All Lies

My last post proposed the idea that to be American means to contribute to the country in a positive manner.  In America Be America Again, Langston Hughes claimed that America is for those who play a part in developing the society. Hughes and I agree that America is not “the dream it used to be”. Though this poem was not written recently, much of what Hughes was saying is still present in the American Society. Like Hughes, for many Citizens America does not feel like home due to discrimination. Discrimination continues to have a negative affect on the journey to becoming the “homeland of the free”.

Sherman Alexie also analyzes the lies that America was founded on. Alexie chose to focus on a few of Christopher Colombus’ lies and schemes, including the invasion of territory, and calling it America. As I began reading I was unsure of the direction that the poem was going in. I was distracted from the content and message of the poem because I did not know some of the events that were being discussed. It was Alexie’s last stanza that put the entire poem into perspective for me; I realized it was his point to share the  message that America was never what it was made out to be. Similar to Hughes, Alexie believes that there is a false sense of the foundation of America and what it means to be American.