Call Them By Their Name

Location

49735
United States
44° 59' 9.222" N, 84° 37' 37.4232" W

when my family came to this country,
a ship sailing across a thrashing sea,
my great-great-great grandfather changed our last name
removed some of the vowels, altered the pronunciation
so it would taste better on American tongues,
glide smoother out of American lips.
to become an American is to assimilate,
to grind your own uniqueness into a thin powder
which you hide behind your molars for the times when
you dare to call yourselves by your real names.

 

when the Poles came to this country in waves,
the United States called them unstable,
idiots diluting the Nordic stock with their pack of “Polack” babies.
my family were farmers-
they lived off the fat of the land that was given to them.
a hundred and some years later,
i am living in one of the largest cities in America
and there is not even a trail of breadcrumbs
that traces me back to my culture.
we traded in our roots for seeds to plant ourselves a new life.

 

(a few decades later,
Nazi Germany would occupy Poland and call for the extinction of the Poles,
adding another tack to their laundry list of undesirables,
but my family was already here, safe and sound in an America
that was not meant for making lists)

 

my culture is Catholic.
i do not believe in god,
not even the all-seeing American God to whom we pledge ourselves,
who peers down at us between red and white stripes.
but i believe in communion wine,
the sour taste that lingers long after it is gone.
i believe in holy water dripping down my forehead
i believe in my knees, crackling and aching against the pew
i believe in all this because it is mine
if you connect the dots, it traces back so much farther than America.
everything does.

 

none of us were born from this soil.
everyone is a stranger in a strange land,
sowing their own seeds for the first time.
now, when i see the young women in their hijabs,
the men who are not ashamed to pray with the sun,
i am hoping that i will not have to watch them surrender their own names.
i watch as they build their own America, the so-fabled America the Beautiful
and i am hoping that it is enough.

 

their America is more than three colors-
the red-blooded, white-skinned, blue-in-the-face-
more than amber waves of grain and purple mountains.
that America is a finger painting.
this America is a myriad of hues, a thousand shades
it is a canvas worth singing about --
“This Land Was Made For You and Me”
worth extending the olive branch
worth tearing down your walls and “No Trespassing” signs
and America the Beautiful, the promised and foretold
could never live up to this
this wonderment that comes from loving a stranger in a strange land

 

right now
there is a family sailing across a thrashing sea
you will call them by their real name
and you will know Beauty

This poem is about: 
My family
My country
Our world

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