Rich People, Am I Right?

Gentrification.  The dictionary defines it as “the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process.”  While this is a very accurate summarization of the process, gentrification does not only apply to neighborhoods or cities.  Often, it can be applied to simple aspects of people’s lives such as language and writing.  This is made most apparent in traditional English poetry where often authors go through a process of refinement and polishing to make their works seem more “respectable” and readable.  Often this means changing the wording or topics to be more complex or difficult to understand for the reader, usually through the use of extremely abstract imagery and metaphor or usage of words not commonly known by the wider public.  This works to exclude the “lower levels” of people, in society, and creates a border that usually only the upper-class and educated have the time, resources, or understanding to cross over from.  However, not everyone is willing to accept this as the reality of all English poetry.  Consider author Antonio de Jesús López of the book Gentefication and the idea of someone who writes not for the rich and elite, but for the masses and everydayers.  His past is already a stark contrast from most poets as he is neither fully European (specifically Anglican), speaks Spanish as his native tongue, and grew up poor and impoverished, yet he was still able to cross the wall of privilege that was meant to prevent people like him from gaining access to this type of poetry.  And now that he’s on the “other side,” per say, he has made it his poems’ duty to challenge the politics of gentrification.  

But how does one go about challenging something so huge as gentrification, you ask? Well, To best resist the politics of such gravity, one must work to not only include those of lower placement in the societal hierarchy, but to also make whatever it is you are using as the device accessible to them.  The three prime ways López does this is through his usage of common experiences, structure,  and language that many people outside of the rich in society can see and relate to.  One of the most prominent examples of this goal is the poem “The Last Day My Father Spent in Mexico.”

Throughout the poem, López talks about experiences his family went through such as how he learned to stop calling his father “Papá” in public, watch his Apá bite his tongue at every “Pick it up” and “Excuse me, Señor” grunted amidst clanking silverware, or the familiar set-up of “huddling over the bonfires of an almuerzo in a small apartment with three plastic chairs, but six different pictures of the Virgin Mary.”  Not only is he providing imagery for his childhood, but also creating a sense of relatability to the reader.  Those who have grown up in immigrant families, especially of Hispanic descent, can tell you of the difficulties and fond memories of growing up. There was the shame associated with having parents who were struggling to make ends meet, often working day and night just to be  able to live in a tiny apartment so as to not end up on the streets.  The sadness one saw when their parents had to bite their tongue around their superiors, often white and upper class, whenever they were in work, at the store, or even in their own homes, less they end up being ridiculed  or, worse, have their livelihoods endangered.  But, there were still happy memories.  Of large families, of a faith that pushed your parents to never give up, of the comfort in knowing that you aren’t in this alone and that your family always has your back.  It provides comfort to the reader and makes them feel included rather than displaced or excluded from poetry.  It portrays these experiences as things that should be valued and listened to just as much as any other topic of poetry.  

Another aspect López applies to challenge the politics of gentrification is poetic structure.  See, much like gentrification of neighborhoods, English poetry applies a form of line application to “weed out” those who it does not want.  Specific rhyming schemes, meter requirements, and patterns of repetition are some of the ways it discriminates against others.  By heavily implying that these rules need to be followed to make “good” poetry, people are falsely led to believe that other forms more tangible to the average person are inferior and often disregarded, much like the poorer residents through the introduction of gentrification.  López rejects this idea in the simplest way possible: he just does not do it.  His whole poem isn’t made to rhyme, have a coherent or noticeable meter following, or even have line stanzas.  It is written as a series of sentences and paragraphs, easy to figure out where one thought begins and ends, made to be accessible to everyone.  This not only makes my job easier, but makes it so that everyone can read the poem and understand what he’s trying to say without the confusion that comes with the previous form of poetic structure or it’s daunting atmosphere.  This poem is also very easy to follow in its ideas because of the structure.  If he had posed it as the way the old, white, aristocrats intended it would have made no sense.  The piece would’ve seemed like a giant run on sentence, with the reader getting lost half-way through and preventing his original message from getting through.  This shows other poets that they can skip the fancy and unnecessary decoration of works like that, if they want to, and keep it simple.  It does not reduce the value of their ideas or make their poetry any less impactful.  

The final way López pushes against gentrification is through language.  Language was often a discriminating factor against people, especially non-English speaking minorities.  Through heavy accents of the speaker, mixtures of the native language and English words, and the difficulty of fully learning English, it was (and still is!) very hard for the lower class to be respected when it came to language.  The upper-class knows this and would often write their poetry solely in English or “respected” languages like Latin or French to discourage the average person from pursuing an understanding.  Afterall, why engage with what you can’t even fully understand and risk misinterpreting everything and looking like a fool?  It wasn’t just the language itself but also the words used in said poetry.  See, the elite would employ words of uncommon variety to make their poems unintelligible to anyone who wasn’t at least a Middle-class academic.  Think words like Pulchritudinous (beautiful or pretty), Consanguineous (of the same blood), and Polyphiloprogenitive (common or of various offspring), that could be easily summarized in another more simple word or in a short few phrases.  However, people employ these words not because they want to be easily understood, but because it makes those of higher education continue to employ a sense of superiority in intelligence over others.  López dismantles that notion in two ways: 1.) He uses simple sentence structures, phrases, and words for his readers and 2.) He inserts his native language of Spanish to make available for a wider audience.  Throughout the poem, phrases like “He smuggled his wife and two children in for Sunday Brunch” and “Eres el único hijo que aún manda dinero” work hand-in-hand to prove this point.  The former sentence is easy to understand and comprehend.  It has no unusual words that people aren’t familiar with and it isn’t unnecessarily difficult to unpack.  Anyone of any education level can read it and understand that it’s him telling a story of one way his dad fed his family.  The second phrase primarily applies to the Spanish speaker.  Considering López’s background, this makes sense.  Spanish is something he grew up with and was likely exposed to at home, with friends, and at all sorts of family gatherings.  His inclusion of it is natural and not meant to be exclusionary as a lot of people (think over 41 million in the United States alone) speak it as their first or second language.   It is common and can easily be translated (literally coming out as “you are the only son who still sends money”), something that gentrification is purely against.  

Poems like  “The Last Day My Father Spent in Mexico” are necessary to make people understand that poetry is like life itself, the good parts of it should not be designated only for the rich and privileged.  They’re stories aren’t the only ones that matter and their existence should not take over and push out others, not in neighborhoods and not in literature.  Everyone is born into this world and should have the chance to live their lives and tell their stories without unnecessary barriers preventing them from crossing.  

Jojo C. Chukwueloka