De Nuevo
In 2018 the US State Department issued a Category 4 Do Not Travel Warning
BIO
Carlos J. Reyes is a Mexican-Puerto Rican poet and essayist from Chicago, Illinois. He is a current MFA Creative Writing-Poetry candidate at Columbia College Chicago. His writing explores, examines, and interrogates the intersections between Latinx and American culture, immigration, and language.
for the Mexican state of Michoacán
I get on the bus with other men at the
pickup spot while the sky is still a dark
purple on both sides of the road. We
board silently, hearing the snore of the
engine and blow of the wind that scraps
against thin tree leaves.
A good day is when the skunk spray fails
to come through the windows. The streets
are barren with only dirt on the edges of the
road until about an hour later.
Eight men, some with ripped-plaid shirts,
other with tank-tops, are spread out between
two gray-rusted Ford F-150 cargo beds
that kiss the edge of the road with rifles
griped in hand. The bus briefly pauses before
slugging past the F-150s. Everyone tries not
to stare out the window, but I do anyway.
A man with a black-thin mustache and black
bandana in a white tank-top makes eye-contact
with me before giving a slight nod of approval.
They never stop the bus or ask questions. The
sides of their trucks are sloppily tagged with
black spray-paint.
Autodefensas para nuestra gente y ciudad.
When we are dropped off, we robotically form
a single-file line and stand by for El Jefe to
instruct us. He is yet to emerge out of his
wrinkled-wooden office shack.
We are a dirty line, wearing dirt-stained jeans,
shirts, and caps from yesterday’s pickings. Our
wait for El Jefe is longer than usual—beyond
the row of miniature aguacate trees, and just
behind the dark-orange dirt hill, the sun is
on the cusp of full arousal.
¡Mira, solemente estamos buscando chamba!
Two men in ripped-denim overalls, with thick
disheveled mustaches, and grime-blessed
sombreros emerge from behind. A man on my
left, wearing a ripped knockoff Chivas jersey
askes the two men where they came from—
the men briefly stare at each other before approaching
and mumbling.
Pinche narcos, robaron nuestra planta.
After a moment of silence, we all lose focus,
gazing into the sky as a group of black and
orange winged butterflies take flight.
When Mexico sends its People, they’re not sending their Best
From Trump's 2015 Presidential Campaign Announcement Speech
Exhibit A: Three Men in Blazers
Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro Iñárritu.
Three men, with white raspy facial hair, and a combined net
worth of $110 million. They have all caressed the androgynous
golden figure on Primetime Television—winning Academy
Awards for Best Director. They have come via the way of
CDMX and Guadalajara.
Exhibit B: El Journo
Jorge Ramos is the physical embodiment of the Mestizos, for his
skin is a light-tan that only managed to be slightly pecked by the sun,
with a combination of green, unfiltered, eyes. Accolades include eight
Emmy Awards, various features on Time Magazine, and being the first
Journo to be removed and re-invited from a Presidential nominee’s
presser, on the same day, after being told get out of my country. Despite
the fame, the Journo’s favorite anxiety-calming meal is a classic Latino
Struggle Meal—a toasted slice of bread, smothered with mantequilla,
and drizzled with sugar.
Exhibit C: Every Paletero & Elotero
Behind every man wearing a sombrero pushing a bell-jingling carrito,
covered in stickers of every paleta imaginable, and every woman
wearing a large apron behind a towering cart, slicing elotes into styrofoam
cups, can guarantee you that they’ve brought joy to at least one child
at the playground. They roam the streets during the hideous springs of April
and into the stench of the summer after their eight-hour jobs, creating extra
shifts so that their children can be warm and go to college, while still thinking
about the ones that were left behind, on the other side of the fence.
Personal Aspirations of an Immigrant: Tío & Apá
i.
For my tío is it to one day
have a job that is more than
just chopping heads of living
shrimps under the moonlight
with a knife’s blade that
sometimes strikes the sides of
his fingers in a place where
pay is unmarked bills tucked
in envelopes every Friday? I
reckon that it is to live in peace
which is to run the fake social
security card that rest in back
part of his wallet through the
shredder dissipating years of
hidden shame and fear.
ii.
Sometimes apá believes that
he has already made it for
his most prized possession
after the family photos and
dusted cassette tapes from
back home is a photo of him
in his line cook uniform still
free of canola oil stains with
a knife in hand standing beside
President Bill Clinton. It is the
only photo I’ve seen apá smile
so bright in after years of working
the same line cook job where the
most meaningful pay comes in
the form of fresh meat cuts in
his ragged green backpack.
Immigration Interview with Tucker Carlson
After Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s “Immigration Interview with Jay Leno”
What would happen if I just strolled into
your country illegally, as if it were my local
grocery store?
Farmers would secretly yearn to their
wives about possessing your smooth,
uncalloused, hands, as students from
the university would whisper que gringo
bandido es ese güey.
Why are illegal invading my country?
Because this America, our America,
is infatuated with cheap labor; why
wait 20 years for Work Authorization
Status while my neighbor gets a job
picking mushrooms in a stale room,
before me, since they’ll be paid less
than minimum wage.
I don’t get your point. . .
As my padres used to say back
home, hay que ponerse las pilas.
What are you saying, Englissshh, por fav—
Being paid $5 an hour is more than
$5 a day; we send money back to our
families so they can remodel their
kitchen ceilings and not have blue
mold drip into their bowls as they eat—
You’re not answering my questions!
Americans are sick of paying for your
taxes and having to adher—
We pick the tomatoes for your salad
in dirty sweat-drenched overalls; we
change the yellow-crusted bed sheets
that you masturbate upon in silence;
we chop the green grass that would
otherwise consume the delicate picket
fence and the floors of your mansion—
Your premise seems deeply disingenuous;
you don’t deserve to be here picking beans
with those hardened and contaminated
hands—
I did not come here—
I should just call ICE—
to be disrespected.
You’re an illegal alien, period!
No complaints, just deportation.