Patron Saints of Nothing

by Randy Ribay

I curse my parents for not teaching me the language when I was young, when the struggle would have seemed more like a fun game than an identity crisis.

It strikes me that I cannot claim this country’s serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history. To say that any aspect of it is part of me is to say that all of it is part of me.

Fuck those people who say being born somewhere doesn’t count if you didn’t grow up there or because half your ancestors are from somewhere else. Fuck anyone who tries to tell you who you are and where you belong.