Here’s what I know…
Sometimes I’m mad at you because
We don’t know who we are
Or where we come from
And who’s fault is that
I was five years old when
La Raza
Shook the city,
voices rose up
screamed
for justice, for equality
La Raza
Only a few miles away
And yet I never knew
Why?
You wanted us to be proud
Of who we were/are
But we knew nothing of those people
We didn’t know
East L.A. to the Valley
Might as well have been different planets.
There. Here.
Here. There.
I had a voice I could have used
I wasted and lost.
So yes, sometimes I’m mad at you
I feel ignorant
Lost
Without identity
I didn’t recognize mi familia,
ALL the beautiful textures and colors.
I had a voice before I became afraid to use it.
I didn’t see those people are me.
Here I am fifty years
after La Raza,
Finding my voice
In the borderlands
La frontera
Once again the people
our people
Rise up
speak out
demand justice
Against the inhumanity
The degradation
Another holocaust
Seen by those who see
And I
I will always live
On a wall
Of two worlds
Here, there
Me, them
I carry two worlds in my heart
Mi corazón
And the only way for me
To know my story
Is to know their story
You’ve been gone a long time now
Crossed a different border
One I too will cross
For now
I’ll sit on this wall
In the borderland
Of my own life
A witness
Breathe in the rust earth
The earth of my ancestors
My people
Our people
I listen for their whispers in the wind
Their prayers in the rumbling thunder
Imaginary boundaries
Unless you listen with your heart
~JK ©2020
