Melanated Advocated

WE NEED TO BE ADVOCATED

Advocated 

not by those who are the oppressors,

or their descendants,

but by the same scope—

melanated advocates,

among our own,

melanin concentrated,

go hard like stone.

Let it be shown

that melanin can be seen,

but the depths of it

is also known.

Known to the core 

they can't erase,

through folklore they buried

and stories displaced.

From the Tuskegee Airmen

who broke barriers in the sky,

to Katherine Johnson

calculations that helped spacecraft fly.

We know the depth

behind the skin we wear.

We know the ancestors

who carried burdens

they never should have had to bear.

Melanin can be seen—

but don't mistake visibility

for understanding.

There is knowledge in our roots,

power in our culture,

and generations of brilliance

standing behind every face.

We are not asking to be discovered.

We are saying:

LOOK CLOSER.

Because melanin

can be seen,

but the depths of it—

are also known.

Response to Misconceptions of a Non-Spanish Speaking Latina

Response to Misconceptions of a Non-Spanish Speaking Latina

:: If you are Latina but don't know how to speak the language how proud are you or better yet, what are you proud of?
Calling yourself Latina?

Parents (community, Tio's Tias, whoever) Have failed the Latina/o who grows up not being able to speak the language their race identifies with. Latinos first were colonized by the spanish hundreds of years before the invasion of the English (If you didn't like the language and didn't want to learn how to speak it for that reason, then that's a difference story and one I can understand. But that's not what it seems like you are saying).

When you are Hispanic or identify as a Latino/a, call yourself that but don't know the language it is a disgrace, you have been failed, You, personally, failed and don't care to speak it or learn it if you grow up and still don't know how to communicate in your very own native language especially, if you live within our communities.

No matter how loving, supportive, hardworking your mother was, why would she not teach a "spanish" related person, "spanish?" Just because you cook rice & read books on Puerto Rico, don't make you anymore Latina then blonde hair, blue eye singer Christina.

Does your child/ren speak their lineage language? Do you care? Being Bilingual is a + & not only higher pay but a wider range of opportunities.

If you "look" like a Latina; dark hair, skin & eyes, you should uphold yourself to one. That's all we saying...