Minority Texts

AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Compare these two texts from Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois and the following two poems from Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. What do they tell you about the situation of Blacks in America and about the response of African American writers to this? What about the form of the poems, which tradition do they belong to?

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Up from Slavery (1901) Extracts.

To those of my race (…) who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: ‘Cast down your bucket where you are’— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all race by whom we are surrounded (…) No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities (…)

To those of the white race (…) you can be sure, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty in the past (…) so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours (…)

W.E.B. DUBOIS, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) Extracts

Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things:

- First, political power,

- Second, insistence on civil rights,

- Third, higher education of Negro youth (…)

Such men feel in conscience bound to ask of this nation three things:

1. The right to vote.
2. Civic equality
3. The education of youth according to ability (…)

By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the rights which the world accords to men, clinging unwaveringly to those great words which the sons of the Fathers would fain forget: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal (…)

LANGSTON HUGHES, “I, too” (1932) I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I’ll sit at the table When company comes. Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then. Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed— I, too, am America.

COUNTEE CULLEN, “Yet Do I Marvel” (1925) I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, And did He stoop to quibble could tell why The little buried mole continues blind, Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus To struggle up a never-ending stair. Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels his awful hand. Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: To make a poet black and bid him sing.

CHICANO POEMS

JOSÉ ANTONIO BURCIAGA, “Poema en tres idiomas y caló” (1977) Españotli titlán Englishic Titlán náhuatl, titlán Caló ¡Qué locotl! Mi mente spirals al mixtli, buti suave I feel cuatro lenguas in mi boca. Coltic sueños temostli y siento una xóchitl brotar from four diferentes vidas. I yotl distinctamentli recuerdote cuandotl I yotl was a maya, cuandotl I yotl was a gachupinchi, when Cortés se cogió a mi great tatarabuela cuandotl andaba en Pachuacatlán. (…) RODOLFO “CORKY” GONZALES, “I am Joaquín” (1967) I am Joaquín, Lost in a world of confusion, Caught up in a whirl of a gringo society, Confused by the rules, Scorned by attitudes, Suppressed by manipulation, And destroyed by modern society. My fathers have lost the economic battle and won the struggle of cultural survival. And now! I must choose

Between the paradox of Victory of the spirit, Despite physical hunger Or To exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. (…) ABELARDO “LALO” DELGADO, “Stupid America” 1969) Stupid america, see that chicano with a big knife on his steady hand he doesn’t want to knife you he wants to sit on a bench and carve christfigures but you won’t let him. stupid america, hear that chicano shouting curses on the street he is a poet without paper and pencil and since he cannot write he will explode. stupid America, remember that chicanito flunking math and english he is the picasso of your western states but he will die with one thousand masterpieces hanging only from his mind.