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| {2004} |
| AM I WORTHY OF THIS CULTURE? (poem) Can a double conscience exist in this world? Will I be viewed as Mexican and American? I fit into American standards, seemingly fine. But will I ever belong in a Mexican community? I know English practically perfect but my Spanish is of little value. Will my people accept me and forgive those who have deteriorated my culture? ANCIENT MEMORIES It's coming to me, these ideas. I think they're talking to me. The philosophy of my ancestors runs through my blood. The family tree's sustenance runs through the roots of the tree and the veins of the leaves. Down to me, these thoughts flow like memories lost. COCONUT My mom says I am a coconut, brown on the outside and white on the inside. But that's not true. Deep inside, I am the most Mexican I will ever be. And even though I am brown on the outside and do look Mexican, it is my outside actions and sounds that appear white. My train of thought an equal mixture of both cultures and I am content with that. ENGLISH VS. SPANISH It is the way I live, that some traditions and rituals have been lost but not forgotten and I actively seek them. I am seeking my lost culture, though my family does not. That is what I am not content with. However, It is the way I talk that upsets me the most. Although I treasure my English and all its intellectual benefits, there is a longing for Spanish that I know will never truly be fulfilled. I have to come to terms with the idea that I will never be fully fluent and only hope to learn enough to be confident with causal conversation. English will always be my main language of expression but my art is truly Mexican. So what am I? I am the grains of salt: white, hard and endearing, the substance of my tears, the taste of my skin, scattered and hidden in a mass amount of brown earth. The color of my skin, hair and eyes. The color of my soul. FUSTRATED IN MY IDENTITY Why does my language scare me? Why was I frustrated as a little girl trying to understand the conversations my family spoke in Spanish? I am the aftermath. I am the product of a cultured generation / a cultureless generation / a culture invading generation. That cultured spirit lingers in me although it has been lost through my tongue. It sputters with the drops of Spanish language, drips with Hispanic saliva of my ancestors. But it flows strong through my veins and emerges in my art. My skin is not as dark as my ancestors but the subtle brown pigment remains. Once as brown as the earth's rich soil, it now only resonates the dust. I feel that dust died and turned to ashes. Dark brown: that color pierces. MY ANCESTORS They talk to me, whispering thoughts of spirit into my skin, encouraging me to step out into the sun, to darken my skin, asking me to open my eyes wider, to soak in a forgotten culture, to worship a forgotten god. They talk to me, a soul trapped in my skin, a spirit flowing in my blood and a heritage pierced in my heart. But sometimes they sleep in me. Quiet from a tradition lost. Silenced by a lack of remembrance. They sleep because they feel no pride, they sleep because they have no future. But I will awake them, I will evoke them. Through art and literature, through custom and belief. I'll raise their spirits, awaken the dead and blood once again carries the soul of them and yearns to absorb the most. MY LANGUAGE LOCKED I lick my lips, swallow my spit, clench my teeth, bite my tongue, and suck my cheeks, but nothing emerges. My voice is dry. I'm choking on this Spanish, cursing my English. Why can't I be Mexican? Maybe my blood supply (the one that flows to my ancestors) was cut off from the vocal cords. SKIN My skin glistens softly in the sunlight. A soft transition from light brown to deep chestnut. The slight sparkles of my hair and creases in my skin. THE TREE THAT BLEEDS The tree that bleed, a blood of ancestry, a lineage of roots, an internal system, giving years of rings a meaning, giving roots in the earth a past. Culture runs through the veins of the leaves. A voice echoes in the breeze through the leaves. A religion endures in the blood fruit that drops and oozes out of the bark. THE SALT OF THE EARTH But I am the salt and the earth. Predominantly brown with hints of white that are necessary and add balance to the chemistry of the earth and my soul. THE WINGED BEING It sings, the winged being. Neither angel nor fairy, or part of a folk. Yet an ancient voice, who takes the soul a flight. UNTITLED I am a brown animal with a white mouth. VEINS My veins are so different from my vocal cords. Both strands of lineage, one just breaks and tears while the others stretch strongly like elastic, moving in and out of Mexican. WHY I AM A LATINA ARTIST They are still trying to reach me, to deliver their message through me. They chose me to live, they bled through me. Like a paper stained with blood. They want me to deliver the message, but they chose to strip me of my language. Why? Maybe it was just an accident. Maybe I was the one they chose, only the unexpected happened. The easiest way of communication, my language was stripped, my communication shut down. But if they purposely stripped me of my language, maybe it was a challenge given to me, to find other ways of communication, such as my art. |
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