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A diaspora gives birth

April 19, 2019/ Alex Luceli Jiménez

Like a whisper caressing the back of our necks / kissing a line connecting sporadic wisps of hair / that’s how we feel it / a promise of a home we ever got to claim / made from bricks the color of earth / as deep and rich and brown as our skin.

We let our hands dive down our curves in waves / mirroring that beaches full of untouched sand / when la luna tickles the bottom of our feet / with her pointed edges on a half-full night / that’s how we feel it.

Swaggering across red white and blue streets / spitting words made from hard sounds / our lives depend on sounding as white / as the stars on the star-spangled banner / ‘cause the home we dream about like as a whisper / isn’t real anymore for our elders / and sure as hell never was for us.

We try to feel the hearts of our gods / who talked to us before another god interrupted / but their hearts don’t beat beat beat for la luna.

In that moonlight the tears of our great-grandmother’s great-grandmother / who can’t taste Tenochtitlan on her lips the way her great-grandmother tastes it / make a space in our young throats like mercury.

It burns us without mercy and we don’t mind / not remembering is half the pain in our lives / and remembering is the rest of it.

We tighten our fists against theirs / ‘til they turn white and white hot / still not lacking enough color to make them believe / that we are part of them like they are part of us.

Defending ourselves against conquistadors is written in our nerves screaming bleeding pain.

Alex Luceli Jiménez is a Chicanx writer from the little windy SoCal city of Fontana. Currently, she is a sophomore studying comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Although she moonlights as a poet-novelist, she spends her days as an editor at Berkeley Fiction Review and The Daily Californian, both of which have also published her original fiction and poetry. This is her first poetry publication in a literary journal. You can find her journalistic endeavors at dailycal.org/author/ajimenez and tweet her @alexluceli.

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

The Enduring Haunting of a Failed Driver’s Test(s)

September 15, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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Glitch Wisdom

May 12, 2023/in Blog / KJ McCoy
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Lessons on Getting Paid: My First Year as a Freelance Writer

April 14, 2023/in Blog / EJ Saunders
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

The Secret Histories of Everywhere

June 2, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Brian Lynn
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Into the Linguistic Rabbit Hole

May 5, 2023/in Midnight Snack / paparouna
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Dancing into Detachment

April 7, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Robert Kirwin
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Exercise

September 11, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Cecilia Savala
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LitDish: Ten Questions With Isabel Yap

September 1, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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Pawing the Ground

July 23, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Laurie Granieri
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

If you are an artist of any kind, chances are you are no stranger to The Unknown. In fact, it has probably been a motivating factor in creating your art. I know it has been for me. Wrestling with The Unknown is a fundamental part of the human experience, and the human experience is a fundamental part of art.

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