The following prose piece is in collaboration with #ImmigrantHeritageMonth.
This is not about the debated clash of civilizations
But about the vibrant, continuous bleeding of cultures
This is for the Americanized, assimilated immigrants’ children
The evolving, eclectic generation
Who never purposely left behind an identity
Who never purposely decided to plow forward and
Who never purposely stopped reflecting back
This is for those who inhale the desire to recount histories
And exhale the desire to discount them
This is not for my grandparents, or even for my mother or for my father, Jorge
This is for my sister and for my brother, George
Who eat lumpia and kare-kare, and pollo saltado and arepa in the same week
Who say Ay naku po and Ay ay ay, and Tita and Tía
Who tan and freckle, drawing constellations on exposed flesh
Attempting to connect fleeting shooting stars
Who sit side by side and are mistaken for
Not brother and sister, or even cousins
But friends
This is for those of us who are the artifacts of a marriage
Of two humans that originated on opposite sides of the world
Who choose to remember roots for the sake of diversity
And to forget them for the joyous sake of simplicity
This is for those of us who long for strong family reunions
That flower from our branch on the cactus
Delicately settled atop spines
For those who have never witnessed their mother’s relatives and their father’s relatives
Relate
And who consequently forfeited world peace at a young age
This is for the ones who pump tangoing mixed blood
Of entities not quite white and not quite black
Not quite indigenous and not quite invasive
For the dancers who mirror twisting kaleidoscopes
Morphing into beautiful, seemingly graceful patterns of colorful beads
For the chameleons in this world occupying myriad bodies of land
Inquisitive to live beyond, and therefore leave, the familiar
This is for my journeys to a motherland and to my imperialist forefather
That only resulted in more exclusion and confusion
This is for fighting against being commodified and exotified
For overcoming triple the stereotypes
Triple the ignorant remarks
And triple the caricatures
This is for educating schoolmates that Filipino is spelled with an F
And café owners that Colombia is spelled with an O
This is for the understanding that a half or a quarter of an ethnicity
More often eliminates me from the group rather than adding me in
This is for the ability to choose which facet to identify with Only after I analyze which would be most convenient
For calculating a witty response to “Where are you from?”
And for becoming so damn confused when
Offering a literal response to the philosophical question “What are you?”
This is for those of us who have inevitably become accepting of all walks of life
After our own walk in life
For those whose half-life, and even quarter-life, crisis
Never quite leaves shore because the identity crisis is still out at bay
Running the length of the marathon
This is for those of us who have the knowledge of nomads
Thumb-tacking trails of tears and visited validations
Learning to hate
The borders and unforgiving definitions
Society stresses to create and uphold
To construct contrasts to outshine the shadowed
And the ethnocentricism and xenophobia
That scares and scars
Learning to love
The transcendence and ambiguity
That comes with linked journeys and linked fates
With shared middles and shared tenses
And the self-discovery and self-acceptance
Initiating genuine engagement
Yet this is primarily for those of us who
While we may have sacrificed world peace
Still find the energy to nurture inner peace
Because we know that with deep-rooted discoveries
We may extrapolate our findings and our amends
From a sample of self to a population of plenty
Adeline Nieto is based out of New York City and is currently studying at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is both an aspiring teacher and an aspiring author. She believes in leaning into ambiguity to find authenticity. She has been published in Rethinking Schools Magazine and in Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry for Social Justice.
I organize play dates for my children. They’re friendships remind me of when I was younger when Fridays were consistently set aside for my friends. Now, it seems play is indeed meant for childhood and work is for aging adults. We often can’t find time for ourselves, let alone our friends, who are busy working mothers like ourselves. Or we moved into unreachable corners of this globe, far away from any means of physical communication. It’s fair to say, it’s hard to stay close to friends like when we were in college. Nowadays, it’s easier to travel, but more difficult to bond with others. “My Friend” asserts that we should not end let our friendships fall by the wayside. Even with physical distance and conflicting schedules, we keep our friendships close with kind words on phone calls, regular FaceTime calls, or even encouraging social media comments. Friendship doesn’t end once we become adults.
The opinions expressed by the guest writer/blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any employee thereof. Brown Girl Magazine is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest writer/bloggers. This work is the opinion of the blogger. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.
February 1, 2023March 7, 2023 3min readBy Varsha Panikar
Photo Courtesy of Varsha Panikar
“After so Long” is a poetry film created for Simha’s EP, which is streaming on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. The poem was collaboratively written by Simha, a U.S. native, and Jae, who is based in India, during the 2020 lockdown. “After so Long” was recited by Simha and their parents. In 2022, I directed and produced the film through my studio, Star Hopper. “After so Long” premiered on Nowness Asia in March 2022.
This film is a worldwide collaboration among trans and queer south-Asian artists from the United States, India and Canada. It was recorded, shot and filmed during the lockdown of 2020 and 2021.
Jae:
Awake at 10 am but out of bed at noon,
I want to be here where I lose myself in these sheets
Glancing through half-shut eyes
At the gold pressing past my window
The glimmer remarks on the ledge of my bed
But the voices are so loud
Like dust collecting in the corner of my room
I am unaware to why I’m still here
With the chilling doubt of the breeze…
I’m swept into lucidity After so long
Dad:
Mil rahi hoon mein aaj iske saang barso baad,
(Today, I’ll be meeting them after so long)
Koi paata nahi diya tune
(But with no destination sight,)
Kya karu?
(What should I do?)
Kaha jau?
(Where should I go?)
Shayad agar mein chalne lagoon,
(Perhaps, if I keep walking)
Inn yaadon ki safar mein
(Down this road of memories)
Mujhe samajh mein ayega,
(I will find out)
Yeh rasta kahaan jayega,
(Where this road leads)
Inn aari tedhi pakadandiyon pe baarte hi jaana hai,
(Through the twists and turns of this winding roads, I must keep going on)
Mujhe mil na hain aaj uske saath,
(I wish to meet them today)
Barso baad.
(After so long)
Simha:
I feel like I’m retracing my footsteps
From these concrete stretches
To broken cement walls
Chips and cracks forge their way for new designs
I see the old abandoned buildings
That once held the warmth of bodies
Now just hold memories
Supporting the nature’s resilience
In vines and moss
After so long
Mom:
Dhoondli shishe mein jaaga leli hai
(These isty mirrors have offered refuge)
Bikhri hui laatao ne,
(To these scattered vines)
Zameen pe uchi ghaas pe
(Amidst the tall grass stretching from the ground)
Lehrati kamsan kaliyaa
(The swaying little buds)
Bheeni bheeni khushboo bikhereti
(Spreading honeysuckle scent through the air)
Phir wahi mausam,
(I lose myself in reminiscing, the same season)
Wahi dil,
(The same heart)
Baarso baad.
(After so long)
Phir bhi mein chal rahi hoon aaj
(Still, I keep carrying on today)
Khudko khudse milane ke liye
(In the pursuit of my higher self)
Inn galiyo se guzarna hain aaj
(I must pass through these streets today)
Chaalte chaale jaana hai aaj
(I must keep going on today)
Kabhi hum milenge kisi mor paar
(Someday, we’ll meet again, somewhere on this road)
barso baad
(After so long)
Kabhi hum milenge kisi mor pe
(Someday, we’ll meet again, somewhere on this road)
barso baad
(After so long)
The opinions expressed by the guest writer/blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Brown Girl Magazine, Inc., or any employee thereof. Brown Girl Magazine is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the guest writer/bloggers. This work is the opinion of the blogger. It is not the intention of Brown Girl Magazine to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. If you’d like to submit a guest post, please follow the guidelines we’ve set forth here.
“Confessions to a Moonless Sky” is a meditation on the new moon and guilt. I wrote it when I was living in Dallas and was driving back from a dusk prayer. The new moon terrified me on that drive. I was diseased by the knowledge that my partner, at the time, had seen the worst parts of me. There’s immense shame in this piece—it seized my self-image. If the moon could become brand new, then I could start over.
I often ponder on the moon’s reflective nature and pairs of eyes. I’m hyper-fixated on how I am seen by others. Unfortunately, the brilliance of seeing your reflection in another person leads to negativity. After all, those who are too keen on their own reflection are the same people who suffer from it. It is possible to use shame to fuel one’s retribution and personal growth, without becoming consumed by it.
We can look to Shah Rukh Khan succumbing to alcoholism in his own sorrow and then later imbibing his sadness in Chandramukhi. “Confessions to a Moonless Sky” is a lesson for us: Don’t be Shah Rukh Khan in Devdas, instead embody pre-incarnation Shah Rukh Khan in Om Shanti Om!
Sometimes when the moon abandons the sky, I wonder if I drove her away.
If she comes back, will she be the same? How I wish she would come back new, truly new! That way she’d have no memory of the sin I’ve confessed to her. You noxious insect. Sin-loving, ego-imbibing pest. You are no monster, for at least a monster has ideology, it sins with purpose. You sin just to chase ignominy.
But the moon won’t say that, she never does. She’ll just leave the sky and return days later, slowly. And I’ll wonder if she’s new, perhaps she won’t remember my past confessions. What does it matter? Were the moon replaced with one from a different god, I’d drive her away, too.