Chica Americana

¿Como estas? (How are you?)
Detention!


In America,
We speak English.
That is what I was told.


If you spoke Spanish in class
You got in trouble.
All the Latino and Hispanic kids were bad.


I didn’t speak Spanish.
I didn’t even try.
Mom and Dad got mad at me because of it.


They didn’t know Spanish was a bad thing.
That it got you punished in school.
I didn’t tell them because I knew they’d get upset.


I used to get embarrassed when they spoke Spanish in public.
My teachers would not have liked them.


Back then most of the criminals on TV looked like us.
Little did I know why that was.


I forgot my pen one day.
Mr. Johnson gave me detention.
If I had blonde hair and blue eyes
He wouldn’t have done that.


When I complained about tacos at lunch
Some kid told me to go back to Mexico.
I told him I had never even been there.
That was the truth.


I never really liked listening to Spanish music.
Sydney said it was ghetto.
That made me dislike it a little more.


I didn’t like being called Mexican.


You’re Mexican, right?
Well yeah,
But I’m also Ecuadorian.


Some kids thought it was cool Dad was from Ecuador.
Others said it was basically the same as Mexico.
I’m not sure how I felt about that.


I met some Hispanic and Latino kids.
Most of them were nice.
The ones who weren’t looked like the thugs on TV.


I didn’t like the kids that tried to act gangsta.
Even though they were their own people,
They made all of us look bad.


That never seemed to apply to the white kids though.


When José threw a paper plane at the teacher,
We all got in trouble.
When Tommy did the same thing two weeks later,
All he got was a stern warning.


Seeing how easy the white kids had it
I thought that if I acted like them,
I would be treated the same way.


But my skin will always be brown.


Even if I don’t speak Spanish,
People will always assume I know it.
Just like they assume that I grew up in the hood,
Listen to “ghetto” music,
And illegally crossed the border.


I am an American.
Born in America.
But no matter what,
I will always be a Mexican.


And that’s not a bad thing.
People just make it seem that way.

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