Hunter
03-25-2002, 11:57 PM
I lied for the sake of immigration and to celebrate the darkest corner of my grandmother's black skin. The others were busy dancing. They did not hear my imaginary humming, while they were singing the "O CANADA" song.
"Oh Canada! That first winter was cold and long"
The assimilated ones spoke excitedly about the upcoming fourth grade skating trip. My tongue tripped. It tripped over my landed visa and left me face down in the sieve of snow. The teacher tried to filter me though. Asked me if I owned a pair of ice skates. I said, "Yes, of course I do! " and squeezed through the frozen holes like the others.
BLACK GIRL...
Are you "First World?"
Are you Canadian like us?
Are you Tri-Lingual enough?
Can you speak English, French & Integration?
O Canada!
Stop picking on me!
I am only nine years old!
The season is very cold
And the fourth grade is frozen
The day before the trip, my tongue tripped again.
I told them I could not attend. That my mother ordered me to stay home and tend to my younger sister on her deathbed. Everyone knew she had asthma. No one knew that I could manipulate medication and immigration.
I would take a thousand miligrams times two, not to let them see my pain and to witness my humiliation. To see me sliding on ice without skates. To see me barefooted on boiling rocks in Jamaica. To see my grandmother raising twelve younger siblings and sipping cornmeal porridge with a hand-carved wooden spoon.
NO!
There will be no more picture shows like these. No more sad, third world Jamaica stories for wide-mouthed, petrif-eyed foreigners.
If hot black skin can walk on coal,
Then hot black skin must walk on cold!
The cold truth came home to my mother. The teacher called her up on the telephone. Demanded to know why she would sacrifice my public education when a hospital bed was clearly the better solution. Everyone knew my sister had asthma. My sister was the real reason why we came to Canada.
Governments granted visas so she could breathe cold, clean, "Air-Canada". I tried to breathe cold air too. My lungs lacked the capacity. They collapsed that first winter. In the end we all suffered.
The teacher suffered to understand the third world dimensions of me. My mother suffered the hand that spoils the child and beat me like a disobedient slave on a sugar plantation. My sister suffered to breathe. Everyone knew she had asthma. I suffered to be a wooden spoon stirring inside of grandmother's porridge.
Together, we suffered along the arduous walk from Africa, to the West Indies and then to North America. Each of us, stumbling to find our own pace.
"Oh CANADA!" IMMIGRATION LIES!!
I lied.
I lied to protect the inheritance of wooden spoons and for the sake of ice skates that I did not own.
Hunter
[From 'IMMIGRATION POEMS']
All Rights Reserved
"Oh Canada! That first winter was cold and long"
The assimilated ones spoke excitedly about the upcoming fourth grade skating trip. My tongue tripped. It tripped over my landed visa and left me face down in the sieve of snow. The teacher tried to filter me though. Asked me if I owned a pair of ice skates. I said, "Yes, of course I do! " and squeezed through the frozen holes like the others.
BLACK GIRL...
Are you "First World?"
Are you Canadian like us?
Are you Tri-Lingual enough?
Can you speak English, French & Integration?
O Canada!
Stop picking on me!
I am only nine years old!
The season is very cold
And the fourth grade is frozen
The day before the trip, my tongue tripped again.
I told them I could not attend. That my mother ordered me to stay home and tend to my younger sister on her deathbed. Everyone knew she had asthma. No one knew that I could manipulate medication and immigration.
I would take a thousand miligrams times two, not to let them see my pain and to witness my humiliation. To see me sliding on ice without skates. To see me barefooted on boiling rocks in Jamaica. To see my grandmother raising twelve younger siblings and sipping cornmeal porridge with a hand-carved wooden spoon.
NO!
There will be no more picture shows like these. No more sad, third world Jamaica stories for wide-mouthed, petrif-eyed foreigners.
If hot black skin can walk on coal,
Then hot black skin must walk on cold!
The cold truth came home to my mother. The teacher called her up on the telephone. Demanded to know why she would sacrifice my public education when a hospital bed was clearly the better solution. Everyone knew my sister had asthma. My sister was the real reason why we came to Canada.
Governments granted visas so she could breathe cold, clean, "Air-Canada". I tried to breathe cold air too. My lungs lacked the capacity. They collapsed that first winter. In the end we all suffered.
The teacher suffered to understand the third world dimensions of me. My mother suffered the hand that spoils the child and beat me like a disobedient slave on a sugar plantation. My sister suffered to breathe. Everyone knew she had asthma. I suffered to be a wooden spoon stirring inside of grandmother's porridge.
Together, we suffered along the arduous walk from Africa, to the West Indies and then to North America. Each of us, stumbling to find our own pace.
"Oh CANADA!" IMMIGRATION LIES!!
I lied.
I lied to protect the inheritance of wooden spoons and for the sake of ice skates that I did not own.
Hunter
[From 'IMMIGRATION POEMS']
All Rights Reserved