- Lyrics
- Album list
Denice Frohman
-
Borders
It starts before she gets here.
Before the stares tell her she's alien to a country that knows her grandfather's Meximan hands all too well.
His fingerprints still echo underneat railroad tracks and cotton fields from Texes to California where bend knees and bend hands once picked, plucked, pushed and worked for more money than he was used to but less than he deserved.
For Ana maria, it begins before the borders.
She walks with her two uncles through the dessert for one week with nothing more to eat than a few gallons of water and a prayer tucked into their pockets hoping both will last them long enough.
The sun is an unforgiving God but any God is worth having worth right now.
The wind pushing at their backs the grunt of gun shots from drug cartails and the desperation of a job to employ their stomachs both have been uninvited guests at their door steps.
So they step, step.
Ana Maria's small hands clutches the bottom of her abuela's dress.
Her mother waits for her on the other side hoping that her face still sings of home like it used to.
She is too young to know what borders.
She thinks people are just family members who haven't met yet.
After her family arives, she will learn that there are some borders you can't cross by foot.
Ana Maria is now 10 years old.
She has learned enough English to translate for her friends but says that her thick accent is a problem she tries to fix by leaving in her locker.
When the teacher calls on her to read she tries to speak proper like proper has a sound.
She pushed her tougue down so she doesn't roll her rs but she trips on the syllables that bounce with too much salsa.
She tries to rattle out the kinks in her speech but her toughe is a stubborn dancer.
The two boys don't know how to do long division but they know what wetback is.
And that Ana maria has braids and Ana Maria's hair is thicker than their sisters.
Find more lyrics at ※ Mojim.com
And they don't know hwo they know but they know hwo to reat difference when they smell it so they say things like '
Yo go back to your country', as if they Irish ancestors never crossed Ales Island.
Ana Maria is know 16 years old.
Her father works 18 hour days as a dish washer.
Her mother cleans houses she will never get to live so that Ana Maria can sit in a college classroom and say '
I am here.' But her guidance counciller tells her she can't get financil aid or the in-state tuition rate because of her status.
She says it like an apology.
Ana wonder if her family ever crossed the border or if they are just stuck inside another one aggravading it like a soul.
She says it like an apology.
Ana wonder if her family ever crossed the border or if they are just stuck in another one aggravading it like a soul.
Her guidance counciller stands in front of her with a mouth full of fences.
There are some border you can't cross by foot.
But borders, I tell her, that can only be crossed by strubborn backbone.
So when they ask for your papers Ana, show them your skins, wear your tougue like cape, throw up your fist like a secret you can't keep them any longer.
They can't keep you any longer.
Afraid?
You can't afford to drive or dream so when they come for you, tell them, in the language that you know best, that you, are not scared anymore!
-
|
