Through a close reading of “All Electrons Are (Not) Alike,” the opening poem of Rosmarie Waldrop’s latest collection of prose poetry, Driven to Abstraction (2010), this paper shows how the poem deconstructs history and memory through criticism of language. Retelling the narration of the conquest of the Americas, “All Electrons Are (Not) Alike” calls into question the beginning of what was to become US American national identity. Putting Waldrop’s poem in the broader context of transnational criticism, I argue that its deconstructive poetic and philosophical use of language contributes to the transnational turn, helping to create the room that transnational criticism needs in order to come up with new, more appropriate ways of structuring literary studies.