Checkbox
I stare at the chart –
The chart that categorizes me,
Labels me,
Defines me.
The chart that leaves me confused.
What am I?
I have heard the labels:
Hispanic,
Latino/a,
Mexican American,
Chicano/a,
Latinx.
What am I?
Is it just me –
In this struggle?
Labels that separate us,
Push us apart,
Rather than unite us.
Part of the RAZA,
Native to the Americas,
Yet a foreigner in my own home.
Is it just me?
Who is confused by the labels?
Born in the United States,
And yet seen as an immigrant.
Is it just me?
Confused by this logic?
I see the people they break apart
With labels and checkboxes –
Ethnicity and race,
Just words.
It becomes overwhelming at times,
To explain what I am
Versus who they want me to say I am,
In a world fixated more on what we are on the outside,
Rather than who we are on the inside.
What am I?
I am so much more than a label,
More than a person crammed into a checkbox.
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