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hija mia
Alexandra Calleros To be the daughter of an immigrant is to lie in a field of thorny cactuses and hold your breath. To see the desert as home. A familiar cold sweat. Condensation. A silence between nations. To be the daughter of an immigrant is to have a key to your father’s prison. To see the sun rising but never shining. She laughs at your little heart. Your little heart wishing and breathing. Wishing and breathing for truth. Or retribution. Asking questions meant to shatter, meant to die unspoken. Tangled tongues and bottled oceans. A sense of belonging once again stolen. How long have you lived like this? For generations. To be the daughter of an immigrant is to swallow clumps of sand and lie weightless. To breathe air with no lungs and float to the edge of the Pacific. Your face approaching the quivering surface, but never intended to reach it. Never meant to breathe in that abundance of air. Never meant to rise that far. How tall will they let you stand? Just to where the breeze teases the wrinkled palms of your hand. To be the daughter of an immigrant is to hear whispers from below this nation’s skyscrapers. To follow the hums of hushed rage to nameless graves that hold your lineage. To find spirits
