Immigrants in Our Own Land

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Biographical Context

“Immigrants in Our Own Land” is based on the author’s personal experiences as an inmate at Arizona State Prison, where he spent over six years, much of it in isolation. He was often punished for fighting with other inmates, but also because he defied what he perceived as inhumane and exploitative prison rules. In an interview, Baca describes how prisoners were forced to work in the fields and brutally treated in a way that contradicted the idea of rehabilitation: “I was tired of being treated like an animal. I wanted to learn how to read and to write and to understand….I wanted to know how to function in this world. Why was I so ignorant and deprived?” (Krier, Beth Ann. “Baca: A Poet Emerges from Prison of His Past.” Los Angeles Times, 15 Feb. 1989). Baca refused to perform prison work, considering it legally and morally wrong, and faced severe punishment, including electric shock treatments, for standing up against unjust exploitation of prisoners. These experiences inform his description of new inmates’ dreams of self-improvement being extinguished by the oppressive reality of prison life.

In the poem, Baca explains that prison experiences are more likely to cause bitterness, despondency, and further criminality than rehabilitation. However, that is not what happened to him. What saved him from anger and despair, in his own words, was poetry: “The only way of transcending was through language and understanding. Had I not found language, I would have been a guerilla in the mountains. It was language that saved my (posterior). I really didn’t know who I was before I was in prison” (Krier, Los Angeles Times). Since his release, Baca has dedicated much of his time and energy helping younger inmates and other disadvantaged individuals find productive and creative ways of overcoming the negative effects of incarceration, discrimination, and poverty.

Baca has spoken eloquently about his experience in prison on numerous occasions (see Further Reading & Resources). In 2001, Baca published a memoir about his life in prison called A Place to Stand, which was turned into a biographical documentary film by the same name.

Social Context

Before the 1970s, American incarceration rates were relatively stable, with only minor numerical changes from year to year, but that drastically changed in the following decades. In 1973, when Jimmy Santiago Baca began serving his sentence, prisons and jails in the United States housed approximately 400,000 people. By 2008, that number became five times higher, reaching over 2.3 million people or close to 1% of the country’s population. That number began to decline when it became increasingly obvious that such a high rate of incarceration is both ethically and economically problematic. Nevertheless, according to World Population Review, close to 0.64% of American citizens and residents were incarcerated in 2021, significantly higher than other countries topping the list, such as El Salvador and Turkmenistan (“Incarceration Rates By Country 2021.” World Population Review). In other economically developed countries, the rate was much lower: Australia (0.16%), United Kingdom (0.114%), Canada (0.1%), France (0.09%), and Germany (0.07%). The United States has only 5% of the world’s population, yet nearly 25% of incarcerated people worldwide are inmates in American prisons and jails. The problem was effectively captured in the title of Peter K. Enns’s influential 2016 book Incarceration Nation: How the United States became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World.

What makes the problem even worse is the inequitable ethnic distribution of incarceration in the United States. According to a 2021 report by The Sentencing Project, the rate of Black Americans in state prisons is five times higher than that of White Americans (“The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons.” The Sentencing Project, 2021). Approximately 1.24% of all African Americans are incarcerated. In some states that rate is much higher: Nearly 3% of all Black Wisconsinites are in prison. While the difference is less dramatic, incarceration rates for the ethnic groups to which Baca belongs are also above national average. In 2008, when incarceration in the US reached its peak, 0.25% of white Americans were behind bars, as opposed to 1.58% of Black Americans and 0.69% of Latinos (“Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin.” US Department of Justice, April 2020). The incarceration rate for Native Americans in 1999 was 38% higher than the national average. These disparities have contributed to broader ethnic inequities in American society, especially regarding the racial divide. The historian Michelle Alexander offers a powerful analysis of this problem in her 2010 book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.