I was born in a cold land,
The leaves bright orange like the sun
And a dusting of icy dew on wilted grass;
I was born in sanitary white and surgical blues,
Incubated, saved, isolated;
Mamá cried:
In the motherland,
mi Apá would’ve had to choose.
I was born into exile.
I was born to immigrants,
Brown like the dirt
Mis abuelos grow caña in,
Like the leaves, glorious colors past;
I was born foreign.
I was born in Español,
Accented with indigenous words,
Bastardized like our foods and dance;
I was born and placed
At the care of a deer’s eye,
Tied red around my wrist,
A wooden cross,
A brown ******
A blue-eyed Niño Dios.
I lived in dust for 2 years.
I ran free, in fields of milpa,
In fields of caña,
In zocalos with
Colorful waving paper flags
And statues of generals.
I played with cousins,
Sharing bolis and nieve,
The hot clay burning our feet,
Racing to cool down at the spring.
And then I was brought back for school:
Los gringos van a estudiar,
They whispered, a bit mocking, about me,
4 years old, a girl,
In a place where girls were good for marriage,
University for the rich, snobby folks
Of faraway cities.
I came back to the cold land in spring.
A small barrio of tall broken down buildings,
Tiny apartments that became havens
At the sound of guns at night.
There was no more running around freely,
No more campos, no more town squares.
School was foreign,
There was English to learn,
A struggle to lose the accent,
To make the thick words
Comfortable in my tongue.