Elena

The family situation described in Mora’s poem is shared by many immigrant families throughout the United States, but especially by those who immigrated from Mexico and other Central American countries to escape poverty, crime, and oppression. Elena and her family are recent immigrants from Mexico. She remembers listening to her children speak Spanish back in their native country (Line 3), but now they “go to American high schools” (Line 8). Like most first-generation immigrants, Elena and her husband are neither wealthy nor highly educated. They sit around the kitchen table in the evening (Line 10) rather than in a separate living room, and Elena knows little English. Now, however, their children have better opportunities. “They speak English” (Line 9), probably fluently, and their mother feels left behind. Back in Mexico, she had no difficulty connecting with her children because she could understand “every word they’d say” (Line 4), but now she feels increasingly disconnected from them because they speak in English, which she cannot follow. No doubt the children can also speak Spanish, but their casual conversation is in English, and Elena can no longer be part of “their jokes, their songs, their plots” (Line 5) like she was when they lived in Mexico.