COVE

During the Great Depression, everyone was affected but families took the greatest toll. In this photo, it shows the peak and plight of a mother. As migrants, they took the depression the hardest. The photographer is Dorothea Lang who was in California during this time. The woman in the photo is Florence Thompson, a thirty-two-year-old woman and mother of seven. She was a pea picker and as seen in the photo she is exhausted. During this time of economic despair, work was extremely limited. Due to that fact, those who did have a job needed to work long hours.(Smithsomian)  The poem that I have chosen is called "Mother" by Vuong Pham. In this poem, Pham talks about his relationship with his mother. Pham and his mother immigrated to Australia after the Vietnam War ended. In these lines, he tells us about his childhood and growing up with his mother. "I know now, as I did in my childhood wonder what it must've been to mother, there among the refugee boat's thrum, the faces of Saigon watching." (Pham) As he stated, he is now thinking about what his mother saw as they were leaving Ho Chi Minh City. "Eyeball ribboned with flames incandescent, a disorder of diaspora animates in the missile storm." (Pham) In these lines, Pham is describing when Saigon fell. He uses the imagery of flames and everyone staring at them and seeing the missiles go off in an Arway. "And my mother among them fled with nothing but me, growing inside." (Pham) Pham states in these lines about how his mother left while pregnant with him to be safe. She left because she had to, she wanted to give her son a better life. In conclusion, Migrant Mother and Pham's Mother show us just how much mothers go through for their children. They will work long days and will always put themselves before themselves. It gives us a better look at how we value mothers.  

Works Cited 

Dorothea Lange "Migrant Mother" https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1313354\

Vuong Pham "Mother" https://vuongphampoetry.wordpress.com/