Martín Espada’s poems “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877” show racism, disrespect, and social injustice.

            In the poem “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” the speaker states, “Whenever my name/ is mispronounced…” and then goes on to describe how angry he feels and all of the horrible things he wants to do when people mispronounce his name. The speaker feels disrespected when his name isn’t pronounced correctly, because he feels that the people who are mispronouncing his name just aren’t taking the time to learn about or understand his culture. This shows social injustice and disrespect because the people who are mispronouncing his name believe that they don’t need to show the speaker any respect, and aren’t giving any time to learn about his culture.

            In the poem “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” the author writes, “…So he decides/ to ban Spanish/ in the bathrooms/ now he can relax.” “He” is the principal, and he is banning Spanish because it makes him uncomfortable. This shows social injustice and disrespect because the principal is banning something just because he doesn’t understand it, which makes him uncomfortable, and he doesn’t want to learn about it, so he decides to ban it. The principal has the power to change things he doesn’t like, which is unfair to the students in the poem.

            In the poem “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877,” the author writes, “when forty gringo vigilantes/ cheered the rope/ that snapped the two Mexicanos/ into the grimacing sleep of broken necks.” The reader can infer that the forty “gringos” were lynching the two Mexicans, and that it was most likely an act of racism. This shows social injustice and racism, because the crowd is presumably hanging the people for their race. They also feel proud about it, and later on in the poem they treat the corpses like trophies.

            The poems “Revolutionary Spanish Lesson,” “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” and “Two Mexicanos Lynched in Santa Cruz, California, May 3, 1877” by Martín Espada all have general themes of racism, disrespect, and social injustice. They all show minorities being discriminated against and disrespected, and they all show racism. When looking at the world around us, we can see that racism, disrespect, and social injustice occur almost regularly. Minorities are discriminated against and persecuted, just because they are a certain race. This occurs in many of Martín Espada's poems.