Honduran Refugees in My Classroom 2
By Alexander P. Garza
Editor’s warning: assault, violence against women
“Mira a mi tia.” Look at my aunt.
“La mataron.” They killed her.
She shows me a photo on her phone:
a black honduran woman, motionless,
face down, half-naked, ass exposed,
top torn. The girl tells me her aunt’s just been
raped and murdered, left dead.
She got the photo via text from a family friend.
The image forever ingrained in my brain
during our history class, right then.
“Another one down,” she says in Spanish.
“Glad we got out,” she says.
Alexander P. Garza is a writer, actor, and educator from Houston, TX. His work can be seen in Veil: Journal of Darker Musings, Thirteen Myna Birds, Black Poppy Review, and others. He was awarded the 2019 Dark Poetry Scholarship Award by the Horror Writers Association, was commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Tintero Projects for work inspired by their Latin American Exhibit: Play and Grief, and he has worked on and offstage at the Alley Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, Main Street Theater, and Mildred’s Umbrella Theatre Company. Visit him on Instagram/Twitter, @alexanderpgarza, and on his website http://www.alexanderpgarza.com.
Photo credit: LasTesis performs the feminist anthem “Un violador en tu camino” (“A rapist in your way”), in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, from Honduras Tierra Libre.