For Brown Girls with Sharp Edge – Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez
DEAR BROWN GIRL… You are eternal. You have a fire burning inside you, and it comes from your mami’s side. Protect your fire, protect that flame. You feel everything and feel nothing. You carry your pain, the pain that comes from asking too many questions, because once you’ve heard your chains rattle, you cannot unhear them. You persevere for yourself, but also for your mami and your papi, and for your little hermanita who is only now beginning to understand the limitations that our cultura has placed on her. You are neither here nor there, but everywhere. You carry your cultura in your veins and academia in your heart. You have not forgotten where you come from, but you have learned and earned and maybe even forced your way into spaces not meant for you. You are poderosa like that. You defy the expectations of respectability and you do not seem to care—do you, Brown girl.