Unsettling America

Table Of Contents

Unsettling AmericaAcknowledgments
Introductions

Uprooting
Nellie Wong
Where is My Country?
Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park

Luis J. Rodrigues
Heavy Blue Veins
We Never Stopped Crossing Borders

Lamont B. Steptoe
Wired In
Such a Boat of Land

Jimmy Santiago Baca
Immigrants in Our Own Land

Marylin Chin
We Are Americas Now, We Live in the Tundra

Pat Mora
Elena

Ruth Lisa Schechter
What Were You Patching?

Quincy Troupe
In Texas Grass

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Old Italians Dying

Adrian C. Louis
Dust World

Shirley Geok-lin Lim
Father from Aisa

Hamod (Sam)
from Moving

James Masao Mitsui
Katori Maru, October 1920

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Restroom
The Brides Come to Yuba City

Yvonne V. Sapia
Grandmother, a Caribbean Indian, Described by My Father

Louise Erdrich
Indian Boarding School: The Runaways

Gary Soto
Braly Street

Joy Harjo
The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window

Shalin Hai-Jew
Kinged

Mary Jo Bona
Dream Poem

Mary Tallmountain
The Last Wolf

Gregg Shapiro
Tattoo

Lawson Fusao Inada
Father of My Father

Justin Vitiello
Letter to a Cretan Flute-Maker

David Meltzer
What Do I Know of Journey

Carole Bernstien
When My Grandmother Said Pussy

Cheryl Clarke
14th Street Was Gutted in 1968

Robert Carnevale
Walking by the Cliffside Dyeworks

Pedro Peitro
The Old Buildings

Dwight Okita
In Response to Executive Order 9066
The Nice Thing About Counting Stars

Shirley Kaufman
Next Year, in Jerusalem

Philip Levine
The Survivor

Lucille Clifton
Sam

Performing
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Indian Movie, New Jersey

Louise Erdrich
Dear John Wayne

Nellie Wong
When I Was Growing Up

Janice Mirikitani
Doreen

Safiya Henderson-Holmes
Failure of an Invention

Chrystos
Today Was a Bad Day Like TB

Jessica Hagedorn
Filipino Boogie

Mary TallMountain
Indian Blood

Miguel Algarin
At the Electronic Frontier

Sherman Alexie
Vision (2)
Translated from the American

Michael S. Weaver
Imitation of Life
The Black and White Galaxie
Blind Solo

Sandra Mortola Gilbert
Mafioso

Barry Seiler
Digging in the Streets of Gold

Susan Clements
Matinee
Deer Cloud

Nellie Wong
Can’t Tell

Mary Jo Bona
Amazone

Patricia Smith
Blonde White Women

Mitsuye Yamada
Cincinnati
American Sun

Arthur L. Clements
Why I Don’t Speak Italian

Grace Cavalieri
The First

Michael Warr
Brian on Ice: The El Train Poem
Malcolm Is ‘Bout More Than Wareing a Cap

Joseph Papaleo
American Dream: First Report

Gerald Stern
Behaving Like a Jew

Denise Nico Leto
The Mary Morelle Show

David Mura
To H.N.

Marge Piercy
My Rich Uncle, Whom I Only Met Three Times

Yusef Komunyakaa
Untitiled Blues

Jennifer Lagier
Second Class Citizen

Shalin Hai-Jew
Three Gypsies

Patricia Smith
from Sweet Daddy
What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl (for Those of You Who Aren’t)

Shirley Geok-lin Lim
Starlight Haven
Black and White

Jesse F. Garcia
Barrio Beato

David Hernandez
Welcome

Reuben Jackson
Tee
Big Chill Variations
Albert James

William J. Harris
A Daddy Poem

Sonia Sanchez
Song No. 3

Lucille Clifton
Song at Midnight

Allison Joseph
Junior High Dance

June Jordan
What Would I Do White?

Jimmy Santiago Baca
So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans

Haki R. Madhubuti
Poet: What Ever Happened to Luther?

Adrian C. Louis
The Great Wingless Bird

Pat Mora
Immigrants
Depression Days

Toi Derricotte
A Note on My Son’s Face Blackbottom

Shirley Geok-lin Lim
Lost Name Woman

Martin Espada
Coca-Cola and Coco Frio

Naming
Pat Mora
Senora X No More

Hamod (Sam)
Dying with the Wrong Name
Leaves

Marilyn Chin
How I Got That Name
Elegy for Chloe Nguyen

Martin Espada
Niggerlips
From an Island You Cannot Name

Nellie Wong
Mama, Come Back

Enid Dame
On the Road to Damascus, Maryland

Felix Stefanile
How I Changed My Name, Felice

Janice Mirikitani
Jade

Lyn Lifshin
Being Jewish in a Small Town

Janice Gould
We Exist

Ishmael Reed
Jacket Notes

Helen Barolini
Having the Wrong Name for Mr. Wright

Dixie Salazar
Taking It Back
Pinon Nuts

Kimiko Hahn
The Hula Skirt, 1959

Julia Lilsella
Song of the Third Generation

Amiri Baraka
Ka ‘Ba
Funk Lore

Daniela Gioseffo
American SOnnets for My Father

David Hernandez
Pigeons

June Jordan
A Poem about Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters

Denise Nico Leto
For Talking

Alberto Alvaro Rios
The Language of Great-Aunts
Nani

Carol Lee Saffioti
Espresso

Milton Kessler
Secret Love

Mary TallMountain
Good Grease

Vittoria Repetto
6th Grade-Our Lady of Pompeii

Claire Kageyama
Mama

Michael S. Glaser
Preparations for Seder
Changing Address Books

Peter Blue Cloud
Crazy Horse Monument

Liz Rosenberg
from Prose Poems

Giovanna (Janet) Capone
In Answer to Their Questions

Luci Tapahonso
All I Want

Stanley H. Barkan
Two Grandmas

Sandra Maria Esteves
South Bronx Testimonials

Dale M. Kushner
Grandma in the Shower

Tino Villanueva
Haciendo Apenas la Recoleccion

Rachel Guido deVrries
On Alabama Ave., Paterson, NJ, 1954

Ntozake Shange
From Okra to Greens

Rose Romano
But My Blood
So I Lost My Temper

Maxine Kumin
For My Great-Grandfather: A Message Long Overdue

Alfred Encarnacion
Bulosan Listens to a Recording of Robert Johnson

Maryfrances Cusumano Wagner
Miss Clement’s Second Grade

Lisa Suhair Majaj
Recognized Futures

Michael S. Weaver
The Left Bank Jazz Society

Naomi Shihab Nye
Bllod

Li-Young Lee
Mnemonic
The Gift

Nikki Giovanni
Nikki-Rosa
Legacies

James Masao Mitsui
Because of My Father’s Job

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Yuba City School

Gregory Djanikian
How I Learned English

Negotiating
Gregory Djanikian
In the Elementary School Choir
When I First Saw Snow

Gary Soto
Black Hair
The Elements of San Joaquin
Behind Grandma’s House

Luis J. Rodriguez
Always Running
Fire

Gerald Stern
The Dancing

Maria Mazziotti Gillan
In Memory We Are Walking

Lyn Lifshin
I Remember Haifa Being Lovely But

Michael S. Weaver
A Black Man’s Sonata
Improvisation for Piano

Garrett Hongo
Winnings

Susan Clements
Susans
The Reservation

Michael S. Glaser
English-Speaking Persons Will Find Translations

Sherman Alexie
Crazy Horse Speaks
Powwow Polaroid

Cyrus Cassells
Soul Make a Path Through Shouting

Safiya Henderson-Holmes
The Battle, Over and Over Again

Louis Simpson
A Story About Chicken Soup

Yusef Komunyakaa
Salt

Adrian C. Louis
Something About Being an Indian

Lorna Dee Cervantes
Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War Between Races

Lamont B. Steptoe
Election Time

Daniela Gioseffi
Bicentennial Anti-Poem for Italian-American Women

Lyn Lifshin
The Yahrtzeit Light
After the Anti-Semitic Calls on a Local Talk Station

Amiri Baraka
An Agony, As Now

Dwight Okita
Notes for a Poem on Being Asian American

Chrystos
Portrait of Assimilation

Stewart Florsheim
The Jewish Singles Event

Michael Plama
Coming of Age

Laura Boss
At the Muclear Rally
The Candy Lady

Naomi Shihab Nye
My Father and the Figtree

Cherrie Moraga
Half-Breed

Shirley Geok-lin-Lim
Modern Secrets

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
Grandfather at the Indian Health Clinic

Joseph Bruchac
Birdfoot’s Granpa

Richard Michelson
Undressing Aunt Frieda

William J. Harris
Rib Sandwich

Wing Tek Lum
Going Home

Miriam Goodman
Upkeep

David Hernandez
Armitage Shank

Ruth Whitman
Laughing Gas

Arthur L. Clements
Elegy

Diana Chang
Foreign Ways

Robert Viscusi
Autobiography

Gloria Anzaldua
Horse

Simon J. Ortiz
Travels in the South

Grace Cavalieri
Grandmother

Maxine Kumin
Living Alone with Jesus

Lucia Maria Perillo
The Sweaters

Linda Hogan
Heritage

Victoria Lena Manyarrows
Lakota Sister/Cherokee Mother

Rita Dove
Wingfoot Lake

Hamod (Sam)
After the Funeral of Assam Hamady

Safiya Henderson-Holmes
Friendly Town 1
My First Riot: Bronx, NYC

Linda Hogan
The Truth Is

Audre Lorde
Hanging Fire

Debi Kang Dean
In the Way Back

Gloria Anzaldúa
Cultures

Re-Envisioning
Li-Young Lee
I Ask My Mother to Sing

Chrystos
I Walk in the History of My People
I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government
The Real Indian Leans Against

Lucille Clifton
Night Vision
In the Inner City

Marilyn Nelson Waniek
The House on Moscow Street

Alma Luz Villanueva
To Jesus Villanueva, with Love
They Didn’t Get Me
My People Are the COlor of the Earth

Nellie Wong
From a Heart of Rice Straw

Diane di Prima
April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa

Martin Espada
Bully

Joy Harpo
Anchorage
For Alva Benson, and for Those Who Have Learned to Speak

Wing Tek Lum
Chinese Hot Pot

Enid Dame
The Seder

Rose Romano
The Bucket

Luis J. Rodriguez
Speaking with Hands

Michael S. Harper
Song: I Want a Witness

Josê Angel Villalongo, Sr.
In the Good Old U.S.A.

Victoria Lena Manyarrows
Today We Will Not Be Invisible Nor Silent

Quincy Troupe
The View from Skates in Berkeley

Shirley Geok-lin Lim
I Defy You

Joseph Bruchac
Prayer

Alicia Ostriker
Lamenting the Inevitable

Kyoko Mori
Speaking Through White: For My Mother

Kimberly M. Blaeser
Certificate of Live Birth

Pat Mora
Cortez’a horse

Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
Oye Mundo/Sometimes

E. Ethelbert Miller
The Men

Linda Hogan
The New Apartment: Minneapolis

Al Young
A Dance for Ma Rainey

Jesse F. Garcia
I Ain’t GOing to Hurry No More

Ray Gonzalez
Praise the Tortilla, Praise the Menudo, Praise the Chorizo

Amina Baraka
The Last Word

David Hernandez
Martin and My Father

Laura Boss
My Ringless Fingers on the Steering Wheel Tell the Story

Cyrus Cassells
The Women

Luci Tapahonso
I Am Singing Now

Safiya Hnderson-Holmes
To Hell and Back, with Cake
Friendly Town 3

Cathy Song
Out of Our Hands

Peter Blue Cloud
The Old Man’s Lazy

Robert Creeley
America

Wendy Rose
Naayawva Taawi
Story Keeper

Alan Chong Lau
The Upside Down Basket

Pat Mora
La Migra

Judith Ortiz Cofer
What the Gypsy Said to Her Children

Marilyn Chin
The Floral Apron

Joy Harjo
I Give You Back

Cherrie Moraga
For the Color of My Mother

Sonia Sanchez
Present
Norma
An Anthem

Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Arturo
Public School No. 18: Paterson New Jersey
Growing Up Italian

Contributors