Unrest: the revolution is a migrant girl

 Jakelin Caal Maquin

I.

Unrest

Every day
I die a little bit in east Oakland
Every day
A little bit in a prison cell
Every day
A little more on the border
Every day
I go farther and father away
Dying here and there
In the valley in the fields
In the warehouse packing vegetables,
I die a little bit in schools,
on the street corner selling skills, sex or
handmade tamales, flowers, aguas frescas, nescafés, begging,
Every damn day relentlessly
I almost can’t breathe
Dying a little bit at a time
From alcohol, from dope, from depression, from hate, from whiteness,
from men with guns
From men with fists made of despise
Drive—by ghosts beckoning me to the other side
Death does not know that I am from the other side already
I die a bit everyday just to double-cross
borders and bullets,
hunger and cynicism
I die everyday on street corners just a bit
To keep the balance
To keep whatever remains of my humanness
alive …

*

Desorden

Todos los días
muero un poco en east Oakland
Todos los días
Un poco en la cárcel
Todos los días
un poco más en la frontera
Todos los días
Me voy más y más lejos
Muriendo aquí y allá
En el valle en las labores
En la bodega empacando las verduras
Muero un poco en las escuelas,
Muero un poco en las esquinas de las calles
vendiendo destrezas, sexo o tamales caseros
flores, aguas frescas, nescafés, pordiosero
Todos los malditos días sin descanso
Casi no puedo resollar
Muriéndome poco a poco
de los tragos, de las drogas, de la depresión, del odio, de la blancura racial,
de hombres armados
de hombres con puños de desprecio
Fantasmas disparando de sus coches llamándome a cruzar al otro lado
La muerte no sabe que ya soy del otro lado
Muero un poco todos los días solo para traicionar
fronteras y balas
hambre y cinicismo
Muero en las esquinas un poco
solo para mantener el equilibrio
Para mantener
vivo
lo que queda de mi humanidad …

 

II.

International Migrants Day Revolution (december 18)

The revolution is a migrant
The migrant is a revolution
The migrant revolution cannot be stopped by walls, hate or police.

The revolution is a migrant.
The revolution is a migrant girl.
The revolution is a migrant family
The revolution is a migrant girl jailed by the U.S. immigration police
The revolution is a migrant girl and her parents jailed by the U.S. immigration police.
The revolution is a migrant in detention.

The revolution is a migrant girl who defied the millionaire’s walls, armies and war.
The revolution is a migrant girl who survived a three thousand mile journey,
crossed through the desert and was arrested along with her family by the immigration police
The revolution is a migrant girl who died in a U.S. immigration police jail
The revolution is a migrant girl
who was dehydrated,
had not eaten food or drank water in days,
was held in her father’s and mother’s arms,
whose pleas for help, for a doctor, for an aspirin, for life
were ignored by the Border Patrol, ICE,
by the jail guards, the prison doctors and chaplains,
by those of us who think that this is the first time this has happened
who believe that Trump is going to build a wall
when the wall and the prisons and the immigration police have already been built
The revolution is a migrant girl at the border
ignored by everyone not a prisoner
The revolution is a migrant girl who died in an immigration jail
Held only, helped only, cared only by love:
her mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, her aunts, uncles, cousins,
neighbors who all have the same first name
The revolution is a migrant girl who will dismantle the walls and the police.

The revolution is a migrant girl.