Immigrant

by 88meaninglessmina88

May 10, 2016

Immigration…

I can barely begin to talk about it

Immigration is a hot topic in the news these days

Trump says kick the foreigner out

Keep the American paid

But the foreigners paved the way

You see without my people

There wouldn’t be what is today

But it’s not today that made today

It’s the days of before yesterday

The days of slaves

And unjust ways

When white supremacy

Killed my nation but paid the way

For me to come here

Lose my roots

My heritage

My name…

My “I”

I, who is more ethnic than the curl in her hair,

I, who is more cultured than the clothes that he wears,

I, who can speak in tongues that are now rare,

I, who can see the world in a lens of ten different men,

And, still, not judge nor compare,

I, “who choses to talk like this”

Because “talking like this is too hard for others to bare”

I, who rejects my identity at school and work to fit in,

It’s become a routine of despair

When at home I have no choice but to care

It’s a double life

to put it fair

And it’s something I really don’t want to share

‘Cause see now I’m broken

...More broken than a broken whores’ prayer

And then there's mama

Mama was a soldier through it all

She fought and she fought

No one ever saw her bawl

We only heard her cry at night through the walls

Begging God to take her life

‘cause she’s had enough of the fall

Three kids on her arm,

Lost her man and her home

And she didn’t even get a call

24 years later and she still suffers it all

Her life is a dragging race

But I’m not talking Rupaul

And to keep from breaking her façade of strength

She worked three jobs as a janitor illegally for “rent”

She got paid under the table, feeling like a cheap wench

Then went back to her kids and played pretend

Cause the White Man let’s you in

Without getting “bent”

But then you’re bent to a certain extent

An extent you can’t handle

So you become like cement

Either you’re a solid masterpiece

Or a shapeless mass with dents

And the roads my mother paved for her babies

Go walked without faith

‘Cause I don’t walk with pride

I walk with shame

Questioning God if he’s a live

And if he is, why is it this way?

Because my past is something I don’t want, nor claim

But I can’t escape

It’s etched in my name

And runs so deep through the blood in my veins

And when I go back home, it’s kind of like fame

I’m “the girl who lived”

Only it’s not the same

My life isn’t a novel

It’s an unfinished game

A game the white man seems to love to play

Sadness, anger, bitterness, rage…wrath

Solitude now seems better

Than the days in the past

Cause every day that I look in the mirror

I see what I’ve lacked

My “I”

Now “I” blend into this society

“I” enjoy privilege and commodity

They say what’s wrong with that?

Nothing, “I’m” just the child my mom didn’t want me to be

The child she fought to raise alone in this misery

I’m the child my ancestors didn’t suffer for, to see

And when I go back home

I’m not the one they want to see

I’m the white washed girl

Living the “American Dream”

The American “wannabe”

Living life lavishly

Driving cars of luxury

Forgetting my roots

My heritage

All that my nation has done to breed humans NOT LIKE ME

My “I”

And here it’s no different

I’m the arrogant

The negligent

The ignorant

The “Europeans think they know it all”

I refuse to take the belittlement

I’m not the one who started battles

Which others’ ancestors did,

Pint-sized

Colonized

Agonized

Destroyed

Then despised

White man just paints it diff-e-rent

OH! And suddenly you love my food and my clothes and my ways

And after all that I’ve been through

You come to me and say

“Come to this country and you will be safe”

But “when I take the job you’re not willing to take”

You tell me “go back where you came from” the very next day

“You come to my shop I give you pretty nail, I wax your hair”

But trust and believe the language I speak isn’t meant to thicken the air

'Ling-Ling' and me speak of home and despair

Of sending money to the families you mock without care.

It’s gruesome how in my country you’re a tourist

But I step in yours and I’m a terrorist.

You smoke our hookah

Eat our breads and hummus

“But not all of us own 7/11 and work for customer services”

But who really cares about those nations that cannot exists

Those nations fossilized by angry white supremacist fists

I hear them say ‘let it go’…It’s not worth it

They’re just outnumbered

Irrelevant

Useless…

Immigrants

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