The tone of this poem is very passionate and intense. He was raised in the Lower Eastside of New York and throughout the poem he talks about his accounts of what he went through and dealt with there. Miguel goes in depth about the environment he was raised in and is not bothered by it, but embraces it instead. For example, in the poem it states “So here I am, look at me I stand proud as you can see pleased to be from the Lower East a street fighting man a problem of this land”. He states that he has been a thief and a junkie and that he’s done bad things, he hints to being in some kind of gang. He talks about the environment being filled with ” run away child police shooting wild . . .mother’s futile wails . . . pushers making sales . . . dope wheelers & cocaine dealers . . . smoking pot.” Despite the fact that this might all sound “bad”, he loves where he was raised. He says several times in his poem that when he passes away his only wish is that his ashes be scattered through the Lower East Side.
Miguel lives in the Lower East Side. He doesn’t hate this place because of its bad living environment. On the contrary, he loved this place very much. He also said that he wanted to spread his ashes in this beautiful place where he grew up. Therefore, as a safe and clean environment, we must not forget the hometown where we grew up.