vivalatinamerica:

this poem is amazing. I loved every second of this. thank you for showing this to me. the amount of té in this is incredible. I wish I could wear this performance as part of my outfit every single day and show everyone who says something ignorant about Hispanics and Latines.

& I think all of my followers should take the time to watch this. this poem will teach you in 3 minutes what I’ve been trying to teach for months on this site.

here’s the poem:

“After the show she asks me,

‘Carlos…Andreas Gomez… is your stage name, right?
I mean, I’ve never met a Hispanic who looks like you – so, what’s your real name?’

To which I reply,

‘…Zach, actually…Zach Morris.
But I thought it would be a lot cooler to use a Spanish name.
It’s a pretty smooth stage persona, though, isn’t it?
And I’ll let you in on a little secret: I have much better luck with the ladies using it.’

She doesn’t laugh,
maybe detects sarcasm,
sucks her teeth and leaves, offended.

I’ve got a question for you, Princess Anonymous:
What exactly does a ‘Hispanic’ look like?

Do I need to look like Juan Valdez
and sell Folgers in a T.V. commercial,
sift my fingers through Colombian coffee beans I picked myself,
sitting on the back of my reliable mule, Conchita,
next to a broken-down Chiva in an oversized sombrero,
for me to ‘look’ Latino?

Or look like ‘a Hispanic’ as you say?

And what is ‘a Hispanic’ exactly?

I could guess what you mean
and assume that it’s a low-priced gardening tool
like the one buried in a shed behind your Victorian summer home
or that invisible harvesting instrument that picks all of your grapes for you
and has to survive on slave-wage plantations
without unions, bathroom breaks, or vacation.

Or maybe when you say ‘a Hispanic’ you mean your stand-in parent?
That person who raises your kids for you when you’re tired of being a mom?
That mouthless set of infinite hands and knees that scrubs the shit
from you toilets and throws away the used condoms when you forget to hide them.

And I don’t have a backyard, or a lover on the side, or kids for that matter
so maybe I just haven’t had the need yet
but I haven’t come across ‘a Hispanic’ thus far in my life
nor have I met ‘a black,’ ‘a Chinaman,’ or ‘a towel-headed Arab’ anytime recently either.

But I have met Latinos

Proud of the vibrant quilt
we’ve had to weave over centuries across an endless cemetery
that cradles our past, a swollen dust underneath our soles –
wherever we stand – that we nickname home
twisting roots at war, looking for nothing else but to be held.

You know ‘held’?

Like a family grasping onto each other
because they’ve left behind everything and only have each other left
arriving on Mars without a guidebook or a map.

I have met Latinos

who people think are Aboriginal in Patagonia, east Asian in Chile,
west African in La República Dominicana, Scandinavian in Argentina,
and Native American in Colombia.

I have met Latinos

who look like Juan Valdez and can’t speak a word of Spanish,
others who look like Hillary Duff with a mother who looks like Hillary Clinton
that are from Paraguay and teach Spanish grammar in Puerto Rico.

Latinos who speak Quechua and nothing else,
dance cumbia like the horizon is on fire because of them
and now they’re trying to burn tomorrow to the ground.

I have met Latinos

who cook like their broken English moms
and mispronounce their own last names,
Colombians who don’t know who Gabriel García Márquez is,
dark-skinned Dominicans who hate Haitians
because they remind them that they’re African,
blue-eyed Cubans who spit poetry about !Revolución! and mean it –
living with two parents in Miami who lost their mansions in the 1950s
to it.

I don’t tattoo my body because my veins are already too full with ink,
passion-rich pigments that can’t help but
pulse and flow.

Look at my heart, you short-sighted fool.

I mean really look at it,
cut open my chest and stare
at that proud glow

and then ask me if I ‘look’ Latino.