Your people have been here
for one thousand years and more,
longer even
than this country here.
Much, much longer.
Yet they'd tell you to leave
if only they knew
who you are,
what you are.
But they don't,
and you hardly don't.

Your Spanish is broken,
self-taught because your dad wouldn't,
not even your grandma would.
It's practiced in retail
selling credit cards
to people who can't afford them,
and not at home with family.
Your recipes are a mix
learned from your mom
and that grandma,
to your step family,
and even the ever present internet.
Your name?
It looks French, people say,
even though it doesn't at all
to anyone with even a passing knowledge
of that language or this name.
It's pure Mexican,
so pure not even a lot of friends know it
and are amazed to hear
that you're not really white.
There's others with it though,
some looking far less French than you.

You've never had a quince.
You never set up an ofrenda.
You never dealt with la chancla.
You got the hugs and kisses
and mijas and sweet things ending in -ita,
and you always had the food
and more of it
because you're too thin, mija.
You have so little though.
So little that when you look
at yourself
in the mirror
you see a ******.

Toss away that guilt though.
Get back what you can and more.
Don't be like your father
ashamed of what Spanish you know.
You're a Mexican too,
you just have to practice more.