REVERBERATING VOICES |
Reverberating Voices, my manuscript of poetry, was written on account of stories conveyed to me by my Central American parents, while growing up in San Francisco. I speak about the Central American Diaspora: multiple stories representing the various oppressions, such as racial and class oppression, experienced by Salvadorans during the civil war in the 1970s and 1980s.
By taking in stories, from Ernesto, my father, and Rosa, my mother, I learned that my cousins, aunts and uncles had been categorized as communists during the Salvadoran civil war. I recreate these narratives into poems as in “Betrayal” and “Crossing Dreamers,” both of which also represent the thousands of Salvadorans forced to flee their homeland due to war.
Poems like “Bilingual Love,” symbolize how Central Americans on both sides of the US-Mexican border are diverse people with fluid identities, involving language, race, culture, etc. They are multi-perspective narratives rewriting the violent stereotypes projected onto the Central American subject during the civil war. Although Central Americans have faced oppressive struggles, both in the US and in their homeland, here, they are represented as subjects of history speaking collectively about this history.
By taking in stories, from Ernesto, my father, and Rosa, my mother, I learned that my cousins, aunts and uncles had been categorized as communists during the Salvadoran civil war. I recreate these narratives into poems as in “Betrayal” and “Crossing Dreamers,” both of which also represent the thousands of Salvadorans forced to flee their homeland due to war.
Poems like “Bilingual Love,” symbolize how Central Americans on both sides of the US-Mexican border are diverse people with fluid identities, involving language, race, culture, etc. They are multi-perspective narratives rewriting the violent stereotypes projected onto the Central American subject during the civil war. Although Central Americans have faced oppressive struggles, both in the US and in their homeland, here, they are represented as subjects of history speaking collectively about this history.