Young people are learning how to become leaders. Young people are learning the skills they will need to vote wisely. Voting means power. Voting changes the future. Voting brings hope.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE
RAMÓN SUÁREZ
New York, 2001
We charge into the burning remnants
of crumbling towers. Trying to save lives,
we lose
our own.
Those who survive call us heroes, but we were
policemen, firefighters, and ambulance drivers
long before terrorists
attacked.
Now we float—yes, we soar
high above smoke and ash, knowing why
we chose our jobs, no matter how dangerous.
Survivors exist
because of us.
VOLUNTEERS
CECILIA
Virginia, 2004
We come from every state,
offering to sacrifice our own safety
so that others
will be safe.
Heroes?
Maybe.
After the loss of both legs,
my best friend goes home, but I’m
still overseas, wondering how long
these wars
will last …
Iraq.
Afghanistan.
Terrorism seems to be spreading.
•
We can’t invade every country,
so maybe it’s time for me to discover
some other way to fight for peace,
by helping the hungry
and building schools,
instead of by
shooting.
JUMPING HIGH
CONNIE
Georgia, 2004
This year’s worldwide games
are so much fun to watch,
because my hurdle-leaping hero—
Félix Sánchez—is the winner
of the Dominican Republic’s first
Olympic gold medal!
Even though he grew up in San Diego,
he has dual citizenship with the DR,
just like I do with Costa Rica.
Maybe someday when I’m older,
I’ll be a famous athlete, too, running fast
and leaping sky high, crossing all sorts
of seemingly impossible barriers.
LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER
RIGOBERTO
Wisconsin, 2004
When the Panamanian art workshop teacher
speaks with shapes on paper,
I understand so easily.
Sometimes I’m homesick for Ecuador,
but at this unique school for the deaf,
Spanish sign language is different
from the English form,
and I am learning so much!
For me, the happiest way to communicate
is by studying Miss Irisme’s
starry colors, and then letting my own world
of painted birds
and dancing trees
soar!
CONFUSED
BIENVENIDA
Michigan, 2006
My parents left Mexico
after big corporations
pushed small family farms out of business,
so they could no longer afford to grow corn
for a living.
Now Mamá and Papá are being deported.
I’ll be here alone in my own birthplace,
a United States citizen trying to finish high school
without my parents
and my older sister, Matilde, who was born
across the border.
Will any of my loved ones ever be able
to return here, to my natural home?
DIVIDED
MATILDE
Arizona, 2006
I try to return to my little sister, Bienvenida,
in Detroit, but fences and rifles stop me.
Who are these men
armed like soldiers,
patrolling the border
as if my simple effort
to live in the place
where I grew up
were suddenly
an act
of war?
MARCHING
JOE
California, 2006
Nearly a million people march together,
some only waving American flags—others
with two banners to show equal pride
in dual origins.
Traffic stops. News crews film.
A camera focuses on my sign:
TODAY WE MARCH. TOMORROW WE VOTE.
No, I’m not undocumented, I explain to a reporter.
In fact, most of my ancestors lived right here
in Los Angeles long before it became part
of Mexico, but as a lawyer, I believe in fair laws
for everyone, and that includes children
whose parents have been
deported.
COUNTING
MARISOL
Alaska, 2010
When census officials come to the door,
Mamá pretends we’re not home so she won’t
have to answer nosy personal questions.
Months later, at school, I learn that this country
now includes fifty million people of Latino ancestry,
with more than 60 percent born on US soil.
I wonder how many there would be if no one
was afraid to be counted.
How would they figure me out anyway,
when my family is half Irish Australian
and half Peruvian Chinese?
IDENTITY
ANA
Arizona, 2010
As a police officer, I find it disturbing
to be ordered
to check all the official documents
of anyone
who merely looks Latino
like half of my own
mixed-together family.
But a new law requires interrogations,
so now, when I’m out of uniform, I know
how it feels to worry about being mistaken
for someone who happens to be
foreign born.
SUCCESS
LUIS
California, 2010
My grandparents brought me from Chile
in 1973, right after my parents disappeared,
victims of a brutal, US-supported dictatorship.
I’ve never figured out why so many refugees
choose the same country that caused us
to need refuge.
Now I’m a computer science professor,
living near Berkeley, where I enjoy seeing names
of other chilenos in the newspaper, especially
Matías Duarte, an inventor.
Freedom of the press and freedom of speech
are just as important to me
as understanding
the marvels of technology.
DREAMS OF CITIZENSHIP
HÉCTOR
Oregon, 2012
Finally, DACA is a way for families
to stay together, so that millions of us
who were brought to this country as children
might have a chance to seek legal status.
Maybe I won’t have to give up my college classes …
but even if it works out so that no one can deport me,
what about my parents?
Do I really have to write down their names and tell
every detail about the way they came and how long
they’ve stayed?
Will this chance for me to dream
of a safe future for myself
turn into a nightmare
for them?
DREAMS OF BEAUTY
ROSARIO
California, 2014
So many years have passed
since my grandparents left Honduras
with nothing, and now fin
ally we own
a greenhouse filled with glorious flowers.
All those decades of landscape labor,
raking leaves and fixing sprinklers,
finally gave us a way to make a living
by growing tropical orchids for weddings,
proms, and Mother’s Day.
Tomorrow night at my quinceañera
all the bouquets will be special in a way
that brings past and future into full view,
a celebration of old
and young
working together.
FAMILY REUNION
NANCY
Washington, 2015
Translating for my grandma was fun
when I was little, but now that I’m twelve,
I just wish she would learn English
like everyone else in Seattle.
Abuela says it isn’t easy,
shaping her mouth
into new sounds.
Does she know that this isn’t easy for me, either,
always guessing what strangers are thinking
at the grocery store, post office, bank, and clinic?
At least there’s a nurse who knows enough Spanish
to set me free
during school hours.
Next month, when we finally visit
all the cousins I’ve never met—in Cuba—
Abuela says she’ll be the one interpreting
confusing words
for me.
•
I never thought I would see her so thrilled
with these new laws that suddenly renew
diplomatic relations and normal travel
between Abuela’s birthplace
and mine,
after all those old
complicated
Cold War hostilities
that lasted more than half a century,
tearing whole families
apart.
ESL
LEONEL
Pennsylvania, 2015
In our English as a Second Language class,
Julia from Argentina and Marisol from Mexico
sit side by side, agreeing that English is not
our second language.
For Julia, it’s her fourth, after Italian from her mother
and Spanish from her father, and Portuguese
from a year as an exchange student in Brazil.
For me, it’s a third language, after the Creole
I picked up from my Haitian father
and Spanish from my mother
in the Dominican Republic.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to imagine
knowing only one way of describing
hope.
DREAMS OF RAIN
ADRIANA
California, 2015
Nothing but dust
where endless vegetable fields
used to grow.
Unemployed laborers struggle to pay
for their lunches, here at Papi’s restaurant,
where I help in the kitchen during summer vacation,
making pupusas so that Central Americans
will feel at home.
One more rainless winter will put us
out of business, just like my great-grandpa
in the last century, when farms without water
turned to dust, and instead of going back
to Mexico, he grew creative,
and started
experimenting
with recipes.
•
I’m already halfway through college,
and even though the rest will take hard work,
I’ll manage, because sooner or later
there will surely be
rain clouds in the sky,
pouring out water
for rivers
of growth.
THE HORRORS OF HISTORY ARE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW
GLORIA
New York, 2016
I don’t understand why my teachers
keep speaking of things that are ancient,
when so many of the same old mistakes
are being repeated all over again—
racism, scapegoats, deportations.
The angry past is still alive, thriving
inside this monstrous
presidential candidate
who insults us.
The whole world needs bridges, not walls,
education, not nuclear weapons.
I don’t care what anyone says.
I know what I think.
We need peace,
not hatred.
ABANDONED
SONIA
Puerto Rico, 2017
Hurricanes, one after another,
first Irma, then María, storms with names
that sound so harmless, even though
they leave us suffering, hungry, thirsty.
No electricity. No medicine.
When help finally arrives, it’s just a fraction
of what is needed, as if the US government
still doesn’t think of us as complete citizens.
We pay taxes, but we can’t vote in national
elections—taxation without representation,
and now this ugly abandonment, so we help
each other, following the heroic example
of Carmen Yulín Cruz, the courageous mayor
of San Juan.
INJUSTICE
NANCY
Washington, 2018
Unfairness takes so many forms
that it’s hard to keep up with the changes!
Cuba is being shunned again, by this new
US administration that seems to prefer
chaos
instead of order.
Why can’t Congress lift
the trade embargo and travel restrictions,
treating a neighboring nation like a friend?
I’m young, but I have enough common sense
to know that peace
is always a worthwhile goal.
NEVER DREAMLESS
HÉCTOR
Oregon, 2018
DACA has ended.
We don’t know our future.
We could all be deported.
I’m afraid, but I speak up.
I march, I protest,
I sing.
ENOUGH
ELSA
Florida, 2018
Emma González inspires me.
We had a shooter at our school, too.
I survived.
No more weapons of war on campus!
Enough is enough! We march for our lives.
When politicians won’t defend us from killers,
we’ll protect ourselves by voting them out.
Emma has brown skin and green eyes, just like mine.
I’m Puerto Rican, and she’s Cuban American;
I’m straight, she’s bi; I’m shy, she’s bold; but we’re both
equally brave
in our own ways,
because she speaks out loud,
while I shout on paper, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,
let’s VOTE, MARCH, SING, WRITE!
•
We have to be leaders, not followers,
so that we’ll never again
be herded like sheep
toward a helpless
slaughter.
We are the hopeful future,
triumphing over this country’s
troubled past.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank God for dreams, my family for encouragement, many wise proofreaders for corrections and suggestions, Dr. Sandra Garza, Ydalmi Noriega, my agent Michelle Humphrey, my editor Laura Godwin, the illustrator Beatriz Gutierrez, and the entire publishing team.
Before attempting to write these poems, I read numerous history books, diaries, and other firsthand accounts. In addition, one of the most comprehensive resources was the PBS series called Latino Americans and a companion
book, Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation, by Ray Suarez (Penguin, 2013). I am also indebted to Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, by Felipe Fernández-Armesto (Norton, 2014), and An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortíz (Beacon Press, 2015).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margarita Engle is a Cuban American poet, novelist, and journalist whose work has been published in many countries. She is the author of young adult nonfiction books and novels in verse including The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor Book, The Poet Slave of Cuba, Hurricane Dancers, The Firefly Letters, and Tropical Secrets. She lives in northern California. You can sign up for email updates here.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Beatriz Gutierrez Hernandez is an illustrator and animator born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico and based in Brooklyn. She graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Communications Design, with a focus in illustration. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Historical Note
Epigraph
Dreams from Many Rivers Page 6
