Diaz speaks on the violence of which the indigenous and queer face in current society through both her poems: “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation” and “My Brother at 3 A.M.” Though the former more blatantly discusses and criticizes the treatment marginalized people, the latter also touches upon those issues in a differing manner but with the same significance.
First, “My Brother at 3 A.M.” generally speaks on a young boy crying out about the devil to his family at 3 A.M. on the surface, but this can be interpreted in a completely different way. The fact that the brother cries for help at 3 A.M. and none of the family takes him seriously can represent how people of color and people who are LGBTQ are discriminated against and ask for help from others, but few to none with the power to affect change truly listen. Those who are capable of saving the brother are the parents and God, but the father does not stir awake and the mother takes the entire poem to realize the fear that her son possesses; the stars, representing God, “had closed their eyes and sheathed their knives,” and this line is repeated multiple times, which can correspond to the multiple times a person turns their gaze away from a minority in need.
Lastly, in “Abecedarian” (for simplicity), Diaz makes it immediately clear what society compares indigenous people to—that they are “Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things” (line 2) rather than angels, because angels are solely for the Christian whites. This is shown when Diaz writes how she hadn’t “seen an angel fly through [the] valley ever” (lines 5-6), hadn’t heard of the angel Gabriel, and how “Pastor John’s son is the angel” (line 16) aka the white man of the Christian church. Not to mention, she literally points out how “everyone knows angels are white”
(line 12) as well. However, she defends her people and displays their pride in shunning the notion that they do not need angels, referencing when the “white god came floating across the ocean” (line 19) and took their land for settling in the late 15th century and hatefully (with all rights) saying how the rich “angels” should stay “fat and ugly” (line 23) as far away from the indigenous lest they be moved to another reservation. This harshly critiques how white people view themselves as angels—the good of the world—yet force the indigenous people to move wherever is most convenient for them as though they were livestock or less than human, at least.
In both “My Brother at 3 A.M.” and “Abecedarian,” Diaz writes on the extreme challenges she faces as a minority who is discriminated against and criticizes that society which discriminates against her entire being.
Caitlyn Klemm
Introduction to Poetry 