Justicia

Adriana Avalos

My culture

My city

My life

I said

What do you love about your culture

Because lately it’s feeling like

All you wanna do is take mine

Gentrification of a culture so sick

I can’t even speak on it

My name

You pronounced it wrong

Then kicked me out of my house

You got taco Tuesdays

And take trips to Mexico

Pronounce it right

México

So otra vez

I’ma tell you again

Hoops so big

And liner so thick

I speak my tongues

And love my family

How do you kick us out a home

But force us in a cage

Tellin’ our kids this is their future

My school shouldn’t be

A pathway to prison

So my face is glass

And my guts are glitter

I fight with my community

And spit ode to oppressor

Hair so thick

And body so tired

I am a woman

A woman of culture

A woman of nature

A creation of we came here for a better place

Instead we got prejudice & get the fuck off my land

Dimé por que

I gotta fight to be in the place I belong

I get dirty looks and karens commenting

Told my people we’re rapists

When you’re the one who created mexican

Colonized a culture

Colonized a community

Colonized a future

And blamed it on us

My parents made it here

But what about our family

Fighting for better lives

Only for you to threaten to take theirs away

Calling me pendeja for speaking truth

Yet you get president for spreading lies

The only reason my words flow

Is because they know their meaning

I speak because i’m aware of what i'm saying

And that is viva la raza

And pride in being Chicana

You want to be us so bad

But not the struggles that come with it

You want our culture

But can’t figure out what it means

Comida del patrimonio

Y carros del cielo

64 impala

Y mi papa in his 70s chevelle

Our Brown pride is too beautiful to be seen as “illegal aliens”

I'm not from outer space

I'm from the same soil you were made from

But my people created food out of it

And you built walls to keep us away from it

Justicia para mi gente

Because you took credit for our home

Justicia para mi

Because you took what means most

Some days I can’t imagine waking up

Because I’m so scared of what might happen next

I screamed chicanisma

But you heard white women

So while my sisters and almost mothers

Are being sterilized without knowing

And being sprayed with windex

Since we’re so disgusting

I keep writing

And I won't stop

Because no matter how hard you break me

And how much I bleed

I am earth

And I will show you my nature.

Justicia!