United States of

Brown Skin & Cumbia

Written January 1st, 2017

From the streets of Los Angeles to the streets of Garnett,

Brown skin and cumbia decorate the city,

Our exotic names on the frightened lips of every vigilance committee.

We march to the beat of Timbales and Merengue Guiro

A leather-stitched mask leads the people in the shadow of a hero.

Immigrant workers wake up at the break of dawn,

No time for a yawn,

Smell of a clean, fresh cut lawn,

Picking the fruits that the vegans live on.

All to work for a legacy of hard work that their children can pass on.

Whether from El Salvador, Mexico, or Ecuador,

The only time we don’t get labeled is when they need us for the war.

Our hard work is stitched with our American Dream,

A representation of culture and style all topped with crema or sour cream.

We’ve gone from seats on the bus to seats on Capitol Hill,

Fighting for legislature for our people or cooking up the best food on the grill.

They line up in swarms for our tacos de carne asada, but leave the protesting to us,

leading “build the wall” chants on the school bus.

They want their jobs back so that the avocados can rot and mold,

Who’s going to rub “vapo-ru” on our backs when we get the common cold?

They think our tiendas and bodegas are the latest in trend,

But stay silent when we ask when detention camps will end?

You see it’s easy to enjoy our culture, and profit off our labor,

But it’s just too hard to have an open yard with your dark-skinned neighbor.

They voted for the billionaire to defend the constitution,

To hide his sexual assault cases under the rug along with pollution,

See, you can get to the top of the chain if you make a hefty contribution, 

We’ve gone from American revolution to financial institution.

We made their homes and city streets, and repay us with mass incarceration,

They take away our bachata and salsa in their push for assimilation,

We hold up their economy, they give us deportation,

What the hell ever happened to no taxation without representation?

Grandmother tell me the stories about the cartels again,

when I get deported I want my death to feel more humane.

I want a large headline on Vice or CNN,

I want them to kick off false promised campaigns stamped with the words “never again.”