Poem recorded/edited by Erick Galindo, and Drake Witham. This recording was made possible by a grant from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFA), with equipment provided by Women Helping Youth (WHY).
by Virginia Villalta
The tale of an Aztec woman who fell in love with a Spaniard with green eyes
La Llorona, a legend who sacrificed her children for everything, sacrificed everything for her children a woman who cries for her children.
The brown dirt all immigrants crossed blurred my mother’s vision.
Once in America, she fell in love with the first man she saw,
looked into his colored eyes and hoped her kids would come out with his.
My mother and the Legend,
Mis Hijos she’d cry when she ran my abuelita
Tired- how she couldn’t bare it any longer
Couldn’t Bare 15 years of marriage
15 years of the cheating, pain, abuse, stealing.
why does it seem like I’ve heard this story before?
Maybe it was on Univision when I was younger, watching Tv,
sitting gleefully as could be.
La rosa de Guadalupe played, glad to God, my family wasn’t like the ones on that show.
We were like go with the flow, don’t let anybody know, the weight of living so heavy
my mother developed scoliosis and we as a whole could no longer grow
We put on a show, keep out pain on the low
I was watching telenovelas on Univision
Glad to god my story hadn’t been told before
But now 12 years later
my mother and a legend
sat me down, told me a tale I no longer remember
La llorona told me about a father who had colored eyes yet all of his children were born with
eyes like mine
A story turned to smoke and I’m sorries
I’m Free falling from Fantasies melted memories.
I was three again.
it was 2 in the morning, I was three again, I saw my mother chase after my father,
her body erupted in shivers from the dead unmerciful night.
My mother and a legend both alike will cry for their children,
their children stood and watched as a father left.
My mother, a legend, Mexican mothers and a legend all alike will cry at night.
Our mothers our legends stories untold,
of immigrant mothers who learned how to fight with a baby at their breast and a broken heart in their chest.
Years later La Lloronas voice croaked defiantly as she screamed for her kids. My mother’s voice croaked defiantly as she fought a custody battle not letting her kids slip away to a man who didn’t know how to stay.
Now I ask myself why I’m here today, immigrant families fighting fuerte siempre con sus manos to survive that hoping selling tamales on the street will suffice, I am here today I am here to stay my mother gave her life, gave me my tongue so I’ll know how to fight. Que mi lengua no se va ir so this is a gift to her, mi Mama es para ti. A sign, una promesa que yo no me voy a ir.
La llorona, underestimated, humiliated by a world that didn’t understand a mother’s love. My mother’s love stronger than any man, Más fuerte que qual quier hombre.
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