y la tierra no se la trago

Describe a color with all five senses

Light exposing neon, 

iridescent caresses from

twilight clouds

on skin. Lilac’s sweet kiss 

summons thunder 

hola abuela

nunca te conoci but

everyone says i’m pretty,

que me parezco a ti.

so thank you, for this heart

that yearns to be somewhere far. 

Thank you for my love of

canela y cafe,

of doing todo the old-fashioned way;

thank you that i’m slow and thorough.

Papi said you liked plants,

he told me so after I started buying them.

He said your home was filled with them

inside and out.

In my nostalgic day dreams I saw lush gardens

now I can imagine you tending to them.

My own plants are getting stemmy

me va costar que se me haga fazil, like you.

On the wall hangs my B.A.

I imagine my abuela shaking her head

at what I find difficult today.

I will do the work

to make my environment one where I thrive

Ya murió mi historia de antes

porque hace tiempos decidí

que yo soy la que dirige me vida

Y la tierra no me trago.

He aceptado que soy co-creadora

que mi historia es mía cada día;

Las mañanas me encantan

por que traen puras esperanzas.

Para que preocuparme por lo que

ni se que pasara,

si mi dicha es vivir hoy?

Hace tiempos, decidí tomar un riesgo

Y la tierra no me trago,

como me dijeron que lo haría.

Mas bien, encontré que a las aguas yo caía

la tierra no me trago

pero las aguas si me aguantaron.

A las aguas me avente

Encontré gracia y también me acorde

Que somos co-creadores

I feel myself being folded into the warmest and most welcoming blanket when I hear the 'hola' followed by my name with the letters pronounced how they're supposed to. 

Terms of endearment are much sweeter when they're the ones you've heard all your life, mija, amor, chiquita, amiga, I know I'm welcome here.

We make home out of each other cuando se conoce el dolor de dejar un pais, todo lo que sabes. Community, affirmation, that's how you make it through.

Yes, I live in the 'bad' area, but I am happy because I am with my own. What good is a 'good' area if you're going to be isolated? Who are you then?

Many forget themselves and where they came from, or maybe they don't know where they came from because their parents have chosen to forget, have exchanged their culture for the dollar. 

Our own culture becomes commodified, as some of us just get used to the jokes and stereotypes and we eat up the brownie points for being the token, frida-fying our homes because communism and art are trendy now, just hold the pesos and the poverty.

Palatable, watered down, cracked pepper for seasoning, saying spanish words in english, palatable. Stay out of the sun, find a man with blue eyes so your kids will be lighter, palatable, teach them english only so their spanish accent won't betray them. Palatable. What else does the home country have to offer anyway?

then I thought, what if I’m God? Goddess.

yes, what if I am Goddess, what then?

I would live for myself? good! finally!

I would lose society’s approval? good riddance, society kills.

I would learn to value myself,

my time,

my energy.

I would build an altar to myself

and treat the time I spent bettering myself

as time spent with God.

then yes! I believe! what is this religion?

Start with the basics right? So here we go, from the top. Why is it important for this work to be for Latinx? It’s something about the feeling you get when you see your people being themselves, doing something big and sharing their gifts and insights that makes you realize this experience isn’t the same for everyone. Not in this country.

In the US there are constant messages hurled at us from all directions about why our existence here is illegitimate. It’s how one kind has been able to remain superior. People believe they are illegitimate because they are forced to buy into what being an American is.

These messages are especially affective because they infiltrate Latinxs’ perception of themselves. Latinx in America must battle self-hatred as we find ourselves assimilating in spaces, being taught to lie low by our parents, to not be so obvious. Especially if we’re light skinned enough to get away with it.

Not like I ever felt normal to begin with. At school I felt my point of view was wrong for believing immigrants should be helped, not persecuted for being “illegal”. I never said this though because I didn’t have the words for it. I could never manage to find a way to mention it ‘correctly’ until I went to college and learned the term was ‘immigration reform’.

College was where I first met people who were not only open but loud about their immigration status. My reaction at first was confusion at why they would tout that. Didn’t they also know to lay low? The rule I had always adhered to? But it was like ‘duh’, we shouldn’t have to lay low. We’ve done nothing wrong. We’re here, too, and we’d like to be acknowledged.

It’s important to cater this work to Latinx in the US because we’re like finding each other right now. It’s like we went through years of growing up through all this shit and now as we’re naming what we went through, we’re looking for other survivors to hear what it was like for them. And realizing our lives are all touching on similar themes.

Some people have been able to be in community with people like themselves but others of us may have been displaced from our communities, so finding each other is especially important because we’ve been depraved. Reasons for displacement could be family, drifting apart, religion (changing religion for me meant losing friends, it was the only Latinx community I had), or beliefs instilled in us by family and by our culture and by American culture that Latinx culture has nothing to offer if you want to be successful.

And a lot of Latinx I know from my hometown haven’t been able to take it, so they move to places where there are more Latinxs. But for the people who stay and give into it, they become ashamed of illegal immigrants, they’re ashamed at DACA and at protestors and activists. “This isn’t your country, you’re making a fool of yourself.” “Be thankful you live in this country, lay low and let your success be what makes them eat their words”.

My own Honduran mom thinks protesting is communist activity that you could be killed for, so there’s trauma linked to it, too.

I’m calling out to Latinx because I love my mom, but I’ve had to move away from her and home because I couldn’t let her self-deprecating ways get to me any more. And I want to know how do you balance and hold these things? And even though my dad said he was disappointed in me for choosing to become a “qualquiera” for moving to another city with my boyfriend, he’s my papi and everything he’s done has been for my sisters and I. How do you balance loving your family and continue to separate the chaff from the grain in your upbringing?

Who knew such a goof

would be my muse?

My funny love, such a stud

with the most beautiful hands

my eyes ever did saw

Laughing to myself,

loosening up, yeeeee-hawwww!

AHAHAHAHAHA!

I love how you are, like

going off the rails

I know I’m the air sign but swear

sometimes you’re the wind in my sails.

Maybe I’m more like the sea,

we both know I cry enough.

Sometimes it feels like

I alone am keeping the ship up.

But then you lift the weight of the world

off my shoulders, remind me

I don’t need to be as tough

as a boulder.

In a way, I may cry more now because of you

But it’s good.

You know how I tell you about the tears of relief?

Of those knots going away, of finally saying what I need to say?

It’s like that

This love, with you, is a breakthrough.

Thanks for everything, Baby

La madrugada me llama

despertandome de mis sueños

as if a gallo were yodeling

in my head.

Sometimes when the morning called 

I checked the clock and rolled over 

back to sleep.

Others I stayed awake to see what la madrugada would bring.

Morning dew, I walk through the grass

in the morning, early June.

My feet crush the dew

crystals scattering, the splashes singing my mañanitas as I walk through,

“She’s awoken!” The dew drops glittering as the sun’s rays hit them 

and the rays greet me warmly

Ten years ago today I was a fifteen year old girl working on the final preparations for her quince. I was thankful to have the quince as something to do that summer (instead of the usual boredom and sitting around) and to have an excuse to see friends so often since I had recruited them to be my damas y chambelanes. It was awesome to have that little community in the months leading up to July 12th 2008. 

A couple weeks later my sister, friends, and I went to camp for the third year and met Ben and Franky that summer.  I can’t believe I didn’t feel comfortable with sex until ten years later. Also back then my expectations for my self ten years into the future were higher than what I have actually been able to accomplish. Fifteen year old -Me wanted to have traveled to India by then, but now-Me thinks France/Europe/Hawaii fit the bill pretty good. I also wanted to live closer to the ocean, which I sort of am now. Back then I wanted to live in Portland when I grew up, but I really like Washington now.

I knew God and Jesus meant love, but they have also always equated with guilt. My salvation was never safe so I had to follow the rules. No sex, no parties, no alcohol, no disobeying, and if I found out you did it I kept my distance. ‘Guard your testimony’ was a phrase my parents used a lot, what would other people think of Christ (or of my parents) if they saw me doing secular things? How could I bear witness if I can’t be an example? I was on the worship team at church, too, a point person in the congregation. As far as I was concerned I was not allowed to sin.

On the other hand, movies like Veggie Tales and The Prince of Egypt taught me about a warrior god who looked out for his people and who was the god of second chances.

My favorite images of God were the ones portrayed in worship music. There was a song I remember all about how God makes things new and beautiful out of old things.

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

Or old hymns like “As the deer”, where Jesus is described as a friend and brother even though he’s a king.

As the deer panteth for the water

So my soul longeth after thee

As a child going to mass, I remember thinking of God as mystical. Mass was a beautiful place to be. There were statues and images of Jesus and God’s servants everywhere. It was God’s house, and where he resided; the smell of incense pouring from thuribles, the latin phrases, the robes the priests wore, the pews with the kneelers all made me sure of it.

My family and I accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior when I was 8, we converted and became a part of the protestant denomination, the Assemblies of God. We also attended Hispanic churches, and went as far as hosting church in our home way back before our Hispanic church had its own space.  Our church was very active in the spirit or allowed the spirit to move in the congregation. There were raised hands and crying at service. Nearly every Sunday either the pastor or someone in the church received a message in tongues from God for the congregation. There was also an interpreter for the message.

These days, having a connection to the divine or to the sacred has a more self-centered or inward focus. I believe that understanding myself more will lead me to understand others more, and visa versa.

Understanding others became more important to me in college, out of the house and free from my household’s version of Christianity. It was discouraging at first to go to a college church and see people worshiping God who I was pretty sure were recovering from their Saturday night. It enraged me. It wasn’t fair to me that they didn’t have the guilt that I did. Didn’t they know their praises wouldn’t go past the ceiling if they were living in sin?

A pivotal switch in my thinking happened the summer going into my sophomore year of college. I’d accompanied my dad on his trucking job and I was sitting in my dad’s truck somewhere in the Midwest, reading the Bible. I came upon Mark 10:17-18, which reads “As Jesus started on His way, a man ran up and knelt before Him. “Good Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18“Why do you call Me good? Jesus replied, “No one is good except God alone.”

The verse brought me back to a conversation I had with a friend the previous summer. My friend wasn’t Christian, but I had a crush on him so I let it slide. We were walking in the park when we came upon an outreach tent that had the question “Are you a good person?” printed on a banner. I spouted off and said something to the effect of ‘I’m a Christian, I keep God’s word. I know I’m a good person’. My friend responded by hanging his head and saying ‘I’m not a good person’.

Sitting in that truck I was broken. I started crying. How dare I call myself a good person when Jesus, the person I thought I was emanating, wouldn’t even admit that he was a good person? How many people had I hurt by judging them in this way? How much damage had I done to myself and my spiritual life by constantly measuring my ‘goodness’?