“Como tú, I question history’s blur in my eyes each time I face a mirror. Like a mirror, I gaze into my palm a wrinkled map I still can’t read, my lifeline an unnamed road I can’t find, can’t trace back to the fork in my parents’ trek that cradled me here. Como tú, I woke up to this dream of a country I didn’t choose, that didn’t choose me—trapped in the nightmare of its hateful glares. Como tú, I’m also from the lakes and farms, waterfalls and prairies of another country I can’t fully claim either. Como tú, I am either a mirage living among these faces and streets that raised me here, or I’m nothing, a memory forgotten by all I was taken from and can’t return to again. Like memory, at times I wish I could erase the music of my name in Spanish, at times I cherish it, and despise my other syllables clashing in English. Como tú, I want to speak of myself in two languages at once. Despite my tongues, no word defines me. Like words, I read my footprints like my past, erased by waves of circumstance, my future uncertain as wind. Like the wind, como tú, I carry songs, howls, whispers, thunder’s growl. Like thunder, I’m a foreign-borne cloud that’s drifted here, I’m lightning, and the balm of rain. Como tú, our blood rains for the dirty thirst of this land. Like thirst, like hunger, we ache with the need to save ourselves, and our country from itself.” -Richard Blanco Remember that when they look at us they see the reflection of our people. ✊🏽Strong and bad ass🔥 Earrings: @tochtliwear _____________________________________ . . . . . . . . . #yissellopez #lamalandrina #wixarika #huichol #mexicana #mexica #aztec #raices #otomi #orgullomexicano #nativeamerican #native #brownpride #nativepride #neweraranchera #indigena #chicanoart #chicano #chicanopower #nativeart #musica #rancheras #neweramariachi #regionalmexicano #mariachi #portland #oregon #reclaimyourpower (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWl0KiavYlr/?utm_medium=tumblr