An Expliciation of "Prospective Immigrants Please Note."

Essay by badballCollege, UndergraduateA+, November 2005

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"Prospective Immigrants Please Note"

Adrienne Rich

Either you will

go through this door

or you will not go through.

If you go through

there is always the risk

of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly

and you must look back

and let them happen.

If you do not go through

it is possible

to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes

to hold your position

to die bravely

but much will blind you,

much will evade you,

at what cost who knows?

The door itself

makes no promises.

It is only a door.

"Prospective Immigrants Please Note", a poem by Adrienne Rich, helps one to ponder on the dual perspective, with the mother culture and the American ideals. Rich's essential goal is for one to remember their families and origins.

First of all, the title, "Prospective Immigrants Please Note" implied an immigrant's plea to enter into a foreign country.

Upon reading the poem, though, I now see the title as represents differently.

Rich's poem, claims either one leaves their land or simply stay where you're at. "Either you will go through this door or you will not go through."

"If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name." Remembering one's name- the antithesis of assimilation to remember one's name is to remember tribal affiliations, family, and origin. This was especially true for Jewish immigrants, who went from using the Hebraic construct "Yitzhak ben Ya`akov" to Isaac or even Ida Jacobs.

Perhaps the difficulty of adapting to a dual perspective with the mother culture and the American ideals is a conflict. "Things look at you doubly and you must look back and let them happen."

"If you do not go through it is possible to live worthily", implies, it isn't necessary to go through the...