I.
Mexicans are out to populate the world
or so statistics say.
Like a cousin to the roach,
"La cucaracha, la cucaracha. Ya no puede caminar..."
(Stomp!)
One down, 20.6 million to go
In Texas alone.
Our growth they say is—
explosive.
Like a bomb?
II.
Shhhhh, listen gringo.
Listen to them scatter when the lights come on,
when the census man comes knocking on the door.
There are more than you know of, my friend.
Behind walls, underneath the sink.
Feel those little brown eyes watch you while you eat
from behind the swinging door of the kitchen.
When you're done, they run after you and pick up your scraps.
These roaches clean.
III.
Try to find us and we shall flee.
You've heard we fit ten to a compact car, well, it's true cabron!
We are just that close.
Numbers are our strength.
We stick together with a pegadura called FAMILIA, ese. Mexican superglue.
IV.
You can fish some of us out of el Rio Grande
but we always come back—
Bigger and with wings.
We'll infest your neighborhoods.
"It used to be nice here,"
says the white vieja across the street who refuses to leave.
But we just wait for her to die so we can move in
four cousins and a mutt dog who hope to breed Natural Born Citizens.
They’ll take the jobs your college kids
are dying to have.
Dishwashers, cooks, late August freeway-pavers,
gardeners, and of course, the very prestigious
Sanitation engineers.
V.
The cousins will add on to the house
and soon the yard will be littered with broke down cars,
tacky banana trees, roosters that crow and
children that run barefoot in the street.
But only because they are kept poor.
Pobrecitos, those barefoot babies with heavy pañales—
They will learn ingles,
They will conquer ESL and bilingual education,
They will make the honor roll,
They will graduate Valedictorian –
and They will move into the suburbs.
VI.
Si, señor, you are slowly being pushed out.
Sound familiar?
The Navajo think so
and the Cherokee sit back and
watch his brother from the south
take back the land.
Claim what's rightfully ours.
VII.
I saw on the Discovery Channel that
the true blond is an endangered species.
Ha! A new Conquistador
has conquered you white woman!
And soon one will grow inside of you.
Feel him squirm, feel his little machista hands grow strong.
Feel them grab you by the neck.
VIII.
And he has only slightly diluted the color brown.
The product of two worlds but alien to both.
He shall be cursed with a name like
Trevor...de la Garza.
Guat? He eats tamales with ketchup?
¡Degracia!
Poor little mix breed boy who speaks Espingles.
Take him to birthday parties and his white cousins will want to beat him with a stick.
Keep his pockets filled with candy and they all will love him.
"Pick a side," they will tell him.
Pick a side.
Rice and beans or mashed potatoes and corn?
Hank Williams or Vicente Fernandez?
"Pick a side," they say.
"No, better yet,
go back to where you came from!"
And mijo will answer,
"I have pendejo,
We have!"
