PoetryEssay Preview: PoetryReport this essayIn the poem “Let America Be America Again,” Langston Hughes paints a vivid word picture of a depressed America in the early 1900’s. To many people living in America, the idealism presented as the American Dream has escaped their minds as they are depressed, hurt, and feeling like they are living for nothing. The way Hughes expresses his words shows how a speaker is allowed to voice the unsung Americans concern of how America was intended to be, had become to them, and could grow and prosper to be again the great country it once was.
Using a style that makes the reader feel like they are in a conversation with him, Hughes allows the speaker and listener to interact with each other. The issue addressed is that America is not the democratic ideal its people thought it would always be. The original speaker begins in fairly common sayings; however, when the listener is allowed to respond, the stanzas become in a sense stronger with the passion felt as well as the urgency of the message. He tells of what America was once like and how it has changed over the course of the year. The listeners response contains the main idea of the piece, comparing the democratic ideal to the conditions of those who are victims because of race, age, or economic status. This is how I want America to be hints the reason I picked it. It is strong, to the point, and how our land should be. A land of peace, love and freedom, not full of violence, hating one another.
The reader is not meant to be told the story, nor is he to take away that freedom. Rather, he or she is to understand, and that understanding should make the reader feel in part like they are a piece of legislation and a point in their story.
Hughes wrote:
I think this is the way I see the issue: we now have a democracy where there are three political leaders in this country, one who has a lot of experience as a legislator and an administrator, and he or she goes to Washington every week to hear a bunch of Democrats talk about what a good system is. What if you were to give the speaker of your state a chance to talk about the Constitution and how that is so important, because of his or her past experience of being a lawmaker? Would that give him the opportunity to ask, “What can our next president do?” “What if he is, in fact, a Democrat?” Would the speaker of your state a potential contender with a record of being pro-life or who is in a position to lead and make things better for every American? Do they want to hear what he has to say, how they are going to be affected by this bill because of his or her past experience dealing with issues of racism?
And then the viewer has to take in the fact that while he/she might want to know the answers to those questions, he or she may not want them to be part of an agenda, and in turn will not be able to engage with what he is about to say.
The issue is so different. He or she can listen to what many Americans want to hear, but not everyone is allowed in with that. They have to have access to the facts and not just a wish to see them on the pages of their newspapers and hear them for what they are. If my audience is a person of African descent, I don’t want our country to believe that he, her, or anybody else can really be president and have no political experience when he wants to get involved with issues because he knows exactly what he is going to say and it’s not like it would get an impact. As a nation, this can be quite different.
I’ve read some stories in which people said that they were surprised why the president wasn’t able to use the veto over the bill. I also saw something else:
The point was that we don’t want a piece like this to be tied to a Republican or Democrat. Some of the Democratic members also have backgrounds in this issue, where they see it as not only hurting us and our citizens, but also undermining the Republican agenda. It feels like the way forward is by not tying this up so deeply that it will not be a strong topic in the media. Some may even worry that they may not understand that one of the reasons the Republican leadership was such a pain to the public is because of what happened over the past couple of years, when they shut down many areas that they had to fight over during the primary elections.