I am Chicana

A box

A box is what I have been put in

Or at least they have tried.

They have tried to stuff me in,

Squeeze me,            

Tape the box completely shut

But I will NEVER fit!

Because I am Chicana.

Do you understand what that means?

I am Mexican

And American.

I am part of two worlds

That should never exist.

I am too white for Mexicans

“Tu eres gringa”

And too brown for Americans.

“You wetback.”

So in the world that is black and white

I am put in the gray.

Nowhere to be found,

Lost, looking for who I am

In a cycle that sadly never ends.

But what hurts the most

Is that I have been

Stripped of my native tongue

Because of others decisions.

My grandfather was poor

Ashamed of his culture

Tortillas and mariachi

Quinceneras y family

Was nothing.  

He wanted to be white

And live off

The white supremacy

That has thrived in our history.

So he buried our culture

Ten feet under

Hoping we would never ask

Why our skin was brown

And our hair was black 

Why we would never fit in.

But I knew I wasn’t “white”

Because I never thrived off the

White supremacy

That exists in society

Although everyone else claimed I did.

MY own people

My ancestry

Looked down upon me

Because I wasn’t from the native country.

I was born in the U.S.

Not the other side of the border

That separates my two nationalities. 

I wasn’t considered Mexican

Because I wasn’t from

Chihuahua or Juarez. 

But the pigment of my skin

Prevented me

From benefiting

Off the everlasting reign of

White supremacy.

I have been left with nothing.

I’ve been dehumanized.

Stripped of my culture. 

Stripped of an entire language.

Because of one decision

That I didn’t make.

IM struggling to know who I am

When each side of the border

Tells me I’m more one than the other. 

Im walking a fine line

Between two cultures

That cannot co-aside

With one another.

They are fighting a war

And I am in the middle

Trying to decide what side I am on

But I can’t because

Mexican blood runs through my veins

While American Philosophy fills my brain.

I’m exploding.

Every part of me is on each side

Each part too stubborn to move

To the other, but tired of fighting.

A constant war with myself

That will never end. 

A box

A box is what I have been put in

Or at least they have tried.

They have tried to stuff me in,

Squeeze me,

Tape the box completely shut

But I will NEVER fit!

Because I am Chicana.