Hermana

Hermana
I think of you often

Dedicating a few minutes a day
To send you the most
Positive vibes and prayers
The Creator allows me to

You worry me

Mas que las otras amigas que tengo
Who started law school this year

I think back on the past
When we met
Almost ten years ago now

How I admired your strength
Knowledge
And voice

A voice I had not yet discovered

And as time passed
I grew
Holding you in my arsenal
Of women I aspired to be like
Along with a handful of other women
I met
At that time

Lupe Perez
Las Hermanas Hazelrigg
Andrea Gamboa
Gloria Anzuldua
Sandra Cisneros
Dolores

Y tu
hermana

I worry now
That this place
Will take everything you have to give
Until
You break

As it wants you to

THE ONLY GOAL OF THAT PLACE
IS TO BREAK YOU

You don’t belong there
Recuerda eso
That place was not built
To be a
Hospitable environment
For
a warrior
Para una mujer

For a Chicana

In fact it was created
To be
The exact opposite
It was created
To threaten
Your very existence

Y lo que quiero

de ti

Es una cosa

Tu palabra

That no matter how hard it gets
To pick up your head and go back
Into that
Building again
And again
That you will

You see
For every
One
Of us that succeeds
For every
One
that makes out alive
There are ten more that follow
You see
All we have
is us

Yo se que los días vienen
Mas difíciles y mas difíciles

And I know
How easy it is
To forget
WHY you’re there
At all

THAT IS WHAT THEY WANT

Margaret Montoya once told me
The goal of legal education
Was to make you
SO dependent on the legal system
And structure
That you’re rendered incapable
Of changing it

Yet she gets up and does it
Every
Day
And I
And Lupe
And Cecily
And every other
Post-colonialist
Half-marxist
Feminista
Chicana
Madre
Out there
Changing the world
The way she has learned how to

My father once told me
There are no radical lawyers
Only lawyers
Who defend radicals
It took me a long time
To understand that

And now
On the other side
I do


That place
WILL change you

It will give you the tools
To understand the oppression
That occurs in this country
And this world
Every day
And it will teach how to use those tools
To justify that oppression

And as scary as it sounds
You WILLl be able to

It will all make sense
Why things are
The way that they are

Then
It is your job
To use
Those tools
To bring justice