I Learned All My Spanish in School

By E.K. Keith

I never tried to pass for White

but I have been passed

because it's good to be White in America

and Mother knows best

to give a not-quite-white baby

White names that don't explain

such dark eyes and such tight curls

My name never stopped mean girls hissing

gringa cola prieta and guera and taco

brown on the inside

and not-quite-white on the outside

You would not believe how White people talk

about Other people when they think you're White

How it's more polite to say Spanish

instead of Mexican

and the subtle shift in tone

when your Mexican is discovered

your tortillas uncovered

I never tried to pass for White

but I have been passed

because White people who like me

want to give me the benefit of the doubt

and let me tell you, sister

There's nothing like White Privilege

and my mother knew it

So when people would ask

"Are you Italian or Greek?"

she would laugh and say

"Good guess!"

It is so disappointing

such dark eyes and such tight curls

fail to fit in

not White, not Mexican

I have been passed

I identify as White Trash

My mother is Mexican

but her family doesn't mind

porque no hay indios in la familia

And since I learned all my Spanish in school

it was years before I understood

It's good to be White in America

Mythic Arcade

When I was a kid in Texas

California was nothing but a dream

Not much more than a metaphor

A fantasy of golden glitz and the big screen

I bet you know a lot about Texas

I bet I know what you’ve seen

Alamo heroes, political zeroes

Ten-gallon hats and oil patch schemes

You can find surfers in Texas

Riding in the oil tanker’s wake

You can find California cowboys

They’re speeding up and down the interstate

You can’t see Texas from the inside

You can’t see the mythic arcade

Just people, running for the money

Inside California it’s the same

If you need roots, go to Texas.

If you don’t belong where you are

You might find the right place is California

Who you want to be is who you are

Siblings

Brown sparrows

sift trash from a dump

find treasure

in mounds of rotting food

plastic wrappers aluminum

cans rusting toasters

shitty diapers hairdryers

headless dolls sideways

refrigerators without doors

One brown sparrow

beats its wings in the dirt

kicks

and tangles tighter

in a six-pack plastic noose

© E.K. Keith. All rights reserved. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: E.K. Keith shouts her poems on the street corner, and she’s just as likely to take the mic at a bar, coffee shop, or radio station. She has made San Francisco her home, although growing up in urban Texas still influences her worldview. Like most Americans, there is nothing pure about E.K.’s blood. As a result of love that mooningly ignored good sense and social boundaries across several generations, E.K. has never fit neatly into any racial, cultural, or ethnic categories. Her work appears online and in print on all three coasts and places in between, and among them are Sweet Wolverine, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and Nerve Cowboy. E.K. organizes Poems Under the Dome, San Francisco's annual open mic celebration of Poetry Month inside City Hall. She is a public high school teacher librarian which regularly presents opportunities for her to make the world a better place.