Puerto Rico University

By Naomi Ayala

No, not in the island or Nueva York – maybe

what the U.S. Department of Education

would rather it be named

after a possibly improbable state of statehood.

I am talking clique here.

You know, the “no, not enough”

beyond the voiced and repressed

issues of shade, beyond class

right down to music and reproachable language.

We are children fighting mami

for attention amongst ourselves

and who gets to say “you’re better than”

“not good enough as you are” could be

the gringo-loving Latina today

you say does not have her history straight

or the insufferable intellectual full of longing tomorrow

or the nacionalista, the statehooder

the loving sympathizer of those who have

nearly impossible political dreams.

I ask you...Who am I without my conga?

My plena?  My arroz con gandures

or white rice with pork back fat and morsilla

no bout of vegeterianism could endure?

I am a poet. Who am I without my birth language?

That first word, Baba, sputtered for my Chola,

paternal abuela María? But, mira

even Spanish is a language of colonization

infuse it as we have with ourselves or not –

though I’m not giving it up you know.

In the school of life

you’ve got to get your own degree of belonging

to who you are

and there ain’t no social shortcuts for that.

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