Hispanic Heritage Week: "Herencia"
Argot is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month through artwork.
Heritage, an anthem
Locked doors and closed signs
point toward you.
All the classroom teachers
who didn’t look like you.
So I’m promising the promise in you
halls of congress / college classrooms
science labs / bookstore shelves
film credits/ systems of oppression:
make room for my heritage.
Wherever you enter, your heritage walks with you
This is your body, tu herencia.
A heritage that is golden
even as you’re growing old.
Receive it like a gift.
A heritage that is golden
even as you’re growing old.
There are plenty of rooms for me to enter.
No one considered me until
I collected los tambores, la marimba,
and las maracas and asked you to dance.
I’m asking you to dance with me
teaching you to celebrate me.
Wherever you enter, your heritage walks with you
This is your body, tu herencia.
A heritage that is golden
even as you’re growing old.
Receive it like a gift.
A heritage that is golden
even as you’re growing old.
You be alive, you switch on that electric smile.
Twirling and turning, learn to fill the room
or be kept out. Take these caresses and teases in
the ear, kneading sunbeams into skin.
This is your body, tu herencia.
A heritage that is golden
even as you’re growing old.
Receive it like a gift.
A heritage that is golden
even as you’re growing old.
This is your body, tu herencia.
This is yours.
Claudia Rojas is a poeta from El Salvador. She holds a Bachelor’s in English from George Mason University. Find her poems in The Acentos Review, Poetry is Dead, and The Northern Virginia Review. Find her on Instagram.