Thank you, Diana.
And thank you to the University of Arizona.
And it's just amazing to be here with Michael, Peter, and Luis,
who I have all read with before, but this is still
an amazing honor to be in your presence.
And to actually call you friends is pretty phenomenal for me.
So keeping this in mind regarding language.
I've been thinking a lot about these cultural academic
grifters that are going around.
I mean, they've been living among us for quite some time,
but we've been hearing they're unearthing
themselves more and more.
And so there was one particular grifter whose name shall not
be named because I refuse to give any more
attention to that person, but it really
bothered me claiming to be from the Bronx
and to being a Bronx Boricua even on top of that.
And so I didn't realize how offended I was.
And the more and more I kept reading about the grifter,
I just took it to the page.
And so this is what I have come up with.
And it's called BX All Day Every Day.
"The Bronx isn't a resume builder.
You don't get a Girl Scout badge because you live
there today or 20 years ago.
You don't come from the Bronx.
The Bronx comes from you.
And you don't survive coming from the Bronx either.
It isn't trying to kill you so you can justify leaving it
behind, abandoning it like one of the buildings in the '80s
with painted flower pots on the windows,
more aesthetically pleasing for Jersey commuters
as they crawl on the Cross Bronx Expressway, which is always
under construction.
The Bronx is more than switching your Ts
for Ds when you say water.
The accent isn't part of your audition for the next Spike Lee
movie.
The Bronx is more than dancing to hip hop and bomba,
it's Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam, and TKA
in the community center basement at your cousin's sweet 16.
It's having enough spray cans and D batteries for the boom
box.
The Bronx is in the side eye when someone
says something suspicious.
It is in the amount of yos and dead asses used in the story
because yo, I'm dead ass when I tell you that shit
happened like I said it did.
But in the end, we good.
The Bronx is the original Yankee Stadium and hating on the Mets
in perpetuity.
The Bronx is witnessing love triangles
at the park unravel like a telenovela.
The Bronx is the ineptitude of the 2 train
and cursing Robert Moses when you surface.
The Bronx is knowing bodega aisles like treasure maps.
It is getting ready for a night out
and searching for my favorite hoop earrings,
and borico red lipstick.
The Bronx is willing to roll without hesitation
when your compadre hits you up.
The Bronx is sitting at a meeting
and asking the questions no one is
willing to ask because in the BX, there is no sugarcoating."
So that was my homage to the Bronx.
I have many of those, but yes, that's for the grifters.