Latin Night at the Pawnshop is a poem by Martín Espada, who is of a Latino, Puerto Rican origin. The short piece reflects the poet’s concern over his people and culture due to their marginalized status at the time, although one may find the sentiment still relevant. Despite the poem’s brevity, it still manages to explore several themes. One of them is justice, which is indicated by the setting, the imagery, the symbolism, and the effective simile.
The poem’s events occur in a clearly identified place on a certain day, and the overall setting helps develop the theme. It is Christmas, nighttime, as the title suggests, and the scene is a pawnshop. The celebration is associated with festivities, family gatherings, and other pleasant activities. However, the pawnshop appears removed from them, and only “the apparition” may be reminiscent of A Christmas Carol’s spirits. The place itself is connected to despair because people bring their valuables there as a last resort. Thus, while the country is enjoying Christmas, the Latino community frequenting the establishment is struggling to make ends meet. The juxtaposition of the time and the place highlights the injustice experienced by the former.
The poem has vivid imagery that makes the theme prominent and continues the idea introduced by the setting. It is mainly concerned with music: “salsa band,” “golden trumpet,” “silver trombone,” and other instruments (Espada lines 1, 4, 5). It is one of the essential forms of cultural expression, in this case, for Latino people. While a salsa band is a source and a promoter of culture, one may use it as a means of earning income. However, being pawned means that the instruments could no longer serve that purpose, possibly due to the absence of interest from the general population or the community. The former is likely to be fickle and choose another culture for entertainment, while the latter may not have time to engage with theirs because they need to survive. Therefore, the pawned instruments reflect the capitalization of the Latino culture, which is a necessary evil to continue living, implying the existence of cultural injustice in the US.
Another important element for expressing the poem’s theme is the hierarchy of the instruments, potentially mirroring the country’s racial inequality through symbolism. The trumpet is “golden,” and the trombone is “silver;” meanwhile, the rest are not given a description (Espada lines 4-5). Gold and silver tend to be the two highest-value colors or metals as far as medals are concerned. In the poem, they could symbolize the country’s privileged races: White people and those who can pass as one. The rest are equally disadvantaged, which explains the absence of an assigned color. Latino people can belong to different races, and some may be lucky to pass as White. However, they will not have all the privileges and still experience discrimination, although to a smaller degree than the rest of the community. Overall, the color/metal symbolism supports the theme of racial injustice that affects Latino people.
Lastly, the poem employs an effective simile to emphasize the theme further. The final lines state, “all with price tags dangling / like the city morgue ticket / on a dead man’s toe” (Espada lines 7-9). The price tags are compared to morgue tickets, while the instruments, by proxy, represent the deceased. The simile strengthens the idea of a cultural decline and also suggests that the “dead man” might as well be one of the previous owners, a Latino (Espada lines 9). Despite selling a valuable instrument, he did not manage to survive and would never repurchase it. Thus, the simile maintains and theme and reveals the dark side of the absence of justice.
Latin Night at the Pawnshop explores the theme of justice, the absence thereof, through such means as the setting, the musical imagery, the color symbolism, and the simile. They are inseparable and facilitate the idea that American society is unjust, exploiting the Latino culture and letting the community die. The existing hierarchy is cruel, and even the White-passing members will never be viewed as equal.
Work Cited
Espada, Martín. “Latin Night at the Pawnshop.” Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands, Curbstone Press, 1990, p. 54.