I want to thank you for being here and signing for us.
That's really beautiful.
Thank you.
So I'm going to start with a poem
to my mom, which is from my book, Migratory Birds, New
and Noted Poems.
And the reason I'm going to start with that piece
is because it's Fall, and that's when our family who
were farm workers would stop.
Once the final harvest was over, then they
were able to go back from Illinois back to Tejas
and take care of whatever situation was going on there
in the ancestral lands.
And people say, what about farm work?
And why did you start working for the United Farm Workers
union?
And it's because of the stories that I used to hear as a child.
My mom used to say, seven of us used to work for a whole day
and get a dollar.
And there would be no toilets, and we'd
have to go behind some trees.
And we'd always wear pants as women under our skirts
because we didn't want to just wear pants,
because we knew we'd have to go to the restroom
behind some trees.
And so this poem is about that.
My mom's at rest now.
She passed away in 2013, but I wanted to start out
this reading remembering her.
And I think all the poems that I write are poetry of resistance
because they're about the stories about my family,
and they're about me.
And I think that all my life, I've been resisting.
"Migratory Birds."
"You were born to gypsies, though you didn't want to be.
Every Spring, when orange blossom's perfume
filled the air, your world was packed into a few bundles.
Then your family was off, living in tents, trailers, dirt floor
shacks.
You were born to nomads, though you didn't want to be.
Longed to live with the settled and the straight,
work in the five-and-dime, go to school, play tennis.
But every time you found a friend, it was time to go,
another town, another round in a world that made you dizzy.
You were born to migrants, though you didn't want to be.
From Texas to Illinois, living a blur out a car window,
roads endless as fields of crops to be picked by the piece.
Never making enough to eat, let alone for the trip back home.
Pleading for the traveling to stop, words in the wind
whooshing by ears of the gypsy king.
You were born to wanderers, though you didn't want to be.
And when you got the chance, you planted
yourself deep in concrete and steel
to make sure you or your offspring
wouldn't branch out too far from home.
You were settled forever.
I was born to a life of never change, though I
didn't want to be.
Same familiar streets, same people,
year after year, until one sweltering Chicago summer
night, the moon full, color of sun reflecting off
fields of green, and the sweet scent of lilacs
from our backyard helped me to sprout wings
so that I could fly away."
Thank you.