Interview

             after José Olivarez and Safia Elhillo

where are you from?

As a kid, I never knew how

to talk about race. I was a Black girl

and I was a Puerto Rican

girl and we all seemed to think

there was only

one way you could be those

two things at once.

where are you from?

Malachi. Hebrew. “my messenger.”

The last of the twelve Hebrew

prophets, who foretold the

coming of Christ. In 1880,

49 Malachi families were

living in South Carolina. A long history

of mispronunciations—Mala-key,

the shamelessness of calling me

Meghan Mariachi

has long left me incapable

of hearing its soft beauty,

its easy leap off the tongue. Malachi

where are you from?

Morena. Black girl.

But my high school Spanish

teacher, a young Polish woman,

says this means brunette.

She uses it to describe herself,

and it no longer describes

me.

where are you from?

Brigantty. Briganti. Variation of

Brigante. Blue-eyed jibaros

and brown women populate the

family tree. A man named Hipolito

becomes Tony & if I look close

enough, focus on the smallest

of branches, I find my face. There! There

I go again.

where are you from?

I don’t believe in nation

states but I believe

in The Bronx. My city owes

you nothing. It never

owed me either.

where are you from?

Nuyorican girl,

descendant of

louisiana creole

descendants of slaves,

Someone asks

how come you don’t sound like

you’re from the Bronx?

and I want to say

my accent is the smell

of poultry and blood at the vivero

on Jerome Ave, the creased leather

on Mad Mark’s shoulders, the chain

around Big Pun’s neck, the squeak

of the wheel of the cart I push around

the last K-Mart standing.