WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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This next poem is in honor of
my maternal grandmother, who

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was the barrio curandera, or
faith healer-- an herbalist

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and faith healer.

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None of us went to church,
except that every now and then,

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I was sent to church on Sundays
with scapulars or statuettes

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or medals that I had to
have blessed by the priest,

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so that my grandmother could use
them in her-- as my father put

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it-- witchcraft.

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So in the late '50s,
the ecumenical council

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of the Catholic Church
decided that all us

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heathens needed
to start learning

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the language of the country
in which we were living.

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So they removed our Mexican
priest from our parish--

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Father Joaquin Murrieta,
can you believe it--

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and replaced him with
Father John Kennedy.

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Literally fresh off
the boat from Ireland,

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along with a boatload
of nuns, also

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from Ireland, who had no idea
what a Mexican or Chicano

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population was all about.

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So, this is one of
those stories where

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you begin to
understand as a child

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how injustice begins to creep
in at an institutional level,

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and how you can begin to feel as
though there must be something

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wrong with your culture
because of the way

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you're treated by people who
are in positions of power.

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But it also has
something to do, I

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think, with that deep
and abiding faith

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that children have in the
mystical and the magical

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and the power of being cursed.

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"La Curandera.

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She shuffles to the
floor on faded scuffs.

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Her breasts sway beneath
the bodice of her muumuu

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and the hands that
welcomed me are warm,

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the skin like old paper
crumpled then smoothed.

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She is la curandera,
faith healer, my nana.

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We face each other, child
to grandmother, the trusting

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balance of young to old.

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Mija, did you give it to
the priest, did he bless it?

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she asks.

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She takes the emblem of
the brown-skinned Virgin

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from my palm.

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The sun is in her
face, her eyes water.

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Some say she can read minds.

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She makes us drink infusions
of gordo lobo, fat wolf, when

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we are sick with
fever from the flu.

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She prescribes a tea of estrella
de anís to calm the itching

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rash of measles; a tea of
manzanilla for those who

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can't sleep.

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The new Irish priest
didn't understand.

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Witchcraft, he snorted, and
refused to bless the scapular.

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So at Mass, I placed the badge
with its rubbed smooth image

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in my prayer book hoping
to catch stray blessings.

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Kyrie eleison.

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Tonight, the old women
of the neighborhood

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begin a novena, nine days
of prayer for a dying man.

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Doña Juanita attends, her black
lace shawl clipped to her bun.

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Her husband lies at their bed
at home swaddled, with sheets

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fresh from the line.

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The women fan their black damask
skirts on red Windsor chairs.

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Nana displays the scapular.

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Hail Marys rise.

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I can never go to heaven
if the old man dies."

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