After a Century Humpbacks Migrate Again to Queens Poem
It'due south hard to remember of the right words to write about the contempo political events surrounding refugees and immigrants entering the United States and the moral injustice of families being separated, imprisoned, and inhumanely punished at the U.S. Border. And I don't accept the right words for describing the stop of DACA or the demonization of Syrian refugees. Of course, office of me wants to saythis isn't America.Except, I also don't have the right words to write about the Immigration Act of 1924 and that was nearly a hundred years agone. I don't have the words today, merely so many immigrants have used words to share their stories in picture books, young adult books, fiction and nonfiction, and new releases that are coming out this year. And so many writers have used immigration poems to talk about their experiences. These words are more than just right. They are moving, emotional, informative…I don't have enough words for these poems, so I'll exit you with the beautiful ones crafted by these fifteen amazing poets.
one. "Things nosotros carry On The Sea" by wang ping
We carry tears in our optics: good-bye father, good-bye mother
Nosotros carry soil in small bags: may home never fade in our hearts
We behave names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boats
We carry scars from proxy wars of greed
Nosotros conduct carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides
Nosotros carry dust of our families and neighbors incinerated in mushroom clouds
We carry our islands sinking under the sea
We carry our hands, feet, bones, hearts and best minds for a new life
Nosotros carry diplomas: medicine, engineer, nurse, education, math, poetry, even if they hateful nothing to the other shore
We deport railroads, plantations, laundromats, bodegas, taco trucks, farms, factories, nursing homes, hospitals, schools, temples…congenital on our ancestors' backs
We carry old homes along the spine, new dreams in our chests
Nosotros conduct yesterday, today and tomorrow
We're orphans of the wars forced upon u.s.a.
We're refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastes
And we bear our mother tongues
爱(ai)，حب (hubb), ליבע (libe), amor, love
平安 (ping'an), سلام ( salaam), shalom, paz, peace
希望（xi'wang), أمل ('amal), hofenung, esperanza, hope, hope, hope
As we drift…in our condom boats…from shore…to shore…to shore…
ii. "The Unwritten Letter of the alphabet from my Immigrant Parent" past Muna Abdulahi
three. "Citizenship" by Javier Zamora
information technology was clear they were hungry
with their carts empty the clothes inside their empty hands
they were hungry because their hands
were empty their hands in trashcans
the trashcans on the street
the asphalt street on the ruby dirt the clay taxpayers pay for
upwardly to that invisible line visible thick white paint
visible booths visible with the contend starting from the booths
booth road booth road booth route office building so the argue
fence argue fence
information technology started from a corner with an iron pole
e'er an iron pole at the beginning
those men those women could walk between booths
say hi to white or brown officers no problem
the problem I recall were carts belts jackets
we didn't accept whatever
or maybe non the trouble
our peel sunburned all of us spoke Spanish
we didn't know how they had ended up that way
on that side
nosotros didn't know how nosotros had ended up here
we didn't know only we understood why they walk
4. "Things That Shine in the Night" past Rigoberto González
—from "The Bordercrosser'southward Pillowbook"
Fulgencio'south silver crown—when he snores
the moon, money of Judas, glaring
at the smaller metals we telephone call stars
my buckle
the tips of my boots
the stones in my kidneys
an earring
a tear on the cheek
the forked paths of a zipper
the blade of the knife triggering open
the blade of the pocketknife seducing the orangish
the blade of the knife salivating
the bract of the pocketknife
the give-and-take México
the discussion migra
five. "Everyday we get more illegal" past juan Felipe Herrera
6. "We Are Americans Now, We Alive in the Tundra" by Marilyn Chin
Today in hazy San Francisco, I face seaward
Toward Red china, a giant begonia—
Pinkish, fragrant, bitten
By verdigris and insects. I sing her
A blues song; even a Chinese girl gets the dejection,
Her reticence is blackness and bluish.
Permit's sing about the extinct
Bengal tigers, about giant Pandas—
"Ling Ling loves Xing Xing…yet,
Nosotros will not mate. We are
Not impotent, we are important.
We blame the environment, we blame the zoo!"
What shall nosotros plant for the future?
Bamboo, sassafras, coconut palms? No!
Legumes, wheat, maize, old swine
To milk the new.
Nosotros are Americans now, nosotros live in the tundra
Of the logical, a bounding main of cities, a woods of cars.
Farewell my ancestors:
Hirsute Taoists, failed scholars, goodbye
My wetnurse who feared and loathed the Catholics,
Who called out
At present that half-men accept occupied Canton
Hide your daughters, lock your doors!
7. "Immigrant" by Wyclef Jean
8. "Translation for Mamá" by Richard Blanco
What I've written for yous, I have always written
in English, my language of silent vowel endings
never translated into your language of silent h's.
Lo que he escrito para ti, siempre lo he escrito
en inglés, en mi lengua llena de vocales mudas
nunca traducidas a tu idioma de haches mudas.
I've transcribed all your quondam letters into poems
that reconcile your exile from Cuba, but always
in English language. I've given you dorsum theguajiro roads
you left backside, stretched them into sentences
punctuated with palms, but only in English.
He transcrito todas tus cartas viejas en poemas
que reconcilian tu exilio de Republic of cuba, pero siempre
en inglés. Te he devuelto los caminos guajiros
que dejastes atrás, transformados en oraciones
puntuadas por palmas, pero solamente en inglés.
I accept recreated thepueblecito you had to forget,
forced your green mountains up again, grown
valleys of sugarcane, stars for you lot in English.
He reconstruido el pueblecito que tuvistes que olvidar,
he levantado de nuevo tus montañas verdes, cultivado
la caña, las estrellas de tus valles, para ti, en inglés.
In English I take told you how I love you cutting
gladiolas, crushingajo, setting cups ofdulce de leche
on the counter to cool, or hanging upwardly the laundry
at night under our suburban moon. In English,
En inglés te he dicho cómo te amo cuando cortas
gladiolas, machacas ajo, enfrías tacitas de dulce de leche
encima del mostrador, o cuando tiendes la ropa
de noche bajo nuestra luna en suburbia. En inglés
I have imagined y'all surviving by transforming
yards of taffeta into dresses you never wear,
keepingPapá's photo hinged in your mirror,
and leaving the porch low-cal on, all nighttime long.
He imaginado como sobrevives transformando
yardas de tafetán en vestidos que nunca estrenas,
la foto de papá que guardas en el espejo de tu cómoda,
la luz del portal que dejas encendida, toda la noche.
Te he captado en inglés en la mesa de la cocina
esperando que cuele el café, que hierva la leche
y que tu vida acostumbre a tu vida. En inglés
has aprendido a adorer tus pérdidas igual que yo.
I accept captured you lot in English at the kitchen table
waiting for thecafé to brew, the milk to froth,
and your life to adjust to your life. In English
you've learned to adore your losses the way I do.
nine. "Migrant Earth" past Deema K. Shehabi
So tell me what yous think of when the heaven is ashen?
— Mahmoud Darwish
I could tell you that listening is made for the ashen sky,
and instead of the muezzin'southward voice, which lingers
similar weeping at dawn,
I hear my own want, every bit I lay my lips confronting my mother's cheek.
I kneel down beside her, recalling her pleas
the day she flung open the gates of her house
for children fleeing from tanks.
My mother is from Gaza, only what do I know of the migrant earth,
as I enter a Gazan rooftop and perform ablutions in the ashen
forehead of sky? As my soul journeys and wrinkles with homeland?
I could tell you that I parted with my mother at the country
of pare. In the dream,
my lips were bruised, her body was whole again, and we danced
naked in the street.
And no child understands absence past the softness
of palms.
Equally though information technology is praise in my male parent'southward palms
as he washes my female parent's body in the terminal ritual.
Every bit though it is God'south pulse that comes across
her face and disappears
10.
eleven. "A Simple Trajectory" by May Yang
by HAUNTIE
Some fourth dimension ago pale bodies slipped into Indochina and harvested
slave bodies to sow opium and mine silvery. These slaves developed a
dependency on this unsustainable and temporary economy, becoming
heavily fond to this intoxicating flower. Some no longer planted their
own food or raised their own livestock. A body from this time was that
of my grandmother'due south. Impoverished—she was—mind, body and soul.
Strung out on the tar of this little flower, forgetting how and when to love
her children. A body that came to life through hers was my father's. And
and then it was that this boy would walk miles to school with perchance, sometimes
hardly ever, a palm-full of rice and a single chili pepper to sustain his body
for the duration of the day.
Night would fall,
and solar day would rise.
Then a secret war crept upward so loud white minds close it out
and all of humanity hushed information technology from the W to its Due east
and my grandfather went to war on the side that would win
doing these things, they couldn't believe in
and possibly information technology was that they won, possibly
but the shackles of this flower brought my mother to my father
and the shackles of this flower brought my body to America
"Here I am," i'll say.
Hither I am and I accept to stay.
What are you lot? Where are you from? What did y'all come from?
i am a stiff flower
stringing out your mind on the line afterwards line
from the womb of a history birthed from white memory
i am American
i am skilful at forgetting
12. "At the Wall, US/United mexican states Border, Texas 2020" by Paola Gonzalez and Karla Guitierrez
13. "Why Whales Are Back in New York City" byRajiv Mohabir
After a century, humpbacks migrate
once again to Queens. They left
due to sewage and white barm
banking the shores from polychlorinated-
biphenyl-dumping into the Hudson
and winnowing menhaden schools.
Simply now grace, dark bodies of vocal
return. Go to the seaside—
Hold your breath. Submerge.
A black fluke silhouetted
against the Manhattan skyline.
Now Ice beats doors
down on Liberty Artery
to carry. I sit alone on orange
A train seats, mouth sparkling
from Singh's, no matter how
white supremacy gathers
at the sidewalks, flows downwardly
the streets, we still beat our drums
wild. Watch their simulated-god statues
prostrate to black and brown hands.
They won't proceed us out
though they send us back.
Our songs will pierce the night
fathoms. Behold the miracle:
what was in one case lost
at present leaps before yous.
14. "Before Your Inflow" by Ellen Hagan
the ones who brought your father hither, come. Bring
with them whole almonds, dried berries & clementines
wrapped in fabric. Their wearing apparel & smart shoes too.
They come looking for the identify I've taken your father.
Looking for the New York Urban center that could rival habitation.
Your Abba loves the E Village, its graffiti, trash
& all the languages on all the streets. On 14th & 1st,
we visit the Phillipines. Elvie's Turo Turo.
But this trip, he wants to see more. So,
we travel to Little Philippines, Queens, 69th
off the 7 railroad train, off the vii the whole of Queens
opens wide for united states of america. Travel agents & whole-
auction, send annihilation back for cheap, travel
for cheap, return, return. We buy OK
magazines by the handful for gossip
Tagalog with English subtitles, glossy
photos, Pacquiao, his chiseled grin, everywhere.
And we eat. Krystal's where they serve
marinated pork abdomen, sinigang na baboy,
kare-kare, pancit bihon, & lumpiang sariwa,
I heed close to it all. Deep fried ruffle fat,
poolee noodles with shrimp, milkfish.
Your Abba fake orders pork blood stew
but I am sure I would eat anything hither
because this is how much I trust the two
who brought your father up in the world.
We eat sing-sing & pork in tamarind soup.
This is how to say snack in Tagalog: Merienda,
Merienda is snack. This is how to say ice-foam
in Tagalog: halo-halo, halo-halo
is water ice-foam. This is how to leave your country.
Don't look dorsum. You will only see the islands
melting away. Halo-halo. This is how to say snack in tagalog.
Merienda. This is how to feel of 1 place & of one more.
Back home, we sit, go caught up. I read
about mansions in Manila, how to brand millions,
facelifts & silken pilus, red lips, muscles & beauty.
In Tagalog, I muddle through, while your Abba
laughs, translates, translations get muddled besides.
This is how to enhance a infant in two places at once, & how
it feels to live and motility in two worlds. At one time.
15. "Lessons on beingness an African Immigrant in America" by Mwende "FreeQuency" Katwiwa
What other immigration poems do you recommend?
Source: https://bookriot.com/immigration-poems/
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