Celebrate The Year of The Fire Pig!

Li-Young Lee's poem, "Persimmons/Gary Soto's "Mexicans Begin Jogging"

In “Persimmons,” persimmons are a symbol for painful memories of cultural barriers imposed by language and custom, and connection to his blind father. The speaker of the poem begins with the painful memory of being “slapped” by his sixth grade teacher, “Mrs. Walker”, and told to stand in the corner “for not knowing the difference/between persimmon and precision.” He felt disconnected from his present culture. But it seemed that he knew the difference in meaning between these two words, “How to choose/persimmons. This is precision.” Lee then describes quite precisely how to choose, peel and cut the perfect persimmon, then “eat/the meat of the fruit/so sweet/all of it, to the heart.” It is clear that his misperception had much to do with pronunciation.
In the third stanza, as the years past by, the speaker grew more and more unattached to his cultural background. In his relationship with this white girl, “Donna,” he attempts to reconnect with his fading heritage and its values by teaching her Chinese, “Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten/Naked: I’ve forgotten.” But he’s not very successful since he has forgotten a few words. He then continues to mention a few other words that he had trouble with, such as “fight” and “fright,” “wren” and “yarn.” The distinction between “wren” and yarn” leads to a warm memory of his mother tying yarn into “a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.” Once again, he attempts to connect with his cultural background, but this time through a loving memory.
The mother’s precise handiwork contrasts with the next stanza, which is another description of the speaker’s sixth grade teacher, “Mrs. Walker” who clearly did not know how to choose “persimmons” precisely. He remembers the day “Mrs. Walker” brought a persimmon to class, and instead of peeling it, “cut it up/so everyone could taste/a Chinese apple.” She also did wrong in calling it Chinese apple, connecting the odd fruit with the speaker, the Chinese boy in class. She made the speaker feel even more isolated—disconnected from his other class mates. It seems that the Asian American boy (the speaker of the poem) took revenge from the maltreatment and insensitiveness of “Mrs. Walker” by not telling the class that the fruit “…wasn’t ripe or sweet,” instead “…watched the other faces.” These students were probably thinking, “what an awful fruit the Chinese boy eats at home,” creating a stronger barrier between the two cultures.
Next, the speaker continues to regain or reconnect positive associations as he recalls his mother’s observation that “…every persimmon has a sun/inside, something golden, glowing/warm as my face.” He’s trying to connect with his cultural background. Moreover, the fruit forms a link with his father when the speaker gives him two “forgotten” persimmons, “swelled, heavy as sadness/and sweet as love.” In the “muddy lighting” of his parents’ cellar, with his father sitting on the stairs, the speaker has finally said what he has been searching for throughout the poem: “…I rummage, looking/for something I lost.” He has searched for something meaningful from his past that he can connect with, to fill that void and finally find relief. He finds three rolled-up paintings by his now blind father. As the father reaches to touch a rendering of “Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth,” he remembers “the strength, the tense/precision in the wrist” required to paint them. The speaker’s search has ended. He has recovered two qualities demonstrated by his parents: the rich, full warmth of his parent’s love, figured in “persimmons,” and their precise, caring ways, represented by their crafts. The line towards the end of the poem, “Some things never leave a person,” implies that memories were able to salvage valuable characteristics of his parents and their culture.
After reading this poem several times, I strongly feel that the center of the poem is in the third stanza, “Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten/Naked: I’ve forgotten,” because of the fact that the speaker has been talking about how he struggled as a child with attempting to fit in the American culture. For example, the mispronunciation of words and being punished for it, and the insensitiveness of the teacher, but here (the quoted lines above) it strikes me to find out that he at present has forgotten some Chinese words. The important thing is that he begins to realize his cultural roots are fading, and begins to search for these in the other stanzas. He experiences a certain awakening and/or awareness of his fading heritage.
This reminds me how I have forgotten a lot of words in Spanish (Actually, I don’t think I ever learned them). Every time I talk to my mom, she comes up with some words in Spanish that I’ve never heard before. I have no idea what they mean, so I ask her, “What does it mean?” She replies, “A poco no sabes que quiere decir?” “Nose.” Also, when I was taking advance Spanish I kept thinking to myself I didn’t belong there, that I should’ve been placed in a lower level course. It felt as if I was learning a whole new language—totally disconnected, just like in Lee’s poem. Well, I made it through the course and got a B+…how degrading!
In “Mexicans Begin Jogging,” Soto describes an incident that occurred when he was a factory worker in a plant that employed Mexican illegals. When the border patrol raided the plant, the boss assumed that Soto—a brown skinned Mexican-American was also an illegal, “Over the fence, Soto…” and Soto “…shouted that I was American.” But the boss didn’t believe him, and Soto was forced to run away along with the others. He “ran from that industrial road to the soft/Houses where people paled at the turn of an autumn sky." The "amazed crowds" watched as these aliens “jog” through their neighborhood. As Soto runs, he passes through the white suburbanites and salutes them, embracing the symbols of America, "baseball” and “milkshakes.” Since he embraces these two words, which are American symbols, it’s obvious that Soto also feels American—he is not entirely Mexican. And because he is brown skinned and lived in a border culture, it was assumed that he could not be a "real" American. Soto addresses the dilemma of being neither Mexican nor American, of traveling the path between the two.
Soto discusses his experience in the American culture as Lee does in his poem. Because of Soto’s brown skin color, he was disconnected from the American culture as Lee (or the speaker of the poem) felt alienated in school by a mispronunciation of words and his insensitive teacher. But unlike Lee who attempts and searches to reconnect with his heritage through his parents’ warm and loving memories, Soto takes a different approach. He sees humor in the situation, “As I jog into the next century/On the power of a great, silly grin.” This is the way Soto deals with his situation—through humor—perhaps as a means to find relief.
Moreover, I strongly feel that the center of the poem is in the lines, “What could I do but yell vivas/To baseball, milkshakes…” because I wasn’t expecting Soto to embrace these American symbols after being mistaken for an illegal. Since I’m also a Mexican-American, I would have been very offended. I admired Soto for sharing his experience in a way that we (his readers) don’t feel sorry for him, instead he brings humor to his situation and make us “grin.”
Lee, On the other hand, makes us feel for him when he talks about his painful childhood memories of feeling alienated from the rest of the class, and being punished for the mispronunciation of some words. We also connect with Lee at an emotional level when he finally finds what he’s looking for. The relationship that he has with his blind father and his paintings reconnects him with his cultural background. After having an understanding of Lee’s poem, I felt very connected with the poem. I found myself appreciating the poem more and loving it! It’s a very nice and unique poem. I really enjoyed learning about “Persimmons” as I looked at it more closely.