In today’s world of American politics, what are we doing to our future? Are we stomping on the many varied voices of tomorrow, on future Masters students, PhDs, scientists, lawyers, doctors, educators? Are conservative politicians afraid of losing their majority? In Texas, at least, this Latino majority is an impending reality, as it already is in California. Thus politicians repress people and pass reactionary laws that only promote racial profiling. No matter what the trump administration says about security, we know they are afraid of losing their rule.

They offer bleakness instead of light & unity…

This poem — from a Masters student in Clinical Mental Counseling who is concerned about her prospects as a scholar in civil society — speaks the truth of many students of all races, all ethnicities, all creeds. It raises their collective fear of a future in the United States of America, the land they thought was a welcoming beacon… once upon a time.

We should listen and realize that the boogey man is only ourselves…

Por Una Sombra Brillante

Nosotros,
Los alienígenos,
Los fantasmas de carne,
Somos aquellos que estamos sin estar.
De quienes muchos temen y de quienes pocos conocen.
Nosotros, aquellos que no podemos dejar huella porque sería rastreada y nos robarían lo poco que nos queda de libertad.
Somos la lucha de nuestros ancestros, y la pesadilla de nuestros agresores.
Somos sin ser, porque nuestra identidad ha sido borrada en piezas y nuestro corazón partido en dos.
Para muchos somos el reflejo de la ignorancia, sin saber que tal vez nuestra inteligencia supera la de ellos.
Somos luz, pero vivimos en la obscuridad.

Translated by Ana M. Fores Tamayo

We,
The aliens,
The ghosts of our flesh,
We are the ones who live without presence.
We are the ones whom many fear and whom
few wish to know.
We are the ones who cannot leave a trace because we might be hunted down, and they
would steal what little we have left of our freedom.
We are the struggle of our ancestors, the nightmare of our aggressors.
We are without being, because our identity has been erased into shadows and our heart
has been fractured in two.
For many we are the reflection of ignorance, without their knowing that perhaps our
intelligence surpasses their own.
We are the light, but we live in darkness.

About the poet:

Una Sombra brillante, like so many other undocumented students, cannot come out of the shadows as long as we have the laws we do in this country.

Thus, I present to you her shadowed biography…

“No tienes ninguna idea de lo que esto significa para mí. Cuando tienes tanto que decir y tienes que callar… lastima. MlL gracias por hacer algo tan bello por mi y por todos aquellos que viven igual… En esto, sale mi voz, pero también salen las lágrimas de todas nosotras, nosotros…

You have no idea what this means to me. When we have so much to say yet we are forever silenced … it aches. Thank you a thousand times for doing something so beautiful for me, and for all those who live in these same shadows… With this piece, my voice is illuminated, but moreover, so are the rest of our collective tears …”