Thesis:

In her poem “Prayer for My Immigrant Relatives,” Bedikian establishes the usage of imagery to demonstrate how immigrants may feel unwelcome and unwanted rather than embraced and aided when entering America.

Paragraph:

The use of imagery demonstrates American culture as deterring, representing how Americans may disdain immigration. For example, when Bedikian writes, “peoples’ words resemble the buzz of beehives,” (lines 6-7). The writer implies that to the ears of her immigrant relatives, hearing the language intimidates them, similar to the effect that a beehive enacts on someone. The buzz of the beehive may also be interpreted as the chaos of the immigration process, helping to resemble the difficulties immigrants must face while achieving the American Dream. The author also writes, “help them to hear the music of home sung from balconies overflowing with woven rugs and bundled vegetables.” (lines 1-3). In these lines, Bedikian focuses more on her immigrant relatives missing home and distracting themselves. Bedikian writes about their home as a place of elegance and comfort. This helps exemplify how hard it may be for the immigrant relatives to assimilate into the new American culture while also maintaining balance with their own culture. Also, by formatting the poem as a prayer it helps represent the stressful situation, due to people dedicating prayer in times of distress. Overall, Bedikian’s usage of imagery assists her poem in validating the immigration process to America as somewhat unwelcoming and detering.