WEBVTT

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Well, growing up as a kid
there were things I knew

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and there were things
I did not know.

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When I heard Donald Trump say
what he said about Mexicans two

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years ago, I knew he was going
to come for the Puerto Ricans

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too.

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And now he's come
for the Puerto Ricans

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as that island sinks
beneath the waves.

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One of the
experiences I had that

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informed me-- that gave me
that knowledge from the basis

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of the following poem.

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This is the poem
that was published

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in Poetry of Resistance--

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Voices for Social Justice,
edited by Francisco and Odilia.

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It appears in this book and I'm
very proud to have it there.

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So this is a true story.

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And what began for me at the
tender age of 23 as a lark,

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as a goof turned into an
act of civil disobedience

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and eventually raised awareness.

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This is called Isabel's Corrido.

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And it's for Isabel.

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Francisca said, "Marry
my sister so she

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can stay in the country."

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I had nothing else to do.

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I was 23 and always cold,
skidding and cigarette-coupon

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boots from lamppost to lamppost
through January in Wisconsin.

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Francisca and Isabel washed bed
sheets at the hotel, sweating

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in the humidity of the laundry
room, conspiring in Spanish.

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I met her the next day.

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Isabel was 19, from a
village with the elders spoke

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the language of the Aztecs.

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She would smile whenever
the ice pellets of English

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clattered around her head.

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When the justice of the peace
said, "You may kiss the bride,"

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our lips brushed for
the first and only time.

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The borrowed ring was too
small jammed into my knuckle.

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There were snapshots of
the wedding and champagne

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in plastic cups.

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Francisca said the snapshots
will be proof for immigration.

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We heard rumors
of the interview.

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They would ask me the
color of her underwear.

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They would ask her
who rode on top.

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We invented answers and
rehearsed our lines.

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We flipped through
immigration forms

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at the kitchen table
the way other couples

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shuffled cards for gin rummy.

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After every hand,
I'd deal again.

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Isabel would say,
Quiero ver las fotos.

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She wanted to see the
pictures of a wedding that

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happened but did not happen.

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Her face inexplicably happy, me
hoisting a green bottle dizzy

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after 1/2 a cup of champagne.

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Francisca said she
can sing corridos,

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songs of love and revolution
from the land of Zapata.

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All night Isabel sang
corridos in a bar room

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where no one understood a word.

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I was the bouncer
and her husband,

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so I hushed the
squabbling drunks

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who blinked like
tortoises in the sun.

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Her boyfriend and
his beer cans never

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understood why she married me.

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Once he kicked the
front door down

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and the blast shook the
house as if a hand grenade

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detonated in the hallway.

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When the cops arrived, I
was the translator watching

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the sergeant watching
her, the inscrutable

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squaw from every western
he had ever seen--

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bare feet and long black hair.

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We lived behind a broken door.

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We lived in a city
hidden from the city.

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When her headaches began,
no one called a doctor.

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When she disappeared for days,
no one called the police.

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When we rehearsed the
questions for immigration,

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Isabel would squint and smile--

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Quiero ver las
fotos, she would say.

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The interview was
canceled like a play

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on opening night shut
down when the actors are

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too drunk to take the stage.

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After she left, I found her
crayon drawing of a bluebird

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tacked to the bedroom wall.

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I left too and did
not think of Isabel

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again until the night Francisca
called to say your wife

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is dead.

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Something was
growing in her brain.

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I imagined my wife, who was
not my wife, who never slept

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beside me, sleeping
in the ground,

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wondered if my name was carved
into the cross above her head,

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no epitaph and no
corrido, another ghost

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in a riot of ghosts evaporating
from the skin of dead Mexicans

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who stagger for days without
water through the desert.

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30 years ago a girl
from the land of Zapata

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kissed me once on the lips
and died with my name nailed

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to hers like a broken door.

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I kept a snapshot
of the wedding.

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Yesterday it washed
ashore on my desk.

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There was a conspiracy
to commit a crime.

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This is my confession.

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I'd do it again.

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