What is belong?

What is belong?

Belong is the way that man points his finger into your chest saying,
“Go back to where you came from, you don’t belong here.”
Belong is the way his silver-blue eyes dash into your line of sight,
a tomato-red flurry of misdirected anger.
Belong as in, Mexicans go over here South of the border,
because everyone crossing the border is Mexican.

Belong. You belong. Over there.

What they’re trying to say is,
You belong in your own country, slaving away in a field for less than minimum wage
Because NAFTA believes in free trade NOT fair trade.
You belong in a place where soil stings hands that have been calloused by the land, where skin cracks on palms and backs carry stories burned into flesh by the Sun.

Yes, you.
You belong.

You belong in a constant state of displacement,
You belong under surveillance, you belong barred behind concrete and desperation.
Who the fuck cares if you where working forty hours a week, treking through trash for the family you never get to see because they belong South of the border.
No, no. Who the fuck cares if you where working, breaking your back with tears in your eyes.
No, No. You belong in this concrete cell with those criminals because leaving home
for love is just as bad as selling drugs and murder.

You don’t belong says the silver-blue eyed man.
Let’s neglect US enterprises that inhabit third world countries forcing substandard styles of living.
Let’s neglect corrupt, US supported, governments that disembowel anyone that believes in fighting.
Let’s neglect soil stained red with blood instead of sunsets.
But yes. Yes, yes.
Let’s criminalize their citizens when they flee to this country because they’re given no other option than surviving.

But I don’t belong. Me?
Wait a second lets get this straight, let’s evaluate this historically.
I don’t belong.
The last time I checked English was not native to this continent.
No, this was a land of brown eyed dark people where Minnesota was Mee-knee-sho-tah
Sioux for smoke on water.
No, this land was and has always been my land riddled with non-English languages like
Quechua and Aymara, Nahuatl and Maya crawling over South and Central American
Mountain ranges.
I don’t belong? Me.
Let’s evaluate this historically.
My ethnicity was born on this continent.
Si, Mestizos created by conquest and lust.
Let’s evaluate this historically.
Texas, New Mexico and California belonged to México,
until of course, U.S. citizens snuck across the borders creating an influx of foreigners.
Even though Mexico granted them citizenship,
only to secede those states because those new citizens wanted to go back to of the US of A.
Let’s evaluate this historically,
To a time before Columbus and Pilgrims, to a time when my Ancestors’ ancestors crossed the Bering Strait.
Yes, they crossed that tiny fragmented land mass into North and South America

"You don't belong," says the silver-blue eyed man.
I don’t belong? WE don’t belong?
No, no… you see this land was made for traveling.