colonialism – Writers Resist

When I hear ‘migration,’ I think of ships

By Christian Hanz Lozada

chopping through tides and promise.
My coworker says, “I mean, I’m white,
so, implicit bias much? We have no story,”
referring to her kid’s project asking
about how the family’s migration
was affected by World War 2 and the Cold War.

She says, “I understand I can’t say anything,
but we’ve been American since the 18^th century,
so there’s been no migration.”
In my head I have solutions: Has your family moved
from state to state, like the Japanese Americans pulled
from their homes or the African Americans moving

to fill a Japanese American-sized void to work factories
and shipyards? Has your family migrated from economy
to economy, like the migration from planting and picking
to packing and making? Has your family never had to run,
never had that nothing-holding-us-here, never had that

nothing-to-stake-a-future-on, always the absence
of the absence? Maybe write about your migration,
after the ship, when you carried the sword and the gun,
the whip and the blankets. Maybe write about the bow-wave
your presence creates, even when the ship doesn’t move.
Maybe write about the unintended migrations that happen
as your presence displaces everything around it.

Christian Hanz Lozada aspires to be like a cat, a creature that doesn’t care about the subtleties of others and who will, given time and circumstance, eat their owner. He authored the poetry collection He’s a Color, Until He’s Not and co-authored Leave with More Than You Came With. His Pushcart Prize nominated poetry has appeared in journals from California to Australia with stops in Hawaii, Korea, and the United Kingdom. Christian has featured at the Autry Museum and Beyond Baroque. He lives in San Pedro, CA and uses his MFA to teach his neighbors and their kids at Los Angeles Harbor College.

Photo credit: Dennis Jarvis via a Creative Commons license.

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Shukran

By Eduardo Ramos

Thank you for sharing your world
and helping me connect with mine.
For speaking words unfamiliar to my ears
stirring memories in my tongue.
Usted reacquainted me with Al-Andalus
and the road across Africa to Al-Mashriq,
reaffirmed that my barrio is a rich mix of cultures,
where we eat arroz and kipe with our plantains.
Ojalá that others from my island
can find the root you helped me trace,
and that we find more roots,
hasta que we recover
the voices empires sought to silence.

Eduardo Ramos is a Dominican poet from New York. His poetry has appeared in Fahmidan Journal and Lit. 202. Follow him on X at @EduardoRamosii.

Photo credit: Jochen Wolters via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

Batasan ng Lansangan — Street Parliament

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By Arthur Altarejos

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Batasan ng Lansangan

Naririnig ko na sila bago pa ako lumiko
Hinahati ang hangin, kutsilyo’y kanta
At katok ng tibok ng tambol na ginugunita
Ang tunog ng sumasayaw na kawayan

Dito sa puso ng imperyo
Kalahating mundo ang pagitan
kami’y nagtatagpo’t nakikiramay
Para magbukas ng korte at ipatunay
Na ang distansya ay hindi nagbubunga ng apatya
Hindi rin nito tinatastas ang tela ng pagalala
Na bawat kawalan ay dahilan din ng aming kalungkutan
At bawat kaapihan ay amin ding hahatulan

Na may pananalig kasing sigla ng araw
At tapang ng isang bala na pinalaya
Kami’y patuloy na umaawit
Sa ilalim ng isang radyaktibong kalangitan
Na binubunyag ang bawat butil ng galit
Ng bawat kasapi na gumawa ng paraan
Magkongreso
Bilang isang bayan
Sa dayuhang lupang ito

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Street Parliament

I hear them before I even turn the corner
Carving the dull air with song
And drum beats that remind me
Of the sound of dancing bamboo

In this city at the heart of empire
Half a world away
We come to hold court and prove
That distance does not beget apathy
Nor does it strain the fabric of memory
That each loss is also ours to mourn
And each slight ours too to condemn

With the conviction of daylight
And the confidence of a bullet
We sing our songs
Beneath a radioactive sky
Reflecting every bit of rage
Of every little life
We have managed to congress
Into a nation
On this foreign soil

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Arthur Altarejos is a Filipino community organizer, community worker, and health educator based in New York City. He writes about the things lost and gained in translation between Hiligaynon, Tagalog, and English, the languages of his home. His writing has appeared or will soon appear in Sky Island Journal and Blue Daisies Journal.

Image credit: “Drumming and Day-Dreaming” by Wayne S. Grazio via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

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