A Letter To The Divided Country Girl
Updated: Sep 1, 2022
by Blanca Isabella
You are always the only one in the room
Ok maybe two, three is a crowd
Three is “WOW there's so many of you!"
Three will get you confused with people that look nothing like you
In classrooms, you get called names that don't belong to you
You do your best not to ignore such casual erasure
You know that your silence will be taken as validation and you are always affirmative
You are an “Affirmative Action” action figure
You fantastic first diverse student enrollee
First-generation college, first one to make it out of your city
You marvel at the sounds of the TV
speaking to the “American People”
Funny how no one says you people anymore
It’s all code words like “gangster" or "diversity intuitive”
You diversity all by yourself
You contain multitudes and yet you are contained, confined in everything you do like someone is watching you and isn’t there?
Isn’t that the whole point of this tongue you inherited?
A control system set since colonialism
A language that will get you dirty looks at a restaurant
If only they knew it came from their ancestors forcing this tongue upon us
But suppose they do. The need to control runs in their veins causing my people’s blood to run loose, painting a path for what my community has always held as truth:
In order to get anywhere be
twice as good,
twice as smart,
work twice as hard
As If someone else’s worth is worth measuring yours against
You always remember to measure
Your looks, your volume...your tone over email
You're always sorry, you don't even know why
You apologize to no one in particular just for being in and around your body all at the same time
They will tell you:
You’re loud
"why are you angry"
"You're firey
"You talk too much"
"Talk better"
"Don't speak that I don't understand"
"You speak well for..”
"You’re not from here”
“You’re not from there"
You divided country girl
you are enough
You are brilliant
You are talented
You are a legacy
The first teacher who ever saw you says, and every once and a while you chose to believe it
So say it
An ode to the way we make survival an art
Say i am a young brown girl and my joy is stainless.
Say I exist in excess of my anguish
My existence is resistance
I may speak a language that does not belong to me
But it was reclaimed, used by these who raised me
Mujeres de marz.
Women of corn
Making tamales, tortillas, the things that helped me grow
Growing from the soil that supported my ancestors
The soil that knows the hands of my great grandfather too well
So the next time you feel like a divided country girl
Say, you are the ones who placed the divide, this land belongs to neither you nor I
Say I am from here and there and I will go places you have never been
Say my people are not target practice
Not a bullseye with rhythm
Not something that can be caged
say this breath is not an illegal substance to be locked away
When they try to turn your LA school into a prison
May your voice raddle the pipeline breaking the chains
say denying to teach me my history is irrelevant to me
It lives within me
In me are Rodriguez, Alfaro, Lopez, Valdez and Cisneros
The authors that offered a glimpse into what heaven is
Say we fly like butterflies that futter their wings dignified
Even when others try to make our beauty
a burden
Say no one will make our beauty a burden
Say no
Say the appropriation train stops here
Say, My people are not cheap labor, say my neighborhood is not
new" market for you to gentrify like a vulture
Say love me like you love my culture
Say this is the last time you call me out of my name
The last time you call me anything other than what I have claimed for myself
What I inherited
Yes, we honor our dead, praise what they left behind
Because of them, no one will make us sorry for being alive
My people stay more vibrant than life
They always have,
say always have
Say,
always will