"The Clean Rinse" Analysis

The Clean Rinse by Naomi Shihab Nye


Each time you go through this
you lose a little less color

the water is less
pink, blue, or gray

this is what i try to say:
don't let them wring it out of you

because they like starch,
don't let that apply to your neck

you are real, 100% cotton
you can wrinkle, accept that as gift

and accept these rinses,
they are tedious

they will come
again and again

after awhile, you will have
nothing more they can take

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In this poem I feel that Nye is referring to the Americanizing of her religion and her heritage. The way that the country changed after September 11, 2001 created an "unsafe" or fearful environment for many Middle Eastern citizens. Through out the poem Nye discusses going through a process. The process I am   picking up on is being told to be someone she is not in order to fit into society. Nye writes, "each time you go through this you lose a little less color" as if each time she is told to be different or act differently, it becomes easier to ignore or become stronger because of their dislike for difference. At first the taunting and scares make a person want to change immediately, but after so many people saying negativities, it gets easier to disregard or pull through stronger. "Don't let them wring it out of you," Nye writes, this I believe meaning your culture and beliefs. Not any person should be Americanized to the point of losing who they really are. Her talk of wrinkling may mean that it is okay to be human and to be different, it does not make you unimportant or lesser. At the end of the poem Nye talks about having no more to give, or "they" have taken it all away. Meaning that the country may be losing it's cultures, that everyone is becoming similar beyond being "American citizens". People are being forced to conform and turn into what society claims they should be.