my graduation speech
BY T AT O LA VI ER A
i think in spanish
i write in english
i want to go back to puerto rico,
but i wonder if my kink could live
in ponce, mayagüez and carolina
tengo las venas aculturadas
escribo en spanglish
abraham in español
abraham in english
tato in spanish
"taro" in english
tonto in both languages
how are you?
¿cómo estás?
i don't know if i'm coming
or si me fui ya
si me dicen barranquitas, yo reply,
"¿con qué se come eso?"
si me dicen caviar, i digo,
"a new pair of converse sneakers."
ahí supe que estoy jodío
ahí supe que estamos jodíos
english or spanish
spanish or english
spanenglish
now, dig this:
hablo lo inglés matao
hablo lo español matao
no sé leer ninguno bien
so it is, spanglish to matao
what i digo
¡ay, virgen, yo no sé hablar!
Asimilao by Tato Laviera
assimilated? qué assimilated,
brother, yo soy asimilao,
así mi la o sí es verdad
tengo un lado asimilao.
you see, they went deep … . Ass
oh … … . . they went deeper … SEE
oh, oh, … they wente deeper … ME
but the sound LAO was too black
for LATED, LAO could not be
translated, assimilated,
no, asimilao, melao,
it became a black
spanish word but
we do have asimilados
perfumados and by the
last count even they
were becoming asimilao
how can it be analyzed
as american? así que se
chavaron
trataron
pero no
pudieron
con el AO
de la palabra
principal, déles gracias a los prietos
que cambiaron asimilado al popular asimilao
TITO MADERA SMITH
by Tato Laviera
(for Dr. Juan Flores)
he claims he can translate palés matos’
black poetry faster than i can talk,
and that if i get too smart,
he will double translate pig latin
english right out of webster’s
dictionary, do you know him?
he claims he can walk into east harlem
apartment where langston hughes gives
spanglish classes for newly-arrived
immigrants seeking a bolitero-numbers
career and part-time vendors of cuchi-
fritters sunday afternoon in central
park, do you know him?
he claims to have a stronghold of the
only santería secret baptist sect in
west harlem, do you know him?
he claims he can talk spanish styled in
sunday dress eating crabmeat-jueyes
brought over on the morning eastern
plane deep fried by la negra costoso
joyfully singing puerto rican folklore: “maría luisa no seas brava,
llévame contigo pa la cama,” or
“oiga capitán delgado, hey captain delgaro,
mande a revisar la grama, please inspect
the grass, que dicen que un aeroplano,
they say that an airplane throws marijuana
seeds.”
do you know him? yes you do,
i know you know him, that’s right,
madera smith, tito madera smith:
he blacks and prieto talks at the same time,
splitting his mother’s santurce talk,
twisting his father’s south carolina soul,
adding new york scented blackest harlem
brown-eyes diddy bops, tú sabes mami,
that i can ski like a bomba soul salsa
mambo turns to aretha franklin stevie
wonder nicknamed patato guaguancó steps,
do you know him?
he puerto rican talks to las mamitas
outside the pentecostal church, and
he gets away with it, fast-paced i
understand-you-my-man, with clave
sticks coming out of his pockets hooked
to his stereophonic 15-speaker indispensable
disco sounds blasting away at cold reality
struggling to say estás buena baby
as he walks out of tune and out of
step with alleluia cascabells,
puma sneakers,
pants rolled up,
shirt cut in middle chest,
santería chains,
madamo pantallas,
into the spanish social club,
to challenge elders in dominoes,
like the king od el diario’s
budweiser tournament
drinking cerveza-beer
like a champ,
do you know him?
well, i sure don’t,
and if i did, i’d
refer him to 1960
social scientists
for assimilation
acculturation
digging
autopsy
into
their
heart
attacks,
oh,
oh,
there
he
comes,
you can call him tito,
or you can call him madera,
or you can call him smitty,
or you can call him mr. t,
or you can call him nuyorican,
or you can call him black,
or you can call him latino,
or you can call him mr. smith,
his sharp eyes of awareness,
greeting us in aristocratic harmony:
“you can call me many things, but
you gotta call me something.”
