from out the shell.

the country where i’m from birthed, baptized, and labeled me american, but this was just an act at the beginning.

soon all masks became removed, and i discovered my parents were resident aliens, so i became a son of immigrants-

a hyphenated mexican american.

raised to believe this history was mine, george washington and revolutions, but this isn’t mine just makes for good story.

if stories ever happen to become part of mine, will be as parts of total human experience, not as this corporate entity known as america.

flip it from nixon to malcolm, from material to spiritual.

a good old saxon mentioned the other day, “you’re so lucky to still have such a strong connection to your culture. i don’t even know what i am.”

and i respond, “what makes you think i do.”

besides, the anglo saxon do have a culture in america from humanist apologists and yuppie marxists to mickeydee’s, starbucks, slavery, atomic weaponry, protestants, plastic, pilgrims, and pioneers.

who holds more humans in prisons than communist china? who?

the country where i’m from birthed me american then abandoned me, left me an orphan son.

displaced because i had no land, returned then to aztlan to remember my heart.

but. but. but i am the son of immigrant parents, so i choose to lay roots or continue migration.

am a descendent of generations of human migration always in search of a more perfect land, where we can make more for the next generation. a child of the tribe of illegals crossing borders of colonists, of french and spanish imperialists, with moorish features, of all of these am i.

and this country birthed me american, probably because it thinks united statesian sounds stupid, or because it prefers short cuts. but i guess i am a child of the americas, but so is every canadian to argentinian.

so what’s it really mean to be american, mr. president?

and some united statesian stood up, revealing a machine gun because he’d been having a bad day.

but i am not this. this is not me.

am the son of immigrant parents, i choose where i’m from or where i’ll be. am the descendent from the tribe of people that decided to keep on moving.

there ain’t no label to identify me or a category for my identity. so stop asking what i am.

to escape keep on moving. some battles do have to be fought though, and many a revolutionary has gone down for history, preferring death than allow anyone the ability to imprison them.

my country tis of thee. my country will eat me alive.

am oedipus the worm coming out from the apple, and my country knows it.

11.09.02.