on my mother’s side of the family,
we are german immigrants spider webbing out
from jasper, indiana.
those branches of the family tree are the sort of people
who like everything about the midwest
that has always made me chafe,
made me feel like i could never belong here
on the buckle of the bible belt.
for them, i think it’s comfortable,
living in a town where everyone is basically just like them.
so i sit down for thanksgiving dinner with people
who voted for donald trump.
because people can love me, they can be friends with my family,
eat thanksgiving dinner with us, break bread,
be my own flesh and blood,
and they can still believe deep down somewhere inside of them
that this country belongs more to them than it does to me.
i mean, if they didn’t, what’s the other explanation
to hearing a man on the campaign trail call
latinos rapists and criminals
and threaten to build a wall to keep us out,
and thinking that was something that you were okay
with overlooking in your vote?
they can clap my latino immigrant father’s shoulder in one hand
and build a wall with the other.
and that realization is painful to reconcile
with the pledge i was taught to say everyday,
it’s difficult to reconcile with the american dream as i understood it.
so dear aunt cindy,
you shared posts on facebook are beginning to reek of white supremacy
and i just have to wonder, did you forget me?
when i was sleeping your guest room,
when i was eating thanksgiving dinner at your table,
did you forget where i come from?
did you forget about the half of me in paranavaí,
shifting, drifting away from middle america,
inch by inch, year by year, the product of tectonic plates.
dear aunt cindy, your daughter-in-law is an immigrant, too,
but she’s from europe, she’s white, so maybe that’s different.
dear aunt cindy, i don’t want to believe
every well-wish, birthday card, christmas gift has been a lie
but what am i supposed to think when you like a post on facebook
about white nationalism, about keeping “illegal aliens” out?
see, i don’t want to think that you’ve been lying all these years,
that you don’t care about me because i believe you do,
but when you also believe that this country belongs to you
more than it belongs to immigrants, to latinos,
to those who don’t look like you,
how can you not taste the aftershock of my name in your mouth?
dear aunt cindy, when you hate people like me,
when you hate people who come from where i’m from,
how can i not think you hate me too?
my mother, the furious peacemaker, says that she doesn’t think like that.
but that’s like coming out and telling me you still love me
but you… just don’t get it,
that you don’t think it’s quite normal, quite natural,
like i’m supposed to thank you for not spitting in my face.
maybe aunt cindy does not look at us and see “other”
my father always says that my people will know me,
but i think if i ever have children they will come out of me
with our family history wiped clean from them.
their names will probably be easier, never mispronounced.
whiter than mine.
and it’s the guilty reminder that, sometimes,
when it’s dangerous or difficult for me,
i am afforded the privilege of a choice in taking who i am off.
when it’s dangerous or difficult, i don’t have to be latino.
i can disappear.
but even when i am allowed to disappear, to pass,
i cannot scrub my heritage, who i am, off my skin
and i will not be ashamed.
so i tell people who i am,
because if you’ve got a problem with me,
well, then i’d like to know up front.
lol changed the name in case a relative ever stumbles upon this