Liliana Valenzuela
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Excerpts

Poetry

This poem has been widely anthologized, and it received the 1999 Christina Sergeyevna first prize award at the Austin International Poetry Festival. It is also available in the audio section of this website.

Nov. 2, 1998, On the Eve of Becoming an American Citizen

Not me, not I

a gringa I would never be

gritos de “muera el imperialismo yanqui”

resonando en mi cabeza

yo, la Malinche,

“there is always me-search in research”

going full circle

me an American

a Mexican-American

a bona fide Chicana chayote-head

My life is here now

raising my bilingual chilpayates

married, metida hasta las chanclas

in this brave new world.

A binational

una Nutella bicolor

vainilla y chocolate

dual citizenship, at least,

los políticos en México finally woke up

to us “raza” on this side of the border.

Welcome Paisano, Bienvenido Amigo,

hasta que se les prendió el foco, cabrones.

Ahora sí, pásenle, que su nopal está lleno de tunas.

Aquí en la frontera, en el no-man’s-land,

mujer puente, mujer frontera,

mujer Malinche.

Ahora sí, cuando me chiflen por la calle

me podrán decir “gringuita” y por primera vez

lo seré, una bolilla, una gabacha,

mis ojos azules y cabello rubio por fin

corresponderán a los estereotipos de la gente

“But you don’t look Mexican”

Enton’s ¿qué parezco? ¿acaso tengo changos en la cara?

When I die, spread my ashes along the Rio Grande, the

Río Bravo, where I once swam naked.


Liliana Valenzuela © 1998. Reprinted with permission from Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York. All Rights Reserved. 
NO FURTHER REPRODUCTION OR DISTRIBUTION IS PERMITTED.


NOTE: I'm mostly old-school, having published extensively in print in publications in Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and the United States. I have a few selected online samples, which include: 

 ANMLY: 
http://anmly.org/ap29/canto-mundo-29/liliana-valenzuela/

Hostos Review/Revista Hostoniana, vol. 20: 
https://issuu.com/hostoscollege/docs/hos_no20_digital_10.28_ccd6d800851e4a

Top two links are audio samples of studio-recorded poems: 
https://d7.drunkenboat.com/db8/panlitpoetry/valenzuela/

Proyecto Scherezade (Spanish): 
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~fernand4/lohubier.html


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