I'm Not Angry, I'm Dominican

By Grace Sofia 

I’m not overreacting, you’ve just never experienced a Dominican mother’s anger with a chancleta before. The precision in the throw, the sting in the hit. The sheer brujería of it all. My mother could be in the living room, and I’d be turning a corner and somehow still get hit in the face. I’d be running in my socks, slipping and sliding trying to dodge and ditch the chancla. I’m not angry, I just watched my parents work day and night for more than my lifetime and people make fun of their bad grammar. My mother worked everyday at the same office job, 9-to-5, longer than my life. My dad’s hands were always dirty, he was always tired, and his body always ached. My mother may have spoken English like it was her second language, cause it was, but she always knew the solution to any problem I faced. In school, work, life, she always knew what to do, always had some answer. 

I’m not angry, I’m grieving the child who used to believe the world was fair. Honor roll is supposed to mean a scholarship, kindness means people respect you. I’m not hurt, I just believed in a society where people cared for one another. I believed that teachers wanted everyone to succeed, I thought cops were the good guys, I was sure if I followed the rule, the right path, life would be fair back. I didn’t know that gold stars were just stickers, I didn’t know you could play the game fair and follow every rule and still lose. 

Like I said before, I want to be soft and feminine and taken care of, but I always want to be strong and grounded. I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. I want to be worshipped, respected, and left the fuck alone .I’m not angry, I’m Dominican. I’m not loud, I’m Dominican. I’m not expressive, I’m Dominican. I want brown liner, lip gloss, gold hoops and protests for dinner. I want to rub body butter on my legs, and raise a fist with my bonnet on. I love my Bustello before a march, skincare with the playlist of street chants that I can hear from blocks away. 

I’m not pissed off, I just know what my family did to get here, and now people are trying to get them sent back. I watch people who look like us get deported while their neighbors stay quiet and whisper under their breath, “Illegals.” Then, reminisce on the days where they used fake IDs to underage drink while illegally smoking pot and snorting coke after. They love our food, our music, our bodies, our culture, our slang, but happily turn their backs on us. 

I’m not emotional, I am Afro-Latina. I come from a long line of women who planted the seeds for the future of our family. And I will carry the torch.I write my buela, Justina, who used to pick coffee beans in DR, with all her youngest kids at her side helping, to sell and afford the food they ate. These women, who planted those seeds, picked coffee beans, and threw chancletas, they gave me more than my sass and my ass and the moles by my eyes. They gave me resilience and the bravery to speak my mind. They gave me grit, a spine, and every bit of the audacity. To fight everything with a small act of rebellion. Today, this is my small act of rebellion. 

I’m not angry, I carry generations worth of fire in me, and I dare you to try and put it out.