AnnMarie's Blog English 255

To the united states we came

To learn how to mispell our name

To lose the definition of pride

To have misfortune on our side

To live where rats and roaches roam

in a house that is definitely not a home (1365)

In the passage from “The Broken English Dream” Pedro Pietri illustrates the United States and the “American Dream” which many immigrants aspire to acquire while in America, as an unattainable and unrealistic goal.  Pietri states that Puerto Ricans in America deal with poverty and misfortune.  The Puerto Rican race loses all sense of pride because they come to live a life that is probably worst than the life they were living in their homeland.  All of their hopes and dreams are diminished and they live in amongst rodents because they are unable to achieve a life other than poverty.  Pietri says that they live “in a house that is definitely not a home” which implies that they are just living in a shell without any foundation or connection to the country that they reside in.  Instead of America enabling the Puerto Ricans, it has mentally disabled them.