and raised in America. The use of anti American nationalist rhetoric is not enough though; Raya also makes use of propaganda. Raya makes many harsh claims and statements that are not supported by any evidence. Without citing examples and being intentionally vague, Raya attempts to portray America as a country that does not embrace cultural diversity and as a country that has no tolerance for other cultures.
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The propaganda she offers without example could be deemed as offensive to many Americans. Raya states “Latinos faced discrimination for being a minority in this country” (1010).
Philosophically her argument is unsound since it can be proven that anyone or group that can claim minority status are not discriminated against. The author takes this one step further and states “Latinos can’t even speak Spanish in the U. S. without running the risk of being called a “spic” or “wetback” (1011) This statement is completely ignorant and egregious.
To stereotype every geographical region of America as being inhabited with anti-Latino racists is absurd. I think the author would be hard pressed to go to the majority of places in the U. S and be called a degrading name for being Latino. The author even implies that the discrimination is so rampant in America that ” the fact that her mother spoke Spanish was constantly used against her: It prevented her from getting good jobs. If you take into the consideration the civil rights movement and affirmative action how can one possibly make these allegations? From these unfounded allegations the author goes to the extreme and starts making prejudicial statements about America. It is very clear that the writer is prejudiced against Americans.
There is an abundance of this type of language throughout the short story. The author goes as far as to be unhappy with her looks since she does not look Latino. Raya states, “I wish my skin were a darker shade or my hair a curlier texture” (1011).
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This statement is made because her friends at home called her “whitey” which is a derogatory term aimed at Americans that do not have dark skin. The author further states that she was different from “white, black or Asian people” (1011).
The author consistently seems to have an irrational attitude directed towards any Americans that are different than her and continuously seems to deny that she is a citizen of the United States.
Raya continuously attacks America as an establishment by making unsupported ambiguous claims. To listen to the author you would think America was like Hitler’s Third Reich. It is shameful to portray the United States in such a negative fashion considering all the opportunities that are open to every American citizen. It is painful to see unsupported demeaning generalizations about perceived acts of discrimination that would supposedly be rampant throughout America. This negative agenda about America is not even justifiably argued, nor is it coherent.
Works Cited Raya, Anna Lisa. “It’s Hard enough Being Me,” Literature and Composition. Ed. Sylvan Barnett et al.
6 th ed. New York: Longman, 2003, 1010-1011.
