BORDERS MIGRATION LINEAGE HOME
Dedicated to all who must constantly battle with the originality, authenticity and permeability of defining the home -bound by the intricate and delicate thread of the spatial frontiers that form our reality: borders. The needle of the home pierces through passport stamps. time zones. memories and ocean waves pulling the Earth together and apart at the same time. From this we will sew our own quilt of our shared experiences. -The Grid Zine
Diasporic Blues Diasporic Blues, A disease that haunts the immigrant When they cannot distance themselves from the nostalgia of the past The past tasted bittersweet and they left it They left the places where the past manifested, their homeland Which they grew to vehemently despise Since lines on a map define their body as Third World Savages But they could never forget their passionate love affair With the little details that comprise the country of their birth That yearning to relive those memories is Diasporic Blues So they learn to accept and love who they are holistically Because try as they might they cannot change Where they were born and how they get perceived
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Rules for Survival Because Thriving is Practically Communist (gross!)
Public life is the culture of your new homeland – your friends Private life is what you left behind but don’t want to let go – your parents When your public and private life reinforce oppressions together, You learn some rules and hide yourself Always speak English but don’t you dare forget your mother tongue Never question authority, disrespect people in power, or trust anyone Know that money will liberate you so worship it Let nobody see your pain You thought you were a bird Undefined by borders because you flew over to the Land of the Free But here you are a parasitic fly You can never be what you want to be – a free queer communist being! Bullies are Abusers Abusers are Bullies The public is private and political The private is public and political Freedom is not synonymous with red, white, and blue The destruction of national borders will become true
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Syria (sorrow settles into me) Like a pressed sponge oozing water it cannot hold into a sink. Bathe your hands, we’re leaving this place. This is called washing anew Like roses taking refuge, pressed flat between volumes of capital. You wonder how they hold so tightly that when the terrain flattens, vibrancy remains; everything’s been feeling like it’s only clouds away to the sun, melting, melting, and melting as of late. Water washes red and roses wilt in real-time in your hands. Pressed skin-to-skin in bright orange and hope and despair in boats in crashing waves and wailing and praying, the world watched. Those who had the power to help didn’t help, those mighty titans of money and resource, national governments, volumes of capital turned their backs to cast shadows of neglect upon Syrians, forming a holeless wall around their nations to the missing-petal roses: blazen, flattened, bloody in despair and death. These roses are not red because they are roses. They are red because the carnage is innumerable, blazen beyond Syria’s borders. Because the blood has not yet dried, both on the roses themselves and on the smug-smile hands of the world’s international superpowers. Because from afar, the interior of a mouth is red. Red is the color of screams, carnage, and solidarity. This is a time where you can no longer ignore what is happening. Everything is clouds away to the sun. Not much time remains before you will acknowledge the heat. Life melts around you. Muddied waters have washed dead Syrian children ashore, the inevitable hue of lives forgotten: brown airstrike rubble, brown skin, red blood. Red blood. Brown skin. Roses lay flat beneath imperial gardens of airstrike-induced rubble. Mangled aerial views chorus, terrorism, we fight, terrorism, we are wilting to an end. Wilting, roses will not grow and we can seed through your lies. Gardens will not grow and the dead will not come back to life. This is a time where you can no longer ignore what is happening. Global superpowers deny Syrian refugees a home: they do not applaud the carnage in Syria. The roses wilt in their hands and they accept it. They support it. Those are their shell casings. They do not welcome refugees fleeing their homes without question: they accept them conditionally or not at all. Imagine your home, neighborhood, city, country. Now imagine it entirely wilted, demolished. Imagine it all demolished by forces beyond your control and being held
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clouds away from the sun by force. Everything is gone. Imagine seeking refuge. Because you must. Fleeing your home country in short-trip boats for weeks. Imagine passengers dying, sick, injured. Imagine being denied refuge. Denied a home. Imagine employment being so out of the question that you resort to selling body parts on the black market, rose petals that will not grow back. Imagine having been so close to winning a fight against these conditions and losing to ultimate demise. The conditions before us will worsen if we do nothing. Replanting gardens will only grow in difficulty. Syria is under siege, and we have failed them. The people demanded the downfall of the regime and we failed in solidarity. Turn off your TV. Log off of social media. Cover your ears to the cries, but the images will continue on their reel until Syria is nothing but a country of rubble, producer of refugees, Assadist dictatorship, and the mangled remains of imperialism’s ugly battle for profit and control. It is from below that change must grow, the place of birth that roses know. Our water is not of the clean variety, but for it we must fight. For bread and roses, home and liberation, the struggle continues. For bread and roses, home and liberation, the struggle continues. Where will you be when they come? For them? For you? Us?
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I am a walking paradox: I am from a place where they exploit the very people flowing through my veins I am from a place where they rely on the very people flowing through my veins I am from a place where they deny entry to the very people flowing through my veins
BORDERS IN CANDLEWAX, THEY WILL MELT AND HARDEN IN WATER, PLATES WILL COLLIDE TO SOLIDIFY LIKE LAVA, THEY WILL OOZE TO HARDEN LIKE LINES ON PAPER, THEY CAN BE IGNORED BORDERS THEY CONFINE ME AND YOU AND HIM AND HER AND THEM AND ALL OF US PASSPORT STAMPS ADHERE TO IMAGINARY LINES CALLED BORDERS; OF WHICH I ONLY KNOW OF BY TRAVERSING THEM IN BODIES OF WATER WHERE’S THE BORDER? WHERE ARE YOU FROM? WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM? WATER. EARTH. AIR. WHERE IS YOUR BORDER? IN STRUGGLE, THEY BRIDGE SOLIDARITY THERE IS NO WALL THAT WILL DIVIDE US BORDERS
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My father denies his blackness When I was a child, I didn’t understand it. “I’m not black, I’m dominican,” he would say. he came to this country as a teenager with no knowledge of the english language. now he owns 2 businesses and makes 6 figures. he was almost drafted into the Orioles, but the scouts offered him a quarter of what the white player on his college team received. “we can go to your country and find 10 players like you” they said. … My father used to own 2 businesses and make over 6 figures, but then a white man robbed him. “They don’t want us to have anything,” he told me. “I'm not a nigger, I'm dominican” I wonder when you began to pick apart pieces of yourself. Was it when you realized that to be Black in America meant to be treated as a second class citizen? and that carrying the weight of the word “immigrant” was already too much of a burden for you to bear. who told you that separating the tree from its roots will help it grow? I used to watch you pray everyday in hopes that it did. (diez Padre Nuestro’s y diez Ave Maria’s) All the while, you withered away...
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yo le hablo a mi mami en spanglish she understands un poco de ingles but i'm losing mi espanol poco a poco when she asks como estuvo mi dia i wish to express mis cuentos with color and vibrancy to fill her tired eyes con vida pero pierdo las palabras... mi mami e perdido mucho en su vida and as a result so have I and it kills me to have to watch as these moments, our stories, get stolen from us too
I come from a line of women that clean houses and bear children but dream of better than the hand they were dealt I come from a line of women who manifest those dreams defying all odds
I come from a line of women that know the importance of passing on traditions, stories, and legacies I come from a line of women that know how critical their role is to preserving that legacy I come from a line of women of brujas, curanderas, and santeras. I am made from their tears, their pains, their joys, their cries. these women run through every essence of me they are why I carry on.
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III
Immigrant By Gloria Longin
I don't think you realize What I went through To get here As you know Haiti is 20-30 years behind
Oh! The cleanliness! No loose top soil No more two baths a day "You'll only waste water", they said No boiling bath water
And functions much more
No baths
Purposefully as someone
In its stead
20-30 years our senior I left all friends, family I had ever grown to love
Luxurious showers Adjust the temperature With just a turn of a chrome knob
In my peach suit Loose shoulder pads Skirt too big for Child-like hips I boarded a time machine Landed into the future
I made new little girl friends During recess They looked like me They still wore barrettes Yet didn't speak my language I watched how they moved
What Jean Claude van Dam movies Portrayed the States to look like White people's colder mannerisms Burgers and fries called food Fast tracks with cars That look like model inventions That experience changed me
Swayed their hips Pursed their lips When boys were around Twisted their faces When those boys Turned out to be scrubs What are scrubs? I acted as if I understood the song Limbs flailing Expressing their emotions I watched, deciphered sounds And attached them to The American way
Met familiar aunties and uncles That I had seen only
Haiti was a relic of the past A dream world:
Once a year back home
Knowing our neighbors names
They were holidays then
Grilled corn on the cob
Brought celebration to our home
On the beach
Left faster than it took
Banana boats
Anticipation of their arrival to build I met you two
Yellow sand Turquoise ocean.
Cousins my age
Here, parents hardly had time between
Who looked like
Back breaking work shifts
Fair skinned Haitian children
For beaches, waterfalls, giggles
I played with in grade school
From our large duplex
But shared my features You were mine You looked at me with wonder A new creature in your lives No more playing with My brother's camionette And GI Joe's We played our own games Practicing domestic life Before we knew What it all meant Talked for hours Into the night After our bedtime prayers American child lexicon, expressions Poured into My youthful, pliable brain I felt included
Large gallerie where my brother and I Played and bathed in hours of sunshine In our motherland To a cramped shared house Then our own 3 bedroom apartment Ultimately a small house for us This was the American way
A hybrid of cultures, I seek to identify where I belong. Rejected by both I find myself lost. I change to seek acceptance, My efforts are meaningless, I am not enough. Too ‘white’ to be Mexican. Too ‘mexican’ to be American. Where do i belong? i try to find answers but come up short. The real question is identity, who am i? Being told who I am by others. i find i define who I am, no one else. I can be anyone in this country. Although this freedom terrifies me. Every decision making me question if it was worth it. Would I still come knowing what I know now? Were my parents sacrifices worth it? Am I doing enough? I wonder if I will ever feel like I belong. Yet people give me hope with their kindness. -JGR
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No Man's Land
"You've come far enough West to get a welcome at the gate, but no amount of travels could ever swing these doors ajar� "You've gone too far West to ever return Home" Yours is a cursed identity, A barren soil good for renting but never claiming, You are common ground, You are for Everyone, You are for no one.
Jason Makwein Nkwain
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CONTRI A special thank you to everyone who contributed to the zine, and shared their experiences so candidly
Twinkle Panda-Yashna Rules for Survival Because Thriving is Practically Communist (gross!) and Diaspora Blues and photos taken in India, Winter 2016
JGR Untitled
“Courage is a heart
Ingrid Raphael MAMAN and BORDERS Photographer and filmmaker based in Columbus, OH
word. The root of the word courage is cor the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant 'To speak one's
Astrid Rosero Curet Black Woman & Flag
mind by telling all one's heart.'" - Brene Brown
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BUTORS Jessica & Ingrid
Gloria Longin Immigrant
Sarah Z. Mamo (she/they) From their forthcoming zine MOVE: Syria (sorrow settles into me) Columbus native, organizer with International Socialist Organization, and poet Imani Hadiyah Untitled Jessica Rodriguez My father denies his blackness and yo le hablo a mi mami Jason Makwein Nkwain No Man’s Land Poet and teacher
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