synesthesia
Artists: Josh Castillon Renata Francesco Rosario Ramos King Alysha Kundanmal Zen Mateo Aria Montenegro Julie Patadia Maya Rama Tatikola Lena Valenti And anonymous submitters that are just as valid and important Front Cover: Josh Castillon Back Cover: Martin Nunez-Bonilla Special thanks to pals that helped put this together and The Dorothy Day Center for Service and Justice!
LETTERS FROM THE EDITORS To whoever’s hands this ends up in, Identity is hard. Identity is like the hardest fucking thing ever. Growing up, I was called an ABCD: American Born Confused Desi. I didn’t speak telegu, I didn’t like kuchipudi, and the only distinguishing Indian trait I had was the color of my skin. I spent a lot of my life wishing I was white, but I’ve recently learned that accepting and identifying with my own brown girl magic has been more freeing than I could ever imagine. I write here today to say I am an ABCD: American Born Confident Desi. I may not fit the cookie cutter definition of “desi girl”, but I have come to reinvent the terminology for myself. Through working on this project, I have gotten to know some of the most beautiful, powerful and talented souls that have inspired me to embrace my culture. I hope whoever is reading this realizes that you can identify and be whatever you want, and you have a new ability to grow and explore yourself every day. There’s beauty in the breakdown and inspiration in the aftermath. “You are enough. You are so enough. It is unbelievable how enough you are.” With tremendous love, Maya Rama Tatikola Hello Readers!!! We are just human regardless of what our ethnic background is. However, people of color are consciously being discriminated against as if we are any less human. This magazine gives us an outlet to use our creativity for art, a place where we can talk about our experience of what it’s like to be human. What this magazine does is gives us representation. As people of color we don’t get it very much and people out there should know that we come in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of experiences. People of color just get put into a box in which society expects everyone to come out the exact same way. Personally, I am a Latina and I see the majority of Latinas on TV are house cleaners, thick accented, uneducated, and the seducers. Some people are like that from all cultures and that is ok. However, there are also a lot of people who aren’t like this and here’s our chance to show it. I hope this magazine brings perspective to people who lack it, inspiration to those what it, and that it makes some one’s day. Sincerely, Aria Montenegro Querido todos los readers, Thank you for being here with me, and with all of us. You are witnessing all of us in different stages of growing into ourselves. I hope wherever you’re at, this collection of art helps you come to terms with your identity. Whoever you are is okay. Never apologize for it. But always strive to be more loving. Listen to others. Celebrate others. Celebrate yourself. Togetherness is a radical concept. When we shout together, cry together, laugh together, dance together, we cannot be stopped. Expression of collective and individual self-love is the highest form of resistance. Through this zine, we have created a space to share ourselves with one another free from scrutiny. This is our resistance. We are angry voices. We are more than angry voices. We are everything. This is who we are when the news coverage of the protests end. Our strength and our beauty will persist even when nobody is watching. With endless love, Ro
Ode to Ghetto Bitches Rosario Ramos-King
When I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be my best friend’s mom She’d come to pick him up Wearing her doorknockers Heeled boots And square tipped acrylics. Lookin so goddamn elegant That I went home and I drew my own type of Mona Lisa of her. All of my childhood heroes were women like me. There weren’t many of us where I was from. See, we got our platanos from the same market, But went home to different sides of the town line. They say the north was never segregated, But why was I always sitting in classrooms of white kids. Why did I know I was only there because I looked like them? If I was who I was but had darker skin, curlier hair, I wouldn’t have been sitting in that classroom chair. My first real hero had a last name that meant Flowers Flores. Like my favorite cookie. I liked the ones with peach colored meringue. She used to braid my hair Into patterns like the gentle twirl of a florecita. Once, I accidentally called my mother by her name. Maybe it’s because my mom was white. And I needed a mother who was like me. I needed a mother who let me be. A mother who fought colonialism with hands that only knew how to braid. She knew my soul came from the earth but my eyes were of the moon And she didn’t care who I was as long as I was a florecita, sweet. My first hero was brown and beautiful. My first hero had Flores in her soul. They blossomed and bursted like snapdragons in July. My first hero was what my mother called Ghetto. But Ghetto Bitches raised me in ways my mother couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed to wear a name plate, But Ghetto Bitches still taught me to own myself. My hero named Flores taught me to honor my body With the flowers she’d woven into my hair. She taught me truth. And to be gentle. When my mother taught me to bury myself, she taught me how to grow.
“My Sister’s Keeper” Ariana Montenegro I saw her shadow before I recognized her it cast a dark but empty shade a new traveler alone with a suitcase filled with the last of her possessions she let it be known her aura was orange but that was false she was uneasy, lonely, yellow admiring all she had lost, and all she didn’t have desperately desiring to have someone to look after her because she only grew to a certain age and then stopped. she needed help I could not see her anymore
A letter to my children and wife... Aria Montenegro Will you forgive me for wanting anything at all, because I have lost myself? I no longer remembered the parts of me that slowly deteriorated for they made me forgetful and greedy.
Even when you looked upon me mournfully with arms held out, I kept hoping
The non-forgiving costume Ariana Montenegro The great eyes blossomed over seas of blue, like his they were open wide admiring the lives of those who lived beyond the trailers, dirt, dust, the dreamers, desiring to see the pastel colors, that decorate the lives of the other side. The obsession of becoming them made him try on costumes he hoped would engulf him yet under the gold, and silver, lay a bronze layer, a layer that diminished his value because, he wasn’t pure, only propped up to look like one of them perfect, valuable, careless, But he had to put detail in all his work careful not to smudge the image
not to be caught in the green, because I knew I would forever be bound to concrete.
Those who understand this world, who could look at reality with joy scared me until, I hoped to God I could be like them. I hope, you can be like them too.
I had nothing but dreams, and all I could do was pass them on to you.
Josh Castillon
ache. Zen Mateo
the next person who loves me needs to love me blind needs to love me standing still love me in the dark love me broken love me silent love me messy and mad and finding my voice love me powerful love me like an equal love me brave and love me small love me rough around the edges screw it love me rough all the way through to the center of me love me love me crawling toward somewhere that isn’t here love me rooted like a tree love me fast and slow and love me like you love your own heart beating love me like your first breath and your last love me pure and love me vital love me real love me deep and love me sure love me like the answer to a question you’ve been asking for years and like a question to an answer you been holding forever love me with your entire self love me even if i had no eyelashes or even no eyes at all love me like the center of something and like the edges of it too love me run on sentences love me a song that shakes your soul love me clear running water love me a wave too big for you but you’ve already caught it, my dude, love me in slow motion love me at the top of your lungs love me six shots of tequila love me a hole you punched in the wall love me far from home love me calm love me certain love me love me all your eggs in one beat up basket love me like it’s the only thing you have left to do in this life
things i have inherited from my mother
astronomy
broad shoulders, resilience, a sweet tooth, the ability to burn sage and start again (any number of times) courage to walk the labyrinth, sparkly eyes, and above all, a voice from somewhere deep, saying, always: you are enough
krishna’s mother knew he was a god because she looked in his mouth and she saw the universe.
habits I can taste you on my teeth I am usually scared of drugs as hard as you
beautiful i to be called beautiful is always a relief because it reminds me that despite life certain things remain constant
this is why kissing is a big deal. because you never know when you will be pressed up against the wall at some party and you stick your tongue in someone’s mouth and suddenly you taste creation. you taste the sea and the mountains and the sky and all the stars and you were just looking for a fun night, looking to blow off some steam, but instead you have tasted eternity. and maybe you weren’t ready for that and you are not the only person who has ever spat stars into my unsuspecting mouth but I think maybe yours burned me the brightest.
Lena Valenti Untitled 2016 I grew up in Miami, Florida to a Cuban-Panamanian- Ecuadorian family. The blue line connects the places where I’ve lived, New York and Miami, to the places where my family is from: Cuba, Panama and Ecuador. The work includes the map of the Americas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, former Gran Colombia (today Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela) and a map of New York City. The map positions small islands like Cuba and Puerto Rico at the center and so that New York is on the periphery. This is a response to U.S. ethnocentric view that “New York (or the West) is the center of the world.” The map of the Americas is covered by the text of Lenca Honduran leader Berta Cáceres. This is her acceptance speech for the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 before she was assassinated about a year later. The map of Cuba is empty and yet large because it is an important part of my heritage but I have not yet visited the island or my family there. I included Gran Colombia over the words of El Libertador, Simón Bolívar, who helped many South Americans (including both Panama and Ecuador) win independence from colonial Spain. I also included Puerto Rico because the political history of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. (such as the Young Lords) has influenced me deeply, and because many of my dearest friends and some extended family are from this island. The island is covered in the poem “A Julia de Burgos” by Puerto Rican feminist poet Julia de Burgos. Lastly, New York City is covered text from James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. It is one of my favorite books and I was reading this book in the along my commute when I created this work.
Leg Hair
Alysha Kundanmal I am acutely aware Of a tickling breeze I cannot remember You looking like this Since I was eight When she sneered And pointed at you I remember crying And telling mom
She helped me Get rid of you Together we ripped And cut you Out of my life I’m sorry I hated you For so long You meant no harm I know that now So now we stand Together In a sundress The tickling breeze Now a Strong Wind A beautiful Empowering Wind
Watching people you love succeed Smiling puppies Maya Tatikola Clean sheets and clean bodies List of things she reads during Curls that hold the entire day Hand holding: waffles or pancakes panic attacks The smell of agarbatti Grandmas Good poems Bad poems Naps Frank Ocean Growing Taking up space Touching Warmth Face masks that actually work Lipsticks that actually look good Kissing that actually can just be kissing Lavender, the color and scent Evolving and learning and expanding over and over and over and over
Julie Patadia On growing up in two different worlds
It tears her apart This Constant Internal struggle She’s lost Still looking Running to the deep ends of both of identities Never finding a balance between her two worlds Who Am I
Anonymous Submissions What rhymes with dementia? You wander, and I squander the few moments we have left. It is a theft. Because you’re deteriorating well before I’d believe it to be your time to go. I’m infuriated. You can’t tell your sister from your daughter, and what you ate last. Even though dinner was only twenty minutes ago. All of this is causing great distress. Breaths held in anticipation of the fall from this earth. And yet I sit here, unsure of what to say or do, because you’re almost past help. Almost 80, no one believes you’ll make it past that decade mark. But we still hold hope and all this smoke hides the true emotions behind the masks we wear. Colorful as it is with anger, sorrow, disappointment, a rainbow of uncertainties and probabilities. The memories are all I have left, All you stand to lose.
i have never considered myself beautiful (maybe that’s fine. normal, even) i was never destined for greatness (maybe i can learn to be okay with mediocrity) but when you knock our shoulders together (and twist your fingers with mine) i feel like, like maybe i can be enough (hey, maybe i already am.) - maybe you have a whole universe inside of you, my love; and that means some days you will be the stars and the planets, while on other days you will be angry storm clouds and bitter lightning. but in the end you still have the sun, the moon and the bright blue sky inside you, and you will be alright. - you deserve to love yourself
Renata Francesco