Luis Omar Salinas was a highly regarded Mexican American poet. Considered one of the founding founders of Chicano poetry in America, Salinas worked alongside other well-known poets like Gary Soto to produce works that have inspired generations of Chicanos. In the words of Soto, Salinas possessed “a powerful imagination, a sensitivity to the world, and an intuitive feel for handling language.” In “My Father Is a Simple Man,” which comes from Salinas’s work, The Sadness of Days: Selected and New Poems, the speaker of the poem honors a man he loves and admires. I walk to town with my father to buy a newspaper. He walks slower than I do so I must slow up. The street is filled with children. We argue about the price of pomegranates. I convince him it is the fruit of scholars. He has taken me on this journey and it's been lifelong. He's sure I'll be healthy so long as I eat more oranges, and tells me the orange has seeds and so is perpetual; and we too will come back like the orange trees. I ask him what he thinks about death and he says he will gladly face it when it comes but won't jump out in front of a car. I'd gladly give my life for this man with a sixth grade education, whose kindness and patience are true. ..The truth of it is, he's the scholar, and when the bitter-hard reality comes at me like a punishing evil stranger, I can always remember that here was a man who was a worker and provider, who learned the simple facts in life and lived by them, who held no pretense. And when he leaves without benefit of fanfare or applause I shall have learned what little there is about greatness. Identify two things you learned about the father from the details in the poem. Support your response with evidence from the text.