Race Poem #6
Gotcho ass!
The minute man pointed his gun
at me and said as strong as he could
“America is for Americans.”
In a voice stronger than gunfire
I said “Fool, I am American,
Mexico is part of North America,
North America, Central America,
South America, all America.
Homeboy you should study geography.”
Race Poem #7
A racial history
Mexican.
Everywhere I go
people get confused
and wanna know what I am.
My parents were born
in Jalisco, Mexico.
My dad a deep brownish red,
Indigenous, Native, Mestizo?
My mom’s skin white
as Cristopher Columbus,
Spanish, White?
But in the United States,
they’re both called Mexican,
Illegal, Alien, Undocumented
though my dad is a citizen
and my mom, a permanent resident.
Gringo
My skin is pale as new moons,
freckled and covered in hair.
In Mexico, family calls me
Gringo lovingly. My blood
thicker than the Rio Grande
that separates us from one another.
They hug me and tell me to visit again.
I see I look different than most of my family
but I do not feel like a gringo or guero.
Spend all my time round family and
feel family first.
Black
Certain Harvard kids confused.
Mixed?
My skin so pale,
paler still by days spent studying,
but something doesn’t click.
Maybe it’s the hip hop I listen to,
the baggy pants, big hoodies
I wear everywhere,
the people I kick it with,
the way I talk or the things I talk about.
On the way to dinner
friend asks me,
I say “no, no,
but I did grow up in Calumet City”
It’s the best explanation I can think of.
Latino
Join Fuerza Latina
and think I’ve found home.
I write poems about
eating rice and beans.
Everyone cheers,
but I can’t fake the funk
and these are not my people.
I feel too hip hop, too radical,
too urban, too out of place.
Spanish
Keylatch and Mission Hill
Junior Counselors say they’re Spanish
call Sergio and I Spanish too.
I say “you’re not from Spain.”
“But I talk Spanish, so I’m Spanish”
“But, you’re not from Spain”
I insist.
Chicano
Yes, I’m Chicano,
but really I’m Chicago.
White?
Huh?
Call me foreigner. I am.
but White?
In Salvador, Black militants
don’t want to talk to me,
White American, White Mexican,
White Brazilian are all equally bad.
I understand and accept it.
I watch from outside hip hop circles
as cats I would normally chill with,
get on stage with, perform their songs.
I nod my head, but understand that
these songs would destroy me if they could..
Still I don’t feel White, know that in a few
weeks I’ll be back in the States,
another Mexican, another young man in Chicago,
broke minority, Harvard student.
Here I am White and there are different rules.
Than one day soon, I will be Mexican
and there will be other rules to follow.
Heard a million times that race is socially constructed,
but now that I am the one being constructed,
I understand that racism is real,
but race is a product of human imagination.
also, check out 3030 cypher where other poets will be posting their work. I will be double posting here and there.