SO. in case I made the same mistake here as in FACEBOOK, the LIGHT THE NIGHT walk in Durham is NEXT thursday, the 22nd of october, instead of this thursday, the 15th...which bites, because now I can't go b/c its the designated day mommy is coming (yay!) to go with me to the NORTH CAROLINA STATE FAIR!!! (totally the best in like, the country) entonces, me voy con mi madre a la fiesta del estado en vez de este fundraiser walk, but my thoughts and my $$$dinero$$$ will be with Kendra, Kayla (her daughter) and Miguel (the dearly departed).
on a lighter note, here is a poem I encountered in my senior seminar class for spanish that I really like from Gloria Anzaldua's book Borderlands/La Frontera/The New Mestiza:
To live in the Borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra espanola
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps
while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands mean knowing
that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years,
is no longer speaking to you,
that mexicanas call you rajetas,
that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;
Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, the wind steals your voice,
you're a burra, buey, scapegoat,
forerunner of a new race,
half and half-both woman and man, neither-
a new gender;
To live in the Borderlands means to
put chile in the borscht,
eat whole wheat tortillas,
speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent;
be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints;
Living in the Borderlands mean you fight hard to
resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle,
the pull of the gun barrel,
the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;
In the Borderlands
you are the battleground,
where enemies are kin to each other;
you are at home, a stranger,
the border disputes have been settled
the volley of shots have shattered the truce
you are wounded, lost in action
dead, fighting back;
To live in the Borderlands means
the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off
your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart
pound you pinch you roll you out
smelling like white bread but dead;
To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads.
------------
gabacha- a Chicano term for a white woman
rajetas- literally "split", that is, having betrayed your word
burra- donkey
buey- oxen
sin fronteras- without borders
0 comments:
Post a Comment