social media, in particular, has fueled mimesis because, by its very structure, it encourages imitation.
like posting pictures of food and vacation to show that one is happy and doing well or i should share this because it shows that i care about a cause
Humans rely on other people to model certain desires for us.
comparison
How fortunate, then, that we have art to amuse us, move us, inform us, comfort us, protect us, and console us for what we already know: that life is strange and hard and often dark and we should be grateful–more than grateful–for those pinpoints of radiance, the cord of runway lights that guides us back through time and death to the hand that first drew that bison on the wall.
Beautiful
art is the driftwood humans cling to when they worry, as they always have, that our species is drowning.
Beautiful methaphor,imagery,strongline
Stendhal syndrome, the psychosomatic response (which can involve fainting, a rapid heartbeat, vertigo, and hallucinations)
interesting. an actual name and disease to which moves us in art and makes changes in our bodies.
Art–and here I am speaking not of music or abstract painting but of the narrative and figurative, of literature and portraiture–can describe certain experiences that seem to be common to human beings: birth, death, procreation, falling in and out of love. It can show us that we share these experiences with other human beings. In depicting the emotions and longings and acts that we might not choose to discuss with our families or our neighbors, art can diminish ourloneliness and solitude.
beautiful strong line. In art- we are not alone.
sense of the range of qualities and ideas and emotions that characterize our species.
I like this summarize on what it means to be a human being and the complex depth of it.
When I am writing, I rely on my readers, and I trust them to fill in any subjective elements that might be missing.
I like this quote from Checkhov, we don't need to state the obvious, be subjective in writing, something I need to learn more when writing. Trust the reader to fill in the spots and let the story be told.
that there is something humanizing about the intimacy a book creates between the author and the reader, between the reader and the character, something humanizing about experiencing the vision and work of another human being.
beautifully said.
the shock that travels along our nerves and leaps across our synapses when we look at a Titian portrait or read a Dickinson poem.
not things that shock our core believes but shock us at the core of our being. That make us feel something, that we dont really know what it means.
"If I read a book and it makes me so cold no fire can ever warm I know that is poetry.
Emily Dickinson's quote on Poetry. Being moved, beautiful metaphor, imagery
Yet one of them thinks that the nothing that happened was about the two of them not having sex, while the other thinks that "nothing happened" meant that she didn't commit suicide, as she seems to have considered doing.
amazing how to one person it can mean nothing and to another, life and the whole world.
Conception and execution are major factors in the narratives on the page and screen that I tend to remember as beautiful.
about the process of creating, and presenting a story (visual or written) When people say that the journey was more important than the actual destination.
Regarding my family, I see faces that do not closely resemble my own. Like other Mexican families, my family suggests Mexico's confused colonial past.
the mestizo and mix within all the people in our families.
Powerful, powerless men. Their fascinating darkness–like mine--to be feared.)
powerful
Los pobres-the poor, the pitiful, the powerless ones. But paradoxically also powerful men.
los braceros, Mexican nationals who came in the 1950s to work. I like the paradoxical of poor powerless men, but powerful in shape but will to work hard to feed their families.
You look like a negrito, she'd say, angry, sorry to be angry, frustrated almost to laughing, scorn. You know how important looks are in this country. With los gringos looks are all that they judge on. But you! Look at you! You're so careless!" Then she'd start in all over again. “You won't be satisfied till you end up looking like los pobres who work in the fields, los braceros.”
the colorism in our own communities, but there is truth in color and social class. to be more passing and treated different for being darker.
What I want you to know is that I wrote it from a place of love; I think the point was to explore--and to tell the world--the ways in which poverty deforms and contorts the body and the soul, el cuerpo y el alma, even as beauty still finds ways to shine through the sweat and the grime, the ways in which poverty damages ... las maneras en que la pobreza lastima.
strong line
Which is to say, writing feels like building a home with words, the foundation and the frame and all the other layers of complexity. And in this home I house everyone I've been, everyone we've been-Mexican, American, man, woman, straight, gay, solvent, broke, saved, damned, loved, rejected, acknowledged, neglected, homed, and un-homed. We labor so hard at belonging.
identity. We just want to find our place and where we belong, when we belong to it all.
Which is to say, every ending is also a beginning, if you wait it out long enough.
love this. figurative language. When one door closes another opens. We are not doomed, there is always hope and what is meant for us.
My name is Jose;' the first time I have introduced myself as such in so many years, and it feels like a beginning, reclaiming the name my parents gave me in this American space.
power in claiming the name that was given. Letting go of the shame and expectations that are given and we give ourselves in order to make room in a space that didn't want us or made for us.
Which is to say, one day in my therapist's office I begin to tell him how much I resent the machista culture of Mexico that broke my mother's spirit, coercing her into a loveless marriage of submission to her husband.
hmm
The hard work went on all summer, and eventually it became bitter enough to breach even the walls of the Mimis' perfectly constructed fantasy, which had once withstood the ugly reality that had been screaming at the door of the Mimis' magic garden:
imagery. reality
"What the hell was the point? Those other people are going to win that bonus for the most boxes because they had nothing else except for this, and we get paid the same anyway."
what a life lesson and settlement
(Texas Mexicans and California Mexicans are very different from each other, like the Scottish and the Irish-fundamentally the same genetic code, but completely different in accent and habits.)
true, nice analogy
This, of course, went entirely unnoticed by my mother, and it was the younger Mimi, Mare with the 20/20 vision, who got vanity glasses with her name etched in gold script in the corner. Dan wouldn’t get glasses until he was in the military, when he was 17, some four years later.
still an interesting stake where the boys were over looked and neglected that the traditional mexican families where the men were spoiled, coddled and the future.
it is important for families of little wealth to have their daughters be as attractive as possible for means of social elevation.
the new hope for social status and belonging in white Texas
Gramma was the Indian; Gramma was the Aztec in the family. And since she had the balls in the family, we identified–culturally–as Mexican.
hmm. I wonder if gramma having "balls" being strong made her culturally more Mexican and easier to swallow in an environment that wanted to be more white. she was an elder and respected, she was more india, comparing to the white passing children and grandchildren. just interesting and wondering more what was meant by this.
These are the words I do not know; this is what I lost when I immigrated.
the loss of an education we never received, over an American one we had to learn to not be left behind.
Years later, I would learn the term for what had happened to me: subtractive bilingualism--the removal of my mother tongue, the psychological violence of tearing out a piece of my being.
strong line
But in my ESL program, instead of addition, subtraction took place: little by little,
this
Not once did anyone say speaking two languages was an asset, especially in a diverse country like ours. We didn't read literature in Spanish or do any kinds of activities where we could continue to improve our Spanish skills.
My parents were educated and my father had love for reading which helped me keep my root and sanity. Amazes me, to belong here, to adapt is to give up our prior self and identity to out motherland. Bilingual, two cultures and languages is such a positive, we're made to feel like its a negative. We can't become to powerful in this country.
I am not enough. I am insufficient.
I am a problem, I am different, I don't have a bright future like my peers, I take to much time, I am passed on and neglected.
To my misfortune, the local elementary school I was enrolled in when I arrived in California didn't have a bilingual program or English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.
I have a different opinion of ESL. When we migrated here, my sisters didn't have ESlL, and they learned english faster and kept to our mother language at home. I was in ESL, and it was giving "we don't know what to do with these immigrant, so lets take them out of class for half the day, to get them out of the way" I was removed during lessons, I fell behind in school, the ESL teacher didn't teach us spanish, and missed out on English. By 3rd grade I couldn't fluently read or write in either.
But now I had become as the burning ember floating in darkness that descends on a dry leaf and sets flame to forests. The word was the ember and the forest was my life…
metaphor. Imagery. Taking power and control back. rebirth
Later, I regained some clarity of mind. But there was a place in my heart where I had died. My life had compressed itself into an unbearable dread of being. The strain had been too much. I had stepped over that line where a human being has lost more than he can bear, where the pain is too intense, and he knows he is changed forever. I was now capable of killing, coldly and without feeling. I was empty, as I have never, before or since, known emptiness. I had no connection to this life.
Heartbreaking. Finally broken, empty, made into this void, and giving into it. Loss of Hope.
Styrofoam cups of urine and hot water were hurled at me. Other things happened. There were beatings, shock therapy, intimidation.
imagery. The inhuman treatment is depressing. These are people, like this protagonist, the judicial system failed them, oppressed them, enslaved and kept passing them along instead of given a change to rehabilitate or make something of themselves.
I shot my arm through the bars, grabbed one of the attendant’s university textbooks, and tucked it in my overalls. It was the only way I had of protesting.
the true and only weapon he had was to learn, and become educated was to protest.
The language of poetry was the magic that could liberate me from myself, transform me into another person, transport me to places far away.
even in dark times, a cell, lost, they found the freedom and liberation in poetry.
The book reflected back to us our struggle in a way that made us proud.
"that we were alive." We have struggled and we kept on living.
Yet in leaving home I did not lose touch with my origins bcause lo mexicano is in my system. I am a turtle, where I go I carry “home” on my back.
strong line. Imagery, in its in our blood and always a part of us.
My Chicana identity is grounded in the Indian woman’s history of resistance.
Strong line. We are here, from never giving up, for always questioning, challenging and resisting.
being a victim and transferring the blame on culture, mother, father, ex-lover, friend, absolves me of responsibility)
Accountability. TO take the power back and control of ones life. To be a victim, is to weaken us and keep us low, a victim of life and things done to us, or to rise and push pass it.
Woman does not feel safe when her own culture, and white culture, are critical of her; when the males of all races hunt her as prey.
strong line. To be a target, prey.
How does one put feathers on this particular serpent?
Great Analogy. How do we make it more appealing, easier to swallow? To make something different, beautiful.
Much of what the culture condemns focuses on kinship relationships. The welfare of the family, the community, and the tribe is more important than the welfare of the individual. The individual exists first as kin—as sister, as father, as padrino— and last as self.
familismo. for the greater of the whole and not the individual. All others above ourselves.
Educated or not, the onus is still on woman to be a wife/mother
even in marriage, educated it is never 50/50. Why so many women rather be single or do it alone since even when she works, the child raising, chores always falls onto the woman.
For a woman of my culture there used to be only three directions she could turn: to the church as a nun, to the streets as a prostitute, or to the home as a mother. Today some of us have a fourth choice: entering the world by way of education and career and becoming self-autonomous persons. A very few of us.
no longer gender norms. No longer in a box where you are either a virgin or a whore.
mujer mala.
reminds me of "nasty women" a term used for progressive women. You don't follow church and societal rules you are deemed "bad."
The culture expects women to show greater acceptance of, and commitment to, the value system than men.
how many times do women vote as their husbands and fathers do, when it does not benefit them. How much do we pore of ourselves for a system that is made to enslave us?
How many times have I heard mothers and mothers-in-law tell their sons to beat their wives for not obeying them, for being hociconas (big mouths), for being callajeras
hard pill to swallow, when women as well birth more machismo with their sons, they obeyed and suffered, these women should do the same.
Culture is made by those in power—men. Males make the rules and laws; women transmit them
patriarchy.
¿Cómo te gusta la mala vida?”
la mala vida, the road less traveled. to be selfish, to want a different life than those around you.
I had to leave home so I could find myself, find my own intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed on me.
strong line. to not only quiet the expectations of society but of our culture and conditioning of our family.
Me entra una rabia cuando alguien—sea mi mamá, la Iglesia, la cultura de los anglos—me dice haz esto, haz eso sin considerar mis deseos
hago que me de la gana.I wont allow my family, church or society from living my life and my desires
but the musicwill not comeif you are afraidmusic like most things in life enters in only one of two waysel amor o el dolor through love or through pain
through music/ creativity we are able to express our joy and our pain
the cost of not seeing a doctor they will say there are no choicesbut there are always choicesthough the choices we make out of fear are not choices
the fear of not eating, the fear of dying, when youre poor you feel like you dont have a choice which you decide over fear
the cost of one healthy meal vs the cost of three fast food meals
the bigger problem, when its more economical to buy fast food to feed a family than eat a healthy meal to better your health, but you cant afford it. social class, broken system
the constant battle of necessity versus necessity
when you need to buy medicine but also buy things to survive like food or rent
more pillsmore insulin more syringes more often
health care systems, medical authority. the frustrations of chronic health conditions and dependency on medication
you cannot live in fear you cannot heal in fear
just strong and beautiful line
his is what they will not tell youand this is what you must know
let me tell you from my experiences, the trick to get ahead, to learn from my mistakes and ups and downs
most folks say they want to change the world they mean their own.
you don't have to accept what is, and stay, you can get out, you can ask for more, you don't have to play with the cards that are given, but learn a new game to advance and win
most folks say they want to change the world they mean their own.
deep. I think this speaks to me in a way, that you might not be able to change your family, but you can change yourself. Like the saying, you can't change your surroundings, but you can change your surroundings
but the musicwill not comeif you are afraidmusic like most things in life enters in only one of two waysel amor o el dolor through love or through pain
love this qoute el amor o el dolor
heat of Arizona, than the ranchlandsnear the Falfurrias checkpoint.It's hard to imagine an endangeredriver with that much water, especiallyin summer and with the Falcon Reservoir
the last couple poems on the treatment of labors, paid so little they cant even fix a broken roof, yet are the backbone of this country. a lot of politics and social injustice
A river killed a man I loved,And I love that river still—María Meléndez
the river of hope and dispair
who’ve snickered at my native surname, who’ve turned me in “for speaking Spanish on the premises”
for being treated different for being oneself or for being different
who’ve snickered at my native surname, who’ve turned me in “for speaking Spanish on the premises”
the mistreatment. to have these people in charge of your education and life, its depressing
Insist on personal interviews. The past is the present, remember. Men carved me, wrote my story, and Eve's, Malinche's, Guadalupe's, Llorona's, snakes everywhere, even in our mouths.
interesting. more research on the meanings and symbolism
Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.Quiero amarte. Atarte. Amarrarte.Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Letme show you. Love the only way I know how.
love this and love the title of the book "loose women" no shame or guilt but passion and fire. Unapologetically woman
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.The fear of fascists in me.
all the bad and things that scare me
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.The Aztec love of war in me.
you bring out the mexican in me. Beautiful imagery
The Mexico City ‘85 earthquake in me.
this resonates with me, my mother being a nurse in mexico city when the earth-quack happened, then moved to Colima soon after to give birth to me.
Two tongues that come together is not a French kiss but bilingual love.
Beautiful strong line. beautiful love for two languages.
So much energy propelled my legsand, just like the river,it went on for miles.
symbolism of the river, being like him.
My mother roared like the ocean,“No. No. It’s their beach.It’s their beach.”
reminds me of all the tourist visiting cancun, like its for them to enjoy and keep the locals out. this poem says a a lot.
No amo mi Patria. Su fulgor abstractoes inasible.Pero (aunque suene mal) daría la vida
I don't love my country but I would give my life for it. Something I think a lot of us can relate with, living in the states. No love for politics, hate, systems of oppression but people and places and mountains we would do anything for.
reminds me of a woman looking directly at a man (and he doesn’t like it) of a woman fighting with her kids (but they need it)
A defiant woman. sounds like taking the insult and giving it power, a claim, a stance. Giving the woman power
Writings by Radical Women of Color,
found this interesting, that this was written tings from WOC, yet this poem talks of heat and steal, very masculine things and until I saw this title, thought it was a man who wrote it.
And I am not talking about skyscrapers,merely structures that can support usof trembling.
coping mechanisms
we all come from the same rockignoring the fact that we bendat different temperaturesthat each of us is malleableup to a point.
interesting. we're all the same, but we all have a breaking point.
Some will make it out of here with hate in their eyes,but so very few make it out of here as human
strong line. theme of missing home, that it was no better here. some leave human and change but most are changed or return, or in the same cycle over and over with no hope to change, when the system is broken
But right away we are sent to work as dishwashers,
The American dream, not so much a dream, but a dream of Labor.
Immigrants in our own Lands
The title alone, is a strong line. Resonate so much. I never understood, when many times I've been told to go back to my country, when our blood and roots are so deep onto this land... didn't many of you come from Europe. identity, this is my home.
pero eso sí, compiras,’no quiero regresar.
never want to return to prison. good for him, since a lot of minds get lost and stuck there only to be let out and return.
that say that we are savage; i’ll laugh at mean ass convicts who terrify the worldyet love to eat ice cream,
these are still people, good and bad. still people
recalling all the sadness that hideswithin this place;
beautiful line. prior to this place being cold, everyone for themselves, the hate, their all the same, but the tales, sadness, beautiful and sad
Soledad Guerra, solitude and war,
ironic, poetry.
La pinche vida Que a tirones la vivimos under a never changing sun nos sigue jodiendo.
strong line. being forced to live this life, make a living, still being messed with. With is the sun symbolizing. A people who will always work hard, make a living, under the burning gaze of the sun
i bear you no grudgei needed you then . . . identity . . . a sense of belonging i need you now.
strong line. identity. sense of belonging, no grudge, sanity
some died young–fortunate–some rot in prisons the rest drifted away to be conjured up in the minds of other like them.
the social cycle, that keeps going round and keeping them down
Ráton: 2o years for a matchbox of weed. Is that cold? No lawyer no jury no trial i’m guilty Aren’t we all guilty?
broken corrupt judicial system; no lawyer, no trial, where the only thing he’s s guilty of is being black or brown in this country. To people of color getting twice the amount of jail time of white victims, troubled youth, where POC are thugs, grown men, dangerous
escuadra
"square" plastic, probably obly a prep, someone who he assumed thought was better.
the art form of our slums more meaningful & significant than Egypt’s finest hieroglyphics.
Greece, Egypt, but we don't see ourselves in it. This is our art, our history, our neighborhood, our story, more precious than that in other countries and books.
“just doing things different”
an act, disobedience. not wanting to be in a box, to being different, wanting different, to being stereotype, a new wave.
making eyes at girls from cleaner neighborhoods the unobtainables who responded with giggles and excitement.
social class, disparaties. "unobtainables" like if they are less than, unequal
Fiestas for any occasion holidays holy days happy days ‘round and ‘round the promenade eating snowcones–raspas–& tamales the games–bingo cakewalk spin-the-wheel
community. unity, solidarity. The thing I miss most since moving to gringolandia of Austin
Speeches by elders, patriarchs with evidence of oppression
the beautiful traditions passed down, stories from elders, roots that go down deep. oppression, their trauma is ours.
2 peaceful generations removed from their abuelos’ revolution.
interesting strong line. peaceful and revolution in one sentenced. erased
demolished, erased forever from the universe.
Gentrification
Then Feliz began laughing again, but it wasn’t Feliz laughing. It was gurgling out of her own throat, a long ribbon of laughter, like water.
strong line. she got out. she's safe.
This lady doesn’t even speak English. She hasn’t been allowed to call home or write or nothing. That’s why I’m calling you.
to be taken, secluded from your family, to be scared to ask for help. this is common, this is heartbreaking.
Her ex-husband, her husband, her lover, her father, her brother, her uncle, her friend, her co-worker. Always.
crazy, that our main predator is men, the ones we love, and have children with, the ones who can kill us as at any moment
Nothing one could walk to at any rate. Because the towns here are built so that you have to depend on husbands. Or you stay home. Or you drive. If you’re rich enough to own, allowed to drive, your own car.
The scary problem, when you're taken away from your home and your family. You're stuck, feel alone, have to depend on the one person you can't depend on.
Not that he isn’t a good man. She has to remind herself why she loves him when she changes the baby’s Pampers, or when she mops the bathroom floor, or tries to make the curtains for the doorways without doors, or whiten the linen. Or wonder a little when he kicks the refrigerator and says he hates this shitty house and is going out where he won’t be bothered with the baby’s howling and her suspicious questions, and her requests to fix this and this and this because if she had any brains in her head she’d realize he’d been up before the rooster earning his living to pay for the food in her belly and the roof over her head and would have to wake up again early the next day so why can’t you just leave me in peace, woman.
sad, because these men are broken, need therapy and do whats expected, resents them and run away, keeping someone else miserable in their traumas and issues.
la consentida, the princess
My father also used this nick name. Later he apologized for his behavior growing up, for the example to what to tolerate. la consentida, love our fathers, to later be with men who would hurt us, I also had a limit of what I would tolerate, I am proud I got my son and left.
But when the moment came, and he slapped her once, and then again, and again, until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood, she didn’t fight back, she didn’t break into tears, she didn’t run away as she imagined she might when she saw such things in the telenovelas.
We always assumer we wouldn't put up with things, judge others, and how it could never happen to us, but the reality, the shock. This is how it starts and my heart breaks for her. A woman never enters a relationship thinking it could happen to her, but we all know it won't be the last.
They were too busy remembering the men who had left either through choice or circumstance and would never come back.
I love that this seems normal in older times, or small towns, but appreciate the new days of de-centerizing men. How much of their time and life is crying, weeping and remembering the men in their life, yet everyday they spend, talk, laugh and are supported by this community of woman. We can honor them, but don't need to loose ourselves and drown ourselves in their identity.
Somehow one ought to live one’s life like that, don’t you think? You or no one. Because to suffer for love is good. The pain all sweet somehow. In the end.
the sexism, this is something we only teach women, blame single mothers but never tell men to stick thru it, to make it work, to blame the mother is easier than the absent father. "what did you do for him to leave or hit you" the societal treatment for woman to endure pain and hardship, to make room and make herself useful in order to have a place or love.
Because to suffer for love is good. The pain all sweet somehow. In the end.
Love should be safe, easy, this idea that it should be an obsticle course to prove ones love, or pain is beyond me.
The beautiful Lucia Mendez having to put up with all kinds of hardships of the heart, separation and betrayal, and loving, always loving no matter what, because that is the most important thing, and did you see Lucia Mendez on the Bayer aspirin commercials, wasn’t she lovely?
The toxic conditioning placed onto woman, from novelas and society. Like love should hurt or be toxic, but you stay. Religion, church, ride or die, leaves women empty and in unhealthy relationships.
But passion in its purest crystalline essence. The kind the books and songs and telenovelas describe when one finds, finally, the great love of one’s life,
I resonate with being a romantic, the hunger one feels to want to be loved in its purist for. We get gentle warnings, but never the reality of how relationships are hard, people are complex. The reality vs. the fantasy.
But what Cleofilas had been waiting for, had been whispering and sighing and giggling for, had been anticipating since she was old enough to lean against the window displays of gauze and butterflies and lace, was passion.
the coming of age of a woman, to want love and passion, to sometimes run away with the first man to offer it and realize its not the fantasy we dreamed of, not the life we wanted for ourselves. This man not coming home and using movies, novelas to escape the tiring life she was living.
How when a man and a woman love each other, sometimes that love sours. But a parent’s love for a child, a child’s for its parents, is another thing entirely.
beautiful strong line. Seems like some for shadowing on her marriage. Love sours, but family is forever family.
The day Don Serafin gave Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez permission to take Cleofilas Enriqueta DeLeon Hernandez as his bride, across her father’s threshold, over several miles of dirt road and several miles of paved, over one border and beyond to a town en el otro lado --on the other side--already did he divine the morning his daughter would raise her hand over her eyes, look south, and dream of returning to the chores that never ended, six good-for-nothing brothers, and one old man’s complaints.
What a strong intro, already beautiful storytelling. Of missing what we once complained about, of home, of the future we thought we wanted and it not being so. Of doing whats conditioned in us, expected from us or against it, to wish to go back. Coming of age.
“I’ll get a sex change,” Rio says. He gathers the dress up around his hips and clips at his penis with two fingers. “I like you as a boy,” I tell him. “Then you’re gay,” he says.
Rio mentioning a sex change in order to make them not "gay" and make what they are doing not shameful. Says a lot about Rio, his substance abuse, and why the protagonist accepting himself as gay, getting married and not having to hide, which is what It sounds like What Rio did.
We have not become monsters yet.
we are monsters, is a reference he keeps using throughout this story. What is being a monster symbolism here? When it is still pure and innocent, before they come into age. The coming of age story, the shame, the heartbreak.
“It took this long to find someone that could love the rest of you out of me.”
a strong line. A love strong enough, to make me forget you, to move on, to live my life.
He will break off in me like shells.
The pieces of a first love forever in us. So much history, so different they both are.
The wind ruffles our hair like pages in a book.
Beautiful Imagery. Like freedom of the wind, the freedom of summer.
My shoulder will sting later—like it had been a bee on my shoulder, not the harmless fly I’d felt. It will not always feel like stinging. When my husband kisses my shoulder it will feel good.
The comparison to later it being okay and a place of love, to maybe a sting... is it shame? guilt? Still the curiosity of youth and pureness.
we pull dresses on in the bedroom our single mothers share.
Definitely a theme of single mothers in these last few stories.
He was the man who saved my life. That’s who he was.”
I could never imagine what its like to have a parent with substance abuse, maybe I can since my father was an alcoholic. It's not a walk in the park, but it's not coke or meth. His dad did take him in, He probably never heard again from his mother. In most cases he is an example to continue this cycle. Because of his fathers addition he stayed away from drugs, got into college. It is so complicated, these are the people who are supposed to raise you. You are angry, but they are your parents and you love them. I cried. What a lesson.
I guess you could say I always liked everything nice and neat
The only control this child had, in a chaotic environment.
“What kind of a mother does that?”
Societal norms, where he is doing the same thing as the mother, yet she is a bad mother, but it's more accepted to be a distant immature dad. funny how he asked if he is his mother, when this child is acting like the parent and raising himself.
I think I was numb, that’s what I think. I’ve been numb most of my life. That’s how I’ve survived.
what a powerful strong line. Living in survival, not expecting much or asking for a lot, wasn't asked to be born, but having to work to clean to be accepted by his parents. which one abandoned ed him, and the other did what was expected of him with no actual connection and relationship. people take children for granted.
“I don’t go to church either,” he said. “But that’s no excuse.”
He did't go to church, yet expected his son too, it was the thing to do. How we want the most for our children, like we're a lost cause. each generation does better, traditions we must continue even when we don't follow them.
“You sonofabitch, you have to fucking take him!”
how sad, for this child, to have ur parents arguing in front of you, like you are a problem, his dad not wanting him, his mother dropping him off. my hear breaks for this child, who didn't choose this life.
And after awhile, I didn’t want to be around my mother anymore. It made me sad. And it made me mad too.
already having to be to adult, as a child, loving your parent but having every right to reset them. Mom is showing signs of mental illness, secretive about her work and life. Probably doing what she must to survive, yet leaving him alone to take care of himself.
She said I was a U.S. citizen and that I should know the language of my country. But Juárez was the only country I knew
part of what we have been learning in class, to speak english to fit in more with citizen norms, Mexican-American identity. She spoke spanish when she was mad or meant serious business.
Nunca quiero que me preguntes de tu papá.”
already saying a lot about their relationship, from wishing the teacher was his mother, so not even being allowed to ask about his father, which is huge for a child, especially sp later years when it comes to identity and roots.
Everyone laughed at me and called me a joto and all the other mean names kids call each other. I don’t think I cared that they called me names. It didn’t bother me because I didn’t think it was a good thing to know how to fight, to use your fists on other people. I never liked the idea of hurting other people
the terms we use on children especially boys who are sensitive, or different. I don't like the idea of hurting people or fighting, speaks volume on his character.
“One of us will always be waiting here for you. We’ll teach you how to live with the voices.”
closure. so much pain and death. Abel is dead, so his most of his family and baby. You're not alone, you will be okay.
“the Way of Life which gives meaning to moments of sorrow.”
more research on this
That I would spend the rest of my life like this, your body on mine holding the voices at bay.
reminds me of addiction, when people take to drugs and alcohol to numb a pain or feeling
They just gather around me as if they’re moths, and I’m giving off some light I don’t know how to turn off.
interesting choosing moths, since moths represent/symbolize change, transformation, and growth.
I didn’t bring up the whispering again, even when it started to follow me everywhere.
You can love someone, and still be unhappy. This reminded me of when I was with my sons father, but also felt a whispering of "is this enough" "is this the life I want" my inner demons and thoughts come strongest at night, because in the quiet and alone we can escape them
whispering
mentions again "whispering" he's inner thoughts and desires, the pull to the border
I graduated but stayed with you because I refused to risk what we had to distance.
seems like he didn't want to loose her like he did abel, When Abel left and didn't answer his calls and let the love die. He's probable anxious now of loosing her, loosing love. what a beautiful story, truly
With time, the silence froze something inside me, but the bird songs stayed with me.
heartbreak. mourning for a lost love, yet still having love for that person forever. time heals wounds, but there is always a scar. Also in this paragraph the talk of winter, reminds me "my life with the wave" when it speaks of winter, love going cold, and ending to spring/ love and flowers, to be reborn
his family in Texas and my family in Nebraska
okay, confirmed, He's from the U.S. When he mentioned not being accustomed and to being searched, border patrol, kind of makes sense now. Kind of also see the desire to want to leave, yet be homesick, maybe not for home but for abel
Before he ever said the word love, he said, “If they knew, my brother would fight over who’d put a bullet between my eyes.”
the reality and fear, especially in small towns and in cultures to come out openly, to have to keep it hidden, a part of yourself hidden. To love someone in secret, to fear ones life, says a lot about his sadness
I’ve never told you, but I loved a boy once. Loved him for his dark skin and the sadness of his eyes and for the way he dug his fingers into me when he held me.
Is this man a Poet? A lover of love, maybe of being needed? I love this. no labels, breaking the norms and shame behind sexuality and burdens we place onto men about being tough and sexual curiosity but more fluidity and honesty. Beautiful
Sometimes we laugh. Sometimes we cry.
Beautiful to have this partner and love to share life with. But is love enough? sounds like she got a job/ opportunity, night shift, its giving nurse, later paragraph mentions she's saving lives. Really she is the air he breaths and when she's gone he is lost, lonely in this strange land. Is love enough? seems like she is making something of her self, working hard, what are his aspirations aside from her?
When the whispers began, I tried to outrun them, first on the treadmill then at the university track. I tried weights. I tried punching the bag in the garage. I tried jerking off. I tried drinking
this resonated with me, as someone who has been clinically depressed most of her life. The highs and lows. Doing the work, and with age, I have learned that you cant outrun it, but feel it. reminds me of Frida Khalo "I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned to swim" sounds like he's depressed, homesick, running away from a feeling or reality of the situation.
To you, the Rio Grande Valley wasn’t simply a place on a map—the name itself was an incantation. Earth and sun and magic all at once.
A dream. A better life. A place full of opportunities. (is the grass always greener?)
My father said it wasn’t right. That we had it backward. That it was the woman who was supposed to follow her husband.
The double standards. Patriarchy. "isn't right" for the woman to take lead, to be the one who is to be fallowed. Bless the men who tell those norms to go to hell, and to follow what feels right.
You missed everything, even the scent of the air and the heat of the nights and the feel of the earth
Sounds like paradise, home, beautiful land, what would drive us to leave it? Was the American dream worth it? Paradise to labor and the fight for acceptance?
Part of the blood that runs deep in me could not be vanquished by the Moors.
Just how our mixed, indigenous blood could not be vanquished, there is also another identity, struggle that runs further down to Spain with the moor people, aka roots that run down to the middle east. The tan skin they themselves could not run away from and maybe to why Europe looks down on Spain.
The crown was gone but all its parasites remained
Although we were finally free, the ramifications are at hand. we are a hybrid, to be chicano is to accept ones mixed blood. the negative ramifications from being rejected from even Mexico at times and then the U.S. The hybrid identity. found this so fascinating when some didn't don't even want to resonate with mestizo since there is also a history, self identity with being from the middle east.
I was both tyrant and slave.
When reading this poem, the theme is identity, progress and mostly oppositions. Good and bad, old and new, passion and sorrow, tyrant and slave. A time of revolution and awakening, of progress and yet of fighting for equal rights and cultural hold to ones roots. Paradoxically, being the oppressed or the oppressor, https://unipub.uni-graz.at/download/pdf/5615650.pdf found this analysis very helpful
INFAMY
Infamy: the state of being well known for some bad quality or deed.
When reading I wanted to look up the definition to really understand what he meant. Mestizo, the hybrid, tarnished, to be mixed; seems to come off a lot to mean to be bad. To be seen more than mixed blood. People expecting the worst, to stand up against the odds, the stereotyprd, to stand against the limitations put upon us