Terrier News

Elizabeth Acevedo

Afro-Latina

Camina Conmigo

Salsa  swagger   everywhere she go

Como ta negra tiene tumbao, azúcar!

Dance to the rhythm

Beat the drums of my skin

 

Afro-descendant the rhythms within the

The first language I spoke, was Spanish.

Learn from lullabies whispered in my ear.

 

My  parent's tongue was a gift

which I quickly forgot after realizing my peers did not understand it.

They did not understand me.

So I rejected habichuela and mangu

Much preferring happy meals and big macs

Straightening my hair in imitation of Barbies

I was embarrassed by my grandmother’s colorful skirts

And my mother ebroki ingli which cracked my pride when she spoke.

So hmm, I would poke fun at her, myself.

Hoping to lessen the humiliation

 

Protocol myself American a citizen of this nation

I  hated caramel color skin

Cursed God, I’d been born the color of cinnamon

How quickly we forget where we come from.

 

(Pause)

 

So remind me,

Remind me that I come from the Tainos of the Rio,

The Aztec, The Mayan, Los Incas,

Los espanoles con sus fincas buscando oro

And the Yoruba Africanos que con sus manos built a mundo

Nun-ca Ima-gi-nado

 

I know I come from stolen gold, from coco, from sugar cane,

The children of slaves, AND slave masters

A beautifully tragic mixture of sancocho of a race of history

 

And in my memory, I can’t seem to escape.

(pause)

The thought of lost lives and indigenous rape

A bittersweet bitterness of feeling innate

The soul of the people, past, present, and fate

Our stories cannot be checked into boxes,

They are in the forgotten,

The undocumented, the past down spoonfuls of arroz con dulce on abuelas knees.

That the way our hips skip to the beat of Cumbia

Merengue y salsa

 

They’re in the bending and blending of backbones

We are deformed and reform beings

It’s in the sway of our song,

The landscape of our skirts

The azucar beneath our tongues

We are the unforeseen children.

We’re not a cultural wedlock

Hair to kinky for Spain and too wavy for dreadlocks.

So our palms tell the cuentos of many Tierras

Read our lifeline

Birth of intertwined moon beams and star shine

We are every ocean cross north star

Stars navigate our waters

Our bodies have been bridges.

We are the sons and daughters   

El destino de mi gente

Black, Brown, Beautiful

Viviremos para simper

Afro latinos, Hasta La muerte.