The Other Girl

I hear the word but it isn’t me

It must be someone else ’cause it isn’t me

Brown skin obsidian eyes and hair sure, but that’s not my label

That isn’t me.

I’m programmed to see what I want to see

I am her of which you speak but I am also me

You see the her,

The Girl sitting at the bus stop on a sticky afternoon

The Girl hanging her damp laundry out in the yard

The Girl brewing sweet cinnamon tea

Is her not me

I am plugged in

I am aware

I am one of Fred Rodgers’ colorblind soldiers

Able to see the possibility of tomorrow

Able to use the technology of to day

Able to dream, to wonder

The rainbow connection

The college graduate

The creative

The political

The astute and prolific

But all you see is her not Me

Yes we are bound, forever intertwined

But I don’t speak how you want her to speak

I don’t know the origins of the Aztecs, Toltec and Maya

The history of Chavez of Villa

The glory of La Raza, Protected by La Vigren

Because I’m not her, I’m me

The older I get the more our lines blur

I use her to get a scholarship

Or a leg up in an interview

And put her away as the artist only to find her pop up again

White washed

Cocoanut

Beaner

White-xican

I am all and none of these

I am the Daughter of a District Manager, printer, gardner

I am the Daughter of an insurance claim adjuster, housewife, hairdresser

I am the contradiction, the second generation

The assimilation product of a suburban master planned community

I am the her that you see

I am the me that I am

I am the oxymoron, contradiction in terms