“The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman (2021)

Gorman read her poem at the inauguration of President Joe Biden in January 2021. She was commissioned to write it at the end of December 2020, which gave her just three weeks to complete it. She consulted a number of people for advice, including Blanco. When she read the poem, she was 22 years old, the youngest person ever to read a poem at a presidential inauguration. The theme of the inauguration was “America United,” and Gorman’s poem strongly emphasizes the theme of unity. It calls on the American people to work toward unity through collaborative effort and to cultivate a sense of togetherness. The final lines are “For there is always light, / if only we’re brave enough to see it. / If only we’re brave enough to be it” (Lines 108-10).

“América” by Richard Blanco (1998)

The poem is about how Blanco’s extended Cuban family living in Miami in the 1960s and 1970s learned about and eventually began to celebrate Thanksgiving. At first, since the family regularly ate pork rather than turkey, they could not relate to the Thanksgiving feast. In a wider sense, the poem is about how immigrants to the United States gradually become acclimatized to a culture that may be new to them.