Carolina Alvarez, '15

Batiburrillo

      I’m white.
     “¡Leche!”, me decían. “¡Mayonesa!”
     She looks gringa, they’d say.
     “I am,” I’d say, “right?”
     “No,” me decía mi Papá, “Latina eres, pero nacida aquí,” pointing to the ground.

     No, but really, ¿quién mierda soy yo?

     You are your favorite letters, flavors, scents, and textures.
     You are a free Cuba, an El Salvador with no Civil War.
     Mami baila en las calles de Havana y Papi sigue montando caballos en las fincas de Santa Ana.

     “How are you fair?” they ask, as if tongue and skin could never see eye-to-eye.
     “Yo… I… What do you… ¿qué?” No entiendo la pregunta.
     “You just look different,” they say, “more like us.”
     They laugh and add, “but idiosyncrasies make you strange.”

     Banned is arm flailing because you can’t be too expressive.
     And odd sentence structure because translation isn’t really an excuse.

     Don’t raise your voice too loud, we don’t do that here.
     Be punctual, we do that here.
     I hate this music, I don’t understand it.
     “My passport is blue, after all,” I tell myself, lowering the rhythm.

     Pero en la noche me quedo pensando…
     Y lo que quiero más que todo es saber quién mierda soy yo.

               ¤ ¤ ¤

Sabores y sonidos

      My first word was Papi.
     Then I realized words were important so I learned Mami.
     Home was a place of noise and music. Family, the only people that always cared.

     At 6, maybe 7, my favorites in the dictionary were conchitas and leche.
     Shells meant the beach, building castles from nothing,
     Hope found in small grains of transience.
     Milk meant sustenance, growth, a white bigote in silly photos.

     At 10 I developed my love for flan, a little empalagoso but still delicious,
     A treat, a shared family favorite, spongy and light surrounded by risas.

     Y mi Mami con sus dichos…
     Un clavo saca a otro clavo.
     When we endured heartbreak, needed to revaluate the direction our lives were headed in, or were trying to make sense of broken relationships.
     Dime con quién andas y te digo quién eres.
     When my friends became upright values, tissues amidst tears, and lifelong memories.
     No somos nada.
     When we witnessed tragedy, had a close friend get diagnosed with a terminal illness, or read about war.

     At 17 I loved gozar and caprichosa,
     Loss of innocence, shots of aguardiente that burned my throat.
     Sometimes it meant sneaking out to go dancing, sometimes with a boy.
     Disappointment at times, a veces gritos—¡SOY ADULTA, PAPI!
     Tears, sweat, blood, youth.

     At 20 maleta and madurez resonated with me,
     Costa Rica one day and Barcelona the next because why stay in one place?
     Maybe it was time to grow up but not before I ziplined through rainforests
     And not before I learned how to say bon profit before every meal, in Catalán of course.

     I tossed the dictionary and now my favorites are all of these combined, and more,
     in sentences. They are colors and textures, tastes and sounds. My favorites are Neruda and I’ll admit, even more of my mother’s sayings, street signs on Calle Ocho and the names of all my father’s cousins, but mostly Rodolfo and Juan Ignacio.

     Las palabras de mi pasado, presente, futuro. El diccionario de mi vida.