Espada

In the poem "Bully" the once fight to keep minorities away, has now back fired. Roosevelt who helped during the Spanish-American war was now rolling in his grave, knowing a school named after him was full of Puerto Rican children. These children have changed the name of the school from Theodore Roosevelt High School to Hernandez. They are even plotting to deface school property with graffiti.

This passage helped me to understand the setting of the poem.


The setting of the poem is significant. Boston has had nearly forty years of racial divisiveness throughout the community; a great deal of the conflict has centered on Boston's public schools. White flight, brought on by rampant immigration, left behind neighborhoods comprised almost entirely of minorities. Desegregation orders, lawsuits, forced busing, and racially-motivated school violence resulted. Espada uses this setting as a measure of our progress. Have we progressed from the pro-eugenics, imperialistic society we once were? Are we now a society that honestly appreciates diversity, or does each culture seek merely to strengthen its own place within our society? The on-going struggle for racial equality in Boston makes the question debatable.

* After reading this I am still unaware in the setting of "Bully" was in Boston. I think the writer of this explanation was just comparing the poem, to the school district in Boston.


*Photos taken from a trip to Puerto Rico with my husband!
CJ