The Immigrant's Song

The most prominent theme in the poem is the immigrant’s story. The speaker (speaking as a collective “we” and addressing an audience of other immigrants) stands at the crux of two worlds. However, because they’ve arrived in a new world where costumes and cultures are different, they implore themself (and other immigrants) to keep their past, the customs of their country of origin, and what went on there (“war or abandonment,” [Line 22]) a secret. Themes of immigration often discuss topics such as homesickness, loss, alienation, and coping as the immigrant seeks and tries to fit into the new country’s social circles and cultural customs. In “The Immigrant’s Song,” all these aspects of what it means to be an immigrant are apparent. There is silencing (“Let us not speak,” [Line 1]), erasure (“Let us not remember,” [Line 15]), and even denial (“Let us not name our old friends [...] in the forests of the dead,” [Lines 23-25]). To fit in, immigrants tend to turn their back on where they came from (particularly if they came from a place of violence, genocide, or war); instead, they try to look forward.

However, there is still a part of them that is always left in the past.