And it’s more than a sexuality
“Pick one,” they said
I work in sexual and reproductive health?
But it’s about rights and justice over body and space
Even if we didn’t want to include environmental violence
We have to since that’s what’s happening to us.
Don’t worry—I’m not interested in winning the Oppression Olympics
I know I’m complicit too
But this isn’t a two-sided story
Since there aren’t always two sides
There could just be the truth, the reality
The fact that there’s a history to this continuing
The boxes, the borders, the lines being drawn
The refusal to accept that it’s on purpose
The disguise that it’s “so much better than it used to be”
While the roots remain too close for comfort
Now they say, “We’re inclusive!”
Even though I’m not actually interested in being included
After I had to be included because I wasn’t there to begin with
They’re not looking at the center where I was erased
To uphold what makes it easier to not deal with
Now they say, “I’m your ally!”
Even though I ain’t neva seen them where I live
I don’t remember being asked if that’s what I want
There’s this thing called free, prior, and informed consent
Which doesn’t seem to apply when it’s about titles
Now they say, “We’ll get there someday!”
Even though the same patterns of oppression keep repeating themselves
I don’t want to keep swallowing the pill of having to understand
It’s not only about a better policy, law, or elected official
In the same system, it still hurts.
Unless things are dismantled and deconstructed where there’s pain
Regrounded and rebuilt where there’s hope
It will still be messed up for some
Always that same sum
Who never fit nicely into an equal opportunity
I’ve failed applications, funding proposals, membership, and residency tests
The same organizations and groups won’t call me
“You’re just too mixed!” I’m told
But I don’t feel mixed, I feel whole
And I’m not the only one.
Every explanation I have to give because my story isn’t shown in the mainstream
Every but I have to put in front of what I call myself in the English language
Every discussion I have to get into because I will not allow my ancestors’ struggles for me to be here to be silenced
Takes away my self-determination of identity
If you want to stop the us vs. them
I just can’t pick one.
—Jessica Danforth
Chile Con Carne
Manuelita walks slowly toward her desk. Music resembling the sound of a heartbeat plays.(1) MANUELITA: At school nobody knows I dance cueca. Nobody knows I work at the bakery and at the hair salon. Nobody knows my house is full of my parents’ friends having meetings till really late. Nobody knows we have protests and rallies, nobody knows we have penas and cumbia dances, nobody knows my parents are going on a hunger strike. Nobody knows my dad was in jail. Nobody knows we’re on the blacklist. Nobody from school, not even Lassie, comes over to my house. Nobody knows we have posters of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara on the walls. Nobody knows about the Chilean me at school.
Manuelita arrives at her desk. The man from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is here to talk about safety. So stupid! MANUELITA: He’s a huge gringo policeman, with a gun at his side. I bet he knows that me and Joselito broke the windows on the tractors that want to chop down Cedar, my favorite tree, and now he’s come to get me. Then I’ll be in jail. Just like my dad was. He’s standing at the front of the class with a nice warm smile on his face. “Hi, kids,” he says. I remember those nice grins, those are the same grins they wore when they raided our house and they tore my favorite doll’s head off. I sit in the first row of desks so I can see the gun real clearly. It’s real all right, but it’s smaller than the ones in Chile. The man starts talking about dangerous men in the woods and never get in cars and never take money from strangers, but I’m thinking, I know. I know what you’re really about. My mom explained to me once that the gringos helped to do the coup in Chile, that’s why we always have protests outside the US consulate, so I know what you’re up to, mister. You’re trying to get us to trust you, but “No, sir.” He takes his gun out slowly and holds it like this, flat in his hands; he’s talking about how he never uses it, when all of a sudden I hear a kid screaming real loud. A few moments go by before I realize it’s me that’s screaming.
Manuelita stands on the desk and does a silent scream, turning in a circle. Then she sits back down. MANUELITA: There’s a puddle of pee on my seat. Miss Mitten comes up to me with a frozen smile and eyes that are about to pop out. She hits me on the head with her flash cards.
Manuelita runs to Cedar. MANUELITA: I can hear the kids laughing ’cause I peed, but I run all the way home and here, to Cedar.
—Carmen Aguirre
The Bracelet
This is a dialogue between a father and his four-year-old son.(1)
“Dad, dad . . .”
“Yes, little one.”
“What are you wearing around your neck?”
“Around my neck! Nothing.”
“No, there.”
“Oh, you mean around my ankle?”
“That’s the neck of your foot, the annk . . . what?”
“Ankle,
