If you grew up like me, you remember being pushed to give an abrazo to relatives you didn’t remember or who just plain gave you the heeby jeebies. I survived all those awkward moments, but I’m not planning to put my children through them.

When Ana recently posted about piercing her daughter’s ears, it was the occasion for our first disagreement (friendly, of course). In explaining my reasons for not piercing my girls’ ears, I referred to my belief in bodily autonomy. This is a family value that sometimes clashes very distinctly with my familial and cultural traditions.

I grew up a part of a very affectionate familia — hugs, kisses, cuddles all around. I have fond memories of lying like a litter of kittens all on my mom’s bed to watch T.V. or smushing ourselves onto a couch too little for the many of us at the holidays. I have long equated love and caring with physical touch.

I think that for many Latinas this is the case — entramos con abrazos y besos and even if it means we kiss 40 people before we sit down, that’s what we do. The same ritual is practiced when it’s time to go home. The physical connection with friends and family members is second nature to me and helps me feel connected to those I care about.

Even as a teacher, one of the sweet things about teaching Latino/a students is that outside of class they are the only students that will come give me a hug and kiss. It’s a shared cultural bond that brings us closer in a way that is quite lovely.

So it’s been a pleasure for me to see how my girls have adopted a lot of my affectionate ways. I wrote about this cultural body language when I noticed it first with Marisol. However, since then, I’ve also learned about the reasons why I should not enforce this custom.

To put it bluntly, forcing my girls to show physical affection is dangerous. It teaches them that they do not have control over their body and that they will be forced to do things that make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable in order to please someone. Even if it pleases me to see my girls give Abuelita a big sloppy kiss, it is not worth teaching them that they owe anyone a physical act of affection.

I know this sounds extreme. But the facts are these:

• 90% of children who are sexually abused knew the perpetrators
• 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys will be sexually abused
• One of the top safety guidelines given to parents in order to protect their children is to not enforce physical affection and to respect their “no”s.

This is something I never talked about with my mother, who is light-skinned, like me. But it’s something that I realized matters when a woman told my dark-skinned sister to “go back to your country” when my niece started talking during an outdoor movie. I had never been the target of such blatant and public racism. My sister had. The color of our skin shapes the way others perceive us and the way they treat us, whether as alien or familiar.

I haven’t talked about skin color with my girls, except in passing as we talk about our friends and pictures in books. We have not begun to discuss how color is judged by others. At this young age, it remains just one more physical detail, like hair texture or eye color which can vary, but doesn’t really matter. I know that we will have this talk, or many talks about this, because one of the lovely differences between my two girls is the color of their skin. Marisol’s skin in the summer becomes a rich caramel color. Lucia’s skin is creamy white and rosy. I think both of them are gorgeous, of course, but I have started to wonder how their skin color might affect them in school and beyond.

How might their color affect their sense of identity and power in different environments? They are growing up with a very typical Los Angeles multiracial group of friends and family, but if the world they enter as teens and adults resembles the world today, they will be minorities at their universities and in many of their potential professional workplaces. Will they, as even this light-skinned Latina did, encounter racism in the classroom? This is one of those parenting questions that I don’t know how to answer. Each question just leads to more questions…

Have you discussed skin color with your children? What do you tell them? What do they already know? Have they experienced racism? How did you help them process it? Please share your wisdom.

{Photo via mmolinari}

What is culture? Marisol asked me that last week as we drove to preschool for the Cinco de Mayo celebration. It’s a simple question with a complicated answer. I found myself saying something like, “Culture is something a group of people share, usually from the same place, like a country, like food and music and, well, you know, like we speak Spanish.” I know — explanation fail.

I’m still not sure how to answer her question. We share a culture, stemming from the costumbres of a particular place, but people in the same place, like Los Angeles, can be part of many different cultures while participating in some kind of shared culture as well. There are cultural foods, music, dress, and language, but we don’t participate in all of them, and certainly not all the time. There’s a Latino supermarket just down the street, but we usually shop at the Trader Joe’s which is further away. We love buying pupusas at the the great Salvadoran place in our neighborhood, but I can’t tell you the last time I made pupusas. And yet…

We are Latino, Mexican, Salvadoran, American. All of these things mean a lot to me and inform the way we raise our girls. I can’t define it properly, but I feel it. It’s the reason I speak Spanish with my girls, despite my terrible accent, despite turning to google translate daily, despite knowing that I’m not doing it perfectly. The fact is, we love going to our favorite Salvadoran place, and buying burritos from the farmer’s market taco truck. We read books in Spanish and English. My girls love their Abuelita and Gammy, and eat platanos fritos and salted seaweed. We’ve just started looking at maps, and I want them to know that they have family in places far and wide. I can’t help feeling like we have a lot of culture to celebrate, but what does that mean to a four-year old?

I tell her, “We speak Spanish because that is part of our culture, and so is dancing, and mangoes, juicy and sweet. Mexican is Great Grandma Gomez’s chile rellenos and her thin dark arms hugging you. Mexican is Great Grandpa Gomez making you laugh. Salvadoran is Abueita touching your face, and Tia Mayte talking loudly. Salvadoran is me singing to you in Spanish. American is family, friends, neighbors and us, all different but together having fun.”

It still doesn’t make sense, but it’s the best I can do.

How do you explain culture to your little ones? I’d love some ideas!

Recently, I’ve been thrilled to notice an increase in Marisol’s Spanish vocabulary. Now, this doesn’t mean she is fluent in Spanish —we are most definitely raising Spanglishbabies in our family. It’s been a challenge to even get this far because I am the lone Spanish speaker in the home, and I’d call myself fluent only in limited settings. I am most definitely fluent in “baby Spanish:” Vamos a comer. ¿Quieres leche? ¿Dónde está el gatito? ¿Tienes hambre? But ask me to talk to you in Spanish about my work, or about the economy, or about anything really complicated and my vocabulary fails me.

I wish I had the time to take an advanced Spanish course or even to read more in Spanish, but I don’t. Like most moms, I am overwhelmed as it is! My husband understands some Spanish, but speaks very little. It’s been the best I can do to make Spanglish the family language.

I had started feeling really disappointed in our language adventure a few months back when I started noticing how many truly bilingual families there are around us. I saw these parents conversing in fluent Spanish with their kids and felt like a failure. But then, I decided to stop being sorry for myself, and let myself instead be inspired by these families to become proactive about exposing the girls to más español one way or another.  Since then, I’ve done a few simple things that have made a big difference. For those of you with modest aims, I thought I’d share these small changes that have made a big difference in our Spanglish family.

1. Enlist help. When we hired our current babysitter, we emphasized the importance of speaking Spanish with the girls. In Los Angeles, it isn’t hard to find a Spanish-speaking sitter. What can be a challenge, particularly with college-age sitters is ensuring that they speak Spanish with the girls. We were clear that we really want the girls to hear Spanish and our lovely sitter not only speaks Spanish with the girls, she also brings Spanish music to share with the girls and teaches them songs. Each week, Marisol has new words to share with me that our sitter has taught her. If you can’t hire help, it would be worth it to ask for free help from family or friends who speak Spanish and are willing to visit or be visited regularly. Unfortunately for us, most of our Spanish-speaking family and friends are far away.

2. Música! In addition to many great bilingual records out there, we have found other sources of música. The girls are both in love with all things musical right now. We’ve discovered that free music services like Pandora and Spotify have good selections of música. In Pandora, I’ve only been able to find rock en español, and not children’s music, but Spotify offered me dozens of CDs to choose from when I searched for kids music. [Note, this is not sponsored content, just my two cents.] As silly as it seems, even just inventing little songs in Spanish as we go through our day has enticed the girls to speak Spanish much more than otherwise.

3. Libros. We haven’t made as bold a move as Suzanne did by donating all her English books, but we have made an effort to buy and borrow more books in Spanish than before. This is just as good for us parents as it is for the kids. I’ve learned many new words by reading them to the girls.

4. Amigos y Amigas! We had our first bilingual playdate with two other families just one week ago, so I can’t say that there have been huge changes, but I can say it was fun! It was nice making new mom friends who are similarly imperfect in their Spanish prowess, yet are making the effort to pass the gift of Spanish on to their children.

5. Take a Clase. We took a free children’s Spanish class and even though I didn’t love it enough to enroll, it did give me some ideas that I could put into practice. In the long run, getting a small taste of Spanish in a classroom did renew my commitment to searching for a bilingual elementary school for the girls. In the interim, the preschool Marisol will be starting next week (did you just hear my heart breaking?!), is a Spanish-friendly place, although not bilingual. The teachers and director there incorporate Spanish organically into the day using music and conversation. I’m hopeful that learning and playing in Spanish will give Marisol an even greater confidence en español.

So those are my small changes that I have been able to commit to. I’d love to hear any other tips or tricks you have found for weaving español into the fabric of your family life!

* Photo by Simon Blackley

photo by: mmolinari

My husband, the only Latino in the group of prospective parents, stood next to the only African-American in the group, a mother. They watched a group of adorable elementary school students sing a song in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. As the lyrics, “we shall overcome” sang through the air, my husband realized that all of the students were either Anglo or Asian. He stayed through the rest of the tour and information session at the amazing school we were considering for our daughter. He told me all of the things he learned about the school later that night, but when he reported the abysmal lack of diversity, it eliminated this school from consideration.

I just couldn’t have my girls be a part of that group. This was a group of elementary school students, so I’m sure that the song had been accompanied by a well-thought out series of lessons and activities about the civil rights movement, and that the students had learned about racist oppression in this country and beyond. But the irony of singing those lyrics in a school where there are almost zero black children was too much! If that school, which prides itself on teaching about social justice, was so apathetic about its lack of diversity, it could never be the right school for our two amazing Latinas.

For us, 2012 has been about finding the right preschool for Marisol. Like Ana, we value our cultura and would love a bilingual preschool. Unfortunately, what we have discovered, is that even for preschool, we won’t be able to find exactly what we want.

The upside of this process is that it’s made us realize what our needs and wants are when it comes to education, even just at this early stage. When we talked about what we wanted in a preschool we had initially focused on safety, caring and qualified staff, and an emphasis on play. We hoped we could find a bilingual preschool that met our needs, but the only bilingual preschool in our area was disappointing on several counts and we quickly ruled it out. Sadly, the preschools that are more in line with our philosophy of parenting and how we would like our children to learn tend to be very homogenous and not racially diverse.

In our area, the more diverse preschools tend to be more crowded, have less qualified staff, and out-of-date child development philosophies. Some of this seems to come down to class. The better preschools are very expensive in terms of money or time. We can’t afford to pay $1,200 per month for a part-time preschool program. However, we can afford to pay a lot less than that and work one morning a week at our kid’s preschool because our work schedules are flexible. Many middle-class families don’t have that flexibility and that means that many Latino and African American families don’t have those preschools as options. (Coincidentally, my best friend of the last 25 years, and I are both preschool shopping right now. I keep joking that if both of us enrolled both our daughters in a single school, we’d double the number of minority students in one fell swoop!)

My husband and I know we are lucky that we have the time to invest into one of these awesome preschools (one has chickens, a little river, and playhouse bigger than the first-story of our home), but we can’t help wishing that the “best preschools” were also the most diverse, instead of the reality, which is that the opposite is true. So we are going to have to settle. We are at the point where having three or four other Latino or African American preschoolmates for the girls is “diverse enough.” It’s infinitely more than zero, we keep telling ourselves.

I so wish it were different. I wish more children of color were at these great schools. It’s troubling to see that the class/race divide starts so early. I’m holding out hope that we can get our girls into a charter kindergarten and elementary school that is diverse by virtue of being part of a lottery system, and not dependent on how much money or time parents can afford to spend on their children’s education. I’m really curious to know if the recession has made these more expensive (in terms of money or time) schools less diverse, or if this is how it has always been.

What I know is that we don’t want our girls to be the “token” students of color. We don’t want them to always feel like outsiders, or aliens. We want them to be proud to be Salvadoran, Mexican, and American, without it making them feel estranged from their peers. We would love to send them to a good bilingual school, but that will be, unfortunately, largely a matter of good luck.

Editor’s note: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so this holiday season we asked all of our regular contributors – we’re up to nine! – to just send us a photo that expresses what the holidays mean to them for this collection of Bicultural Christmas Photos. What kind of photo would you have sent in?

“Each year we visit the Christmas tree in Old Town Pasadena. It always delights the girls. I like the way we are all reflected in the globe in this picture (Lulu’s in the Moby), washed in the red light of Christmas. Feliz Navidad!”

image source: iGerard

For the DREAMers

I know that our community at Spanglishbaby is a diverse bunch, and that we come from a variety of personal and political perspectives, so I’m a little nervous about writing a post about politics, but I’d like to share with you some of my reflections on the recent passage of AB 130, the California DREAM Act:

The California DREAM Act allows undocumented students to receive financial aid, if financially eligible, from private and public sources. Under AB540, these students were already allowed to pay in-state tuition, instead of out-of-state tuition, but this makes it possible for them to afford their college fees, which even at state colleges is over $6,000 (cost of attendance, including rent, books, etc. is about $16,000).

During this terrible recession, the prospect of allowing “aliens” to receive taxpayer monies is alarming to many people, even though there are compelling economic arguments in favor of allowing these students–who have grown up here and will stay here as professionals–to complete their educations. But I am no economist. I’m just a teacher and an immigrant.

My family immigrated to this country when I was 11 months old. We were leaving El Salvador in 1980, just as the civil war there became a real threat even to upper-class professional families like mine. My parents packed up their six kids into a brown Chevy van, after selling or giving away a lifetime’s worth of possessions, and we drove to the U.S. We were lucky. We were leaving behind a life of comfort for one of struggle, but a working-class struggle. We always had food to eat, although sometimes our electricity got shut off. In California, that was not such a big deal. We were lucky because my mother had served as a secretary in the U.S. Consulate for twenty years and was able to secure permanent residencies for all of us without a problem. This “perk” of her work changed all of our lives, and may have even saved them.

So I was never undocumented. As my baby picture on my first green card proved, I was always a legal permanent resident of this country. Until, finally, thirty years later, I became a citizen. Even though I grew up here, en los estados, it was bittersweet for me to lose my Salvadoran citizenship. It was a connection to my history, mi familia. I was able to postpone that change for so long because as a legal immigrant and permanent resident, I wasn’t much different from a citizen: I could attend school, receive government benefits, and most importantly for me, receive financial aid. My family could never have afforded my private university education without massive amounts of financial aid. Even though I worked several jobs and earned good grades, it was that aid which made it possible for me to earn two Bachelor’s degrees and a Master’s degree all by the time I was 24. I knew how much it meant to my family for me to graduate college. I was the first woman in my family to do so, though several have now followed in my footsteps. I then became a community college professor and have worked as a part of California’s Puente Project to help underrepresented students transfer to universities and earn their university degrees.

In other words, I’m trying to “pay it forward.”

I’ve been doing this work for nearly a decade and over that time I have worked with countless immigrant students from all over the world, not just Latin America. Each student has his or her own story, and I have been touched by many. It is these undocumented students whom I have had the honor of teaching that have impacted me the most. Every single undocumented student, probably 50 that identified themselves to me (not always a safe thing to do), has been hardworking, intelligent, dedicated, and passionate about his or her education and serving the community. I’m not kidding. Tienen ganas!

I think the reason that my AB540 students/DREAMers are so amazing is that for years they have known that no matter what they did, whether they graduated or not, whether they poured their hearts into school or dropped out, they could not live their dreams–to work legally in the only country they know as home. This means that undocumented college students are going to school and working hard not because there is a financial reward for them, or even security for their families, but in spite of the fact that there isn’t. DREAMers are slaving over their studies because they want to better themselves, to learn, to become better equipped to serve their communities, fully aware that they may never make a living wage, that they may always live in fear of deportation to a country they have no memories of. It’s amazing. It takes a special kind of person not to just give up and drop out in that situation. I went to school knowing it would “pay off,” that I would be able to pursue the career of my choice. Undocumented students have no such gaurantee, despite the fact that they have earned the opportunity just as much as I have.

One of the greatest tragic ironies of the DREAMers predicament is that because they immigrated here as children (the act only applies to those who immigrated as children), many of them grew up believing they were “American” and did not realize they did not have papers until it came time to apply for college. This is the only country they know. This is the country they love. There is often, literally, nowhere else for them to go, and yet, for so long, they have been told to “go home.”

I could tell you about so many students, some who have gone on to medical school (imagine working those insane hours with no hope of practicing medicine legally!), law school, nursing school, and every other type of school and profession. They have done it and they have paid for it by working mutliple jobs, by cobbling together rare scholarships, by going into credit card debt, and by the sacrifice of their parents–basically, the same as “American” students, with the major difference that many of these students would have been able to rely on financial aid to help with some of that huge cost.

These students inspire their peers. I have heard (U.S. born) students, at a graduation dinner, tell of an undocumented friend who would tell them, when they thought of dropping out, “Are you crazy? You have this amazing opportunity. I don’t have the opportunities you do, and I’m still here! You can’t drop out.” And because this student was so passionate about his learning, he kept his friends in school. Undocumented students do not hurt their legal peers.

These students inspire me. They don’t take their education for granted–they fight for it! They don’t want a handout–they want a chance to work hard. They were never asking for money to go on vacation. They wanted, and now will get, tuition money so that they can work hard–it’s an opportunity, not a gift. And if experience tells me anything, it’s that these students will continue to take any opportunity that comes their way and do amazing things with it. So many of them have told me they are trying to stay in school long enough for the world to change, so that they can legally practice their professions. I think it’s happening. I think they have changed our world a little bit, with a lot more to come.

Recently, on our campus, our undocumented students held a “coming out of the shadows” day. They told their stories in front of a public audience in order to put their faces to the term “undocumented.” They knew that if people would just get to know them, their classmates, their students, their friends, they would realize that no one could be less “alien.”

I hope that my girls will read about this in their history books one day and be proud of our state for doing right by its people and for being the “land of opportunity” that so many of our families came in search of.

{Elsie's daughter in Disneyland}

We are deep in Disneyland on a family vacation, tired but happy. The girls have been enjoying the music, make-believe, and spectacle that is this childhood fantasyland. I am happy to report from the glittery trenches that there is plenty of Spanish to be heard on main street, churros in every land, and a pretty decent Mexican restaurant in the park as well. Looking around at the staff that works here in the Happiest Place on Earth, I see many Latinas and Latinos. There are plenty of Latino families at the park along with us. But there’s still something missing…

Donde estamos, Disney? I’ve been keeping mis ojos pelados for representations of our cultura, and aside from those previous mentions, there are surprisingly few. The only Disney characters I have discovered that are Latino/a are Jose, un perico, in the Tiki Room (although he mentions a Rosita, she seems to have flown the coop) and Ramone from Cars. I remember there being a few other bird characters in old Disney films, like the Three Caballeros, but no major stars, human, or otherwise. Admittedly, there are more problems with Disney than this, but I am willing to ignore my other concerns for a few days of fun-filled whimsy. Even this lack of representation isn’t enough to keep me from appreciating the spectacle and magic offered here, but it would be nice if we were included a bit more prominently, particularly here in Anaheim, California, where so many Latino families reside. Disney has chosen Native American, Asian, and African-American heroes/heroines…when do we get a turn?

Well, in case that the imagineers need some ideas, here are some potential characters that could star in their own Disney movie. I would definitely pay to see any of these stories get the Disney treatment:

Lucia Centeno: In The Woman Who Outshone the Sun, Lucia is a magical woman, mistreated by villagers who do not understand her. She embodies forgiveness, power, and wisdom.  There is no princess in this story, but as the title suggests, this character is far more poderosa than a princess.

Francisco Jimenez: In his trilogy of books, beginning with The Circuit, Jimenez tells the story of his life as a migrant child. Despite incredible odds, he reaches his dreams through education, familia, and hard work. Any dignified depiction of migrant workers in a Disney film would be amazing and affirming for so many!

Marisol McDonald: This girl is Peruvian-Scottish-American and resists everyone’s attempts to put her into a “box” in Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match. Marisol is a perfect candidate for a female lead, with tenacity and strength she can overcome any obstacle.

Xochitl: Far away from her home of El Salvador, Xochitl and her family grow flowers and a community when they begin a nursery in their new home. The imagery from this book is already fantastic and whimsical.

La Llorona: While she is often depicted as a villain, it need not be so. La Llorona can be a magical and powerful ghost. Or she could be a villian! Some of Disney’s most memorable character’s are villains!

Ellen Ochoa: The first Latina in space would make an amazing adventure story! She literally worked in outer space! It doesn’t get much more exciting than that. Disney already has Cars, I think they could go into outer space next, and Ellen could be their fearless leader!

Okay…so those might not be your typical Disney characters, but they could be a step in the right direction. I have spent decades entranced by the magic of Disney and trust that if they put their many creative minds to the task, Disney would be able to create a masterpiece which celebrates the tenacity and beauty of our heritage. I’d love to hear other ideas for Latino/a characters and stories. You never know, maybe there is an imagineer in our midst!

Hermanas/Sisters {Photo courtesy of Elsie Rivas Gomez}

The biggest surprise of having hermanas is how much they truly adore each other. When I was pregnant, I cannot tell you how many people lamented the fact of “another girl.” Over and over people asked, “oh, how does your husband feel about that?” As if it was some sort of tragedy! As if he was some jerk who would be saddened by the prospect of another girl.

It never occurred to either of us to be anything but overjoyed at the birth of a baby, boy OR girl, yet we have both been pleasantly surprised at how amazing having sisters really is. I grew up the baby of six kids    — my nearest sibling is fifteen years my senior, so I always longed for a sister my age who would understand my life.  Sisters have each other to complain to about mom and dad, to lean on in difficult times. Sure, they will fight — don’t we all? But there is a bond that I am privileged to watch. In honor of them, and this relationship they are building, already, I thought I’d share another poem.

Sisters a Poem by Elsie Rivas Gomez

the elder sister
jumps and squeals with such wildness
it scares me a little, but
the baby, she is delighted
eyes ablaze, mouth wide open in glee

the elder sister grabs the baby’s
chubby thighs, thighs like a horse
sumo thighs, elephant thighs
thighs of smooth silk and milk
the elder sister grabs them and I
wince, “too rough!”

but the baby rolls away like
a wriggling puppy
rises to hands and knees
she charges forward, a little bull
understanding the child’s game
I am too old to understand

when the baby cries, wailing
crimson and wet faced
shoulders shaking and hair matted
it is the elder sister who can soothe her
with nothing but a silly face
her eyes crossed, tongue jutting out
head bobbing maniacally
she knows the power of an unexpected jig
in the middle of a rough day
how her best imitation of a peacock
or a bunny hopping unevenly across the room
is ultimately, the best remedy for some heartaches

I watch them in wonder
will it always be this way?
will I always be the one standing outside
as if through glass at the zoo
or the most holy of museums
fascinated by the anthropology
of two girls who are so different?

they move differently: one with force and vigor,
the other with a stilted, enchanting kind of grace
they speak differently: one with a guileless roar,
the other with winding sentences and songs
they are completely each themselves
yet are entirely each other’s

there is a symmetry to their asymmetry
a magnetic gravity that pulls them together
no matter how hard I try to pull them apart

it’s as if coming as they do, from the same sacred place
they know things only the other knows
as if they have a knowledge and vision
of this world which allows them
to see the full spectrum of light
to hear things I will never hear
and to move forward through time and space
not one ahead of the other
but inextricably
hand in hand.

Hermanas un Poema por Elsie Rivas Gomez

la hermana mayor
salta y grita con tanta ferocidad
que me asusta un poco, pero
la bebé, ella está encantada
sus ojos encendidos, boca abierta con alegría

la hermana mayor agarra los muslos regordetes
de la bebé, muslos de caballo
muslos de un sumo, muslos de elefante
muslos de seda lisa y leche
la hermana mayor los agarra
y yo hago una mueca, “demasiado duro!”

pero la bebé, se va rodando
como un perrito retorciéndose
y se eleva en sus manos y rodillas
se arremete hacia adelante, un torito
entendiendo el juego de niños
que yo soy demasiado vieja para entender

cuando la bebé llora, dando gritos
cara rojita con frente húmeda
hombros temblando y pelo enmarañado,
es la hermana mayor la que la puede calmar
con tan solo una cara tonta
con ojos cruzados, lengua afuera
elle mueve su cabeza como loca
ella conoce el poder de un bailecito inesperado
en medio de un día difícil
cómo su mejor imitación de un pavo real
o un conejo saltando desequilibradamente a través del cuarto
es en última instancia, el mejor remedio para algunas penas

Las veo con asombro
¿Será siempre así?
estaré siempre afuera viendo hacia adentro
como si a través del vidrio en el zoológico
o el más santo de los museos
fascinada por la antropología
de dos niñas que son tan diferentes

que se mueven de forma diferente: una con fuerza y ​​vigor,
la otra con una gracia torcida y encantada
que hablan de manera diferente: una con un rugido inocente,
la otra con frases sinuosas y canciones
que son completamente únicas,
y sin embargo pertenecen completamente la una a la otra

hay una simetría a la asimetría de ellas
una gravedad magnética que las junta
sin importar cuánto trate de separarlas

es como que si viniendo, como lo hacen, del mismo lugar sagrado
saben cosas que sólo la otra sabe
como si tuvieran un conocimiento y una visión
de este mundo, que les permite
ver todo el espectro de la luz,
escuchar cosas que yo nunca oiré
y avanzar a través del tiempo y el espacio
no una adelante de la otra
pero inextricablemente
mano a mano.