Poetry

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

 

By

Samuel Son

 

 

I Am The Immigrant

 

 

I am yellow

and black

and brown

and mulatto.

 

I am the chink and the gook you confuse

I am the jap you fenced like a dog

I am the Jew you sent back to the chambers

I am the French you shipped back for treason

I am the Yank you suspected and shot

I am the Cracker you derided and shot

I am the you that you refused a sanctuary for

 

I am the sacrifice on the altar of Securitas

 

I am red

                         neck

       white

                        trash

and blue

                        gum

 

I am the red

                        blood of your rivers

 

             white

                       bones of your walls

 

      and blue

                     sea of your graves

 

I am the terrorist

     drying redskins fetching a penny

I am the terrorist

     hanging black bodies

     that don’t know their places

 

I am middle eastern

the wild eyed, scraggy bearded Jesus knocking at your door

I am not Christian but I am the Christ you crucify

 

I am your father, your mother,

for we are all children of Tigris and Euphrates

I am your son and daughter,

orphans of our mother earth.

 

I am the tired, the poor, the huddled mass

drowning

           at

               sea,

 

I am

the America

you ban

 

 

 

 

 

The immigration ban stirred memories of the racial slurs I face/d, and how it has been used in American history to dehumanize the other making it easier, even a perverse patriotic duty, to reject, oppress and finally kill the alien/foreigner; but ultimately, the person we dehumanize is ourselves. Especially for America, built on the idea as the land of immigrants, the battle over immigration is a battle over the soul/identity of America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samuel Son

Writer, Columnist, Poet, Preacher.