Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. – Rita Dove
Uyen Loewald was born in Vietnam in 1940 just before the Vietnam War migrating to America then later Australia where she experienced several forms of oppression.
poem is based in Australian society in the 20th century indentifying the influx of mirgrants that have migrated to Australia.
The poet Uyen Loeward has wirtten the poem “Be.Good Little Migrants” to highlight the discrimination between Australian society and migrants that have migrated to Australia.
Free verse poem
Uyen Nhu Loewald’s darkly ironic poem explores the terrain of multiculturalism and the expectations of migrants in this society.
The poet has used degrading comments as “little” to refer to them as not good enough and therefore of less importance in “their” society.
The emotion that this poem causes is a sense of realisation and truth in what the poet has written. It makes readers reflect on previous situations they may have been involved in and causes disappointment in what the Australian society has come to.
The poetic devices that Uyen Loewald has used is Assonance, Symbolism and Repetition.
Assonance
Assonance is used as a poetic teqnuique in this poem to symbolise the relationship between migrants and Australians. This symbolises now the Australians treat migrants as if they are children.
Symbolism
The poet has used Symbolism as a poetic technique in this poem to symbolise job expectancy and what Australians expect migrants to do while they are in Australia. This is to prove the main point of this poem.
Repetition
Repetiton is a poetic technique in this poem to. “Be good little migrants” is repeated to humerous times in this
poem, to create guilt and to make people understand the discrimination in Australian society.
ut also makes appropriate allusions to the horrific Aboriginal assimilation in British ie. Western, culture in the era of exploration, and much after that. For example, the line: ‘you’ll reach excellence; just waste a few generations’, conspicuously alludes to the Stolen Generation, of which literally a generation of Aboriginal children were kidnapped and made to ‘become’ a Westerner.
