What it is to be Salvadoran-American
Identity is the flint of the modern age
Sparks rain when we shape who we are
Nations big and small all share their drowned voice
What is mine, you ask? Well, I'll tell you
To be one of mine is to understand two realities:
You will always be an other, no matter how hard you try
Your language will always betray you
And
They will always mess up the label
You are Mexican one day and Puerto-Rican the next
To be one of mine is to know that others like you aren't coming to America
They are leaving their homes, their families, their lives, and gambling on another
Many won't make it
The others are the ghosts that do everything that no one wants to do
They are ghosts until they are not, and then they are gone
And our histories have had all the occupations of the great civilizations
There were kings (rebels they were) and then they were hanged
Replaced by new ones a continent away
Poets and priests shared wisdom and love until stopped short by the guns
Peasants were given praise until they opened their mouths
Our Spanish great-grandfathers were apparently too shy to ask for permission
And so our nation was sired as well as our great-grandmothers' tears
To be one of mine is to know what one half of you did to the other
How we as Americans burned what we as Salvadorans called our villages
How our souls were worth a pittance and how we keep working for that much
It is to know what no one else cares to know