A New Citizen Of These United States By Li-Young Lee

Although the speaker of the poem is not nessecarily supposed to be Lee; the story of immirgrating to the United States as a child does parallel that of his real life. In “For a New Citizen of These United States” the speaker talks about coming to America and fleeing a troubled past. Now, as an adult the speaker is reconnecting with an old friend who escaped along with them; however this friend does not want to speak about the past and the speaker does. Like the speaker Li-Young Lee also escaped from his home country, Indonesia, as a child and wound up in the United States. Even though there are similarites between both the speaker and Lee there is no certainty that Lee was also having a difficult time communicating with a friend from the past.