Dios aprieta pero no ahorca!

I will be turning twenty-five in a week and I am so very happy about it. More than anything because my insurance rates will go down. I like the idea of having access to more money (to save.)

Don’t get me wrong, I myself don’t like what money represents and the effect that it has on our society in relation to politics, class, jobs, housing, education, violence and at times, church. How many times the lack of, destroys families.

But turning twenty-five pushed me to look back on my life a little, to reflect.

Many of you know that I was born into a financially comfortable family but that after my father died things became very complicated. We went from my mother not having to work and being able to help her family and friends out- to relocating to Chicago and my mom taking odd jobs to make our bills and have food for us. When we were at our poorest, my mom would make hand-made tortilla from the maiz that we planted and add some lime and salt. I can’t forget that ever. I was so hungry that I felt that it was the best food in the world. On occasions, when I can’t think of what I want to cook/eat, I crave that taco.

Poverty is something that no one can teach you about, you can read about it and you might feel bad for a few minutes. A day, a week. You might even contribute money to end poverty. But being the person who goes to sleep hungry, that is something that you only feel if you are there. HUNGRY.

I am not asking for anyone to feel bad for me, that was past. That was my experience. We eventually saw better days, but not after a lot of work.  When I got older, I read that women and children are more likely to live in poverty. And as I get older and being childless, I still read statistics about unmarried women being more likely to live in poverty: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/09/census_women.html

I know women that are successful, that save and invest. Quite frankly, in my group of friends, women are more likely to have a financial plan. However, I understand the financial (and other) advantages of being a man. Not only are most of the highest paying jobs still heavily dominated by men, (white men), salaries are still not equal amongst males and females. As an immigrant woman of color, I have three immediate disadvantages in this country. You don’t have to know anything about me to know that I am an immigrant; I am a woman and Latina. You can see it from steps away. That is another discussion though, back to my original thought.

But turning twenty-five, unmarried and childless makes me think about a lot of other things as well. It places me at a very humble place. A place of gratitude because I know that I just didn’t turn twenty-five by myself but with my community of family, friends, co-workers and church. The good, the bad and the ugly have all contributed to where I am. I became stronger last fall when I nearly lost my mother and brother. I became stronger because I saw my neighbors, my people at the hospital and at my doorstep.

I don’t know what I would be saying if my mother wasn’t here today. I was thinking about the role she has played in my life and although our friendship is a little rocky lately, mostly because we have developed (what we think are) different opinions on life in the last six months. I realize that my mom was twenty-five when she gave birth to my sister lily, my father had just died six months prior. I tried very hard to think about what she felt at twenty-five: three children (one soon to become disabled without her knowing) and a widow.

And I can’t. My mom only made it to 2^nd grade because her family was very poor, my mom lived in a small town with no resources, my mom had lost my father. Her husband and the father of her three children. I can’t imagine that. I can’t.

I won’t tell what happens next, maybe another time.

I want to capture this moment and this is why I am writing this post. I want for my children or the (children that will consider themselves to be mine) to know what I was thinking at twenty-five.

I wrote a poem (it is not complete yet), I have not written in a while so I am a little dusty.

______

I am that five-year-old girl that crossed a dessert not in search of a dream but in search of her mother, wanted to be re-united.

I am the daughter of a farmer turned organizer

Brave brother, son and father--- who wanted to make a change in his land.

I am tears caused by guns and blood in the mountains of Guerrero.

I was created out of love, faith, and strength-I have to remember that

“There is no reason to cry, you still have me,” said my mother three months pregnant when my father died.

He did not die mom, that is what I wanted to say; he was killed, assassinated like a dog.

He broke a promise; he said he would love us forever.

How can he love us when he is dead?

I am that eight-year old girl who is embarrassed to bring a friend over because that man drinks a lot

I live in an old crowded apartment, where I manage to fit memories of mangos, aguacates, cirguelas and platanos.

Comparing my father to this man that my youngest sister confuses him for her dad

My sister can’t see the conditions we live in

She is blind----maybe she has a gift

I was blessed with a memory that doesn’t allow me to believe that I am where I am because I remember happiness.

I am thrift store clothes and messy hair

That little girl that you often see on the block that has dirt on her face

When you keep walking not knowing what to do

I am broken English, hungry and ugly

I am the one you ignore, oversee and forget

I am immigrant

I am poverty

I am violence

I am trauma

I would ask for help except I don’t think I can speak.

Someone speak for me

Someone reach out to me

Care about what happens to me

I am straight As in class because answering questions from a book is easier than answering questions about myself.

I am that teenage girl in all after-school clubs avoiding going home

There is little that comes my way that I don’t devour

Nothing slips by……. I need everything, I will take anything

Respect demanded, love pursued, education as an escape

Grown woman I  see in the mirror now

I am two languages, well nourished---tummy and mind,

I am beautiful,

Daughter of the strongest yet most sensitive woman I know

I was made out of love, faith, and strength-

I know this now

This is the truth