AmeRícan Related Poem Content Details
BY TATO LAVIERA
we gave birth to a new generation,
AmeRícan, broader than lost gold
never touched, hidden inside the
puerto rican mountains.
we gave birth to a new generation
AmeRícan, it includes everything
imaginable you-name-it-we-got-it
society.
we gave birth to a new generation,
AmeRícan salutes all folklores,
european, indian, black, spanish
and anything else compatible:
AmeRícan, singing to composer pedro flores’ palm
trees up high in the universal sky!
AmeRícan, sweet soft spanish danzas gypsies
moving lyrics la española cascabelling
presence always singing at our side!
AmeRícan, beating jíbaro modern troubadours
crying guitars romantic continental
bolero love songs!
AmeRícan, across forth and across back
back across and forth back
forth across and back and forth
our trips are walking bridges!
it all dissolved into itself, an attempt
was truly made, the attempt was truly
absorbed, digested, we spit out
the poison, we spit out in malice,
we stand, affirmative in action,
to reproduce a broader answer to the
marginality that gobbled us up abruptly!
AmeRícan, walking plena-rhythms in new york,
strutting beautifully alert, alive
many turning eyes wondering,
admiring!
AmeRícan, defining myself my own way any way many
many ways Am e Rícan, with the big R and the
accent on the í!
AmeRícan, like the soul gliding talk of gospel
boogie music!
AmeRícan, speaking new words in spanglish tenements,
fast tongue moving street corner “que
corta” talk being invented at the insistence
of a smile!
AmeRícan, abounding inside so many ethnic english
people, and out of humanity, we blend
and mix all that is good!
AmeRícan, integrating in new york and defining our
own destino, our own way of life,
AmeRícan, defining the new america, humane america,
admired america, loved america, harmonious
america, the world in peace, our energies
collectively invested to find other civili-
zations, to touch God, further and further,
to dwell in the spirit of divinity!
AmeRícan, yes, for now, for i love this, my second
land, and i dream to take the accent from
the altercation, and be proud to call
myself american, in the u.s. sense of the
word, AmeRícan, America!
Tato Laviera, “AmeRícan” from Benedición: The Complete Poetry of Tato Laviera. Copyright © 2014 by Tato Laviera. Reprinted by permission of Arte Público Press.
Source: Benedición: The Complete Poetry of Tato Laviera (Arte Público Press, 2014)
Nuyorican poet Tato Laviera was born in Puerto Rico, the son of a philosopher and a writer. He moved to New York City in 1960, and was educated at Cornell University and Brooklyn College. Shifting between English and Spanish in his poetry, Laviera addresses themes of immigration, history, and transcultural identity. In a 2010 New York Times profile on the poet, whose life was affected in his last years by diabetes and blindness, writer David Gonzalez observes, “His writings, which pulse to the flowing rhythms of Spanish and English, deal with the tug of allegiances to culture and home, as well as race and language.