They call me malcriada, malagredecida, berrinchuda, y una sinvergüeza.
I tell them that to make it in the United States, the double E of double U, you gotta be un poco malcriada.
Because they won’t hand you anything.
They lied to Mami when they said that the roads were paved in gold.
They lied to Papi when they said that a job would be easy to find.
They lied to Abuelita when they said that los viejitos were treated with respect.
Papi, who works hours upon hours upon hours every week in the freezers of some shitty supermarket
His hands gnarled from the cold and the arthritis that the insurance refuses to pay medicine for
Mami, who crossed the Rio Grande hopping from stone to stone.
Because it was low tide, has cleaned houses since before I was born, can no longer clean two houses in one day
Paycheck number two, goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye.
Fuck your standards of what is acceptable and unacceptable.
Fuck your standards of who is worthy, because I will never forget the night that Mami was cleaning after some white people’s party and her head was always bowed low to the ground, because she was the maid and these white people had some fucking Ph.D degree that I would sooner wipe my ass with than respect.
Because Mami fought in a revolution
And underneath her nails there is blood, sweat, and tears
There is the memory of mountains, lakes, and dictatorship
Try to take that away from me,
And I’ll claw your head off.
I’ll tell you in the language that I know best:
Que yo soy más que vencedora
En mi madre, en mi padre, en mis ancestros.
To my son I will say:
Never forget that your grandmother was born in a country that saw queens and empires.
Never forget that your grandfather never made it past the second grade but he got a manager position at a supermarket.
And he worked hard to prove that he was just as good, just as good, just as good.
Never forget that your mother is a woman, that you are born from a woman and I would rather die than ever hear you catcall, yell at, or lead on a woman.
The day you call a woman a bitch, a puta is the day that I start to bury my own grave.
To my daughter I will say:
The world is already yours.
You come from a lineage of women who cackle without fear-
Who transformed pain into music
And suffering into passion.
The world, mi mujer, is already yours.
BY LDAPFAMILIA