2pm Poem
Circle White
I came across the question
Circle if you identify as white or African American or American Indian
or Latino or Hispanic
We all have, this time I stopped to think about it
I grew up white
My skin is white I look and speak white
But my grandma, my nana, looks Hispanic
Looks Mexican but she also talks white
I remember asking her what it was like for her
Growing up
She told me stories about her family how her
Dad would work so much how he had a firm hand
Her mom would stay at home and cook
How one time she opened the oven and
Saw a lamb’s head cooking
(terribly scary I was told)
My favorite stories are
When she talks about seeing her parents dance
around the kitchen before dinner
Where she learned to make tamales
Standing around the tina
Watching it slowly empty
Laughing and joking with
Family
But when I look at movies today
I see the celebrations
The quinceaneras
The dia des los muertos
The legends, the family
That they have and I wonder why my nana
Didn’t tell stories like that
Why she doesn't have them
My great-grandma, my grand-nanny, was half Hispanic
(Mexican) half Native American
(Apache Indian)
My great-grandpa (dead before I met him)
Was Mexican
They did all they could
To raise their children Caucasian
(white)
My grand nanny
Didn’t celebrate the day of the dead
She didn’t have an ofrenda
She didn’t throw her daughters
A quinceanera
She wasn’t Mexican enough
She didn’t want her children treated
Like Mexicans
My nana married white
White as can be
Red hair and freckles white
Her kids were whiter in turn
They had a large family
Six kids
They lived in a small town
Never treated like they were less
My mom married white
Utah white
So I came out white
So strikingly white
I grew up white
But no matter how white I am
Some heritage peaked out
Some things refused to be smudged away
Tamales made as a family
Made in mid-December
The hands that touched the masa
Not allowed to leave without risk
Of ruining the whole pot
Making dozens upon dozens
Of pork, chicken, cheese, sometimes sweet tamales
To freeze and have on Christmas or Easter
My heritage Is enough
I’m not saying it isn’t
I just look at what I could
Have had. At what I am missing
Because my great-grandparents were
Boiled down to a color
A color they didn’t want to force
On their kids
So I look at the question
Circle if you identify as white or African American or American Indian
Or Latino or Hispanic
And I want to circle Latino, circle Hispanic
But my skin, name, speech is white
I am treated white
So even though I wish it was different
I circle white
