Clap When You Land

by Elizabeth Acevedo

Papi turned to my nine-year-old self & said: “Never, ever, let them see you sweat, negra. Fight until you can’t breathe, & if you have to forfeit, you forfeit smiling, make them think you let them win.”

Our land, lush & green, is bought & sold to foreign powers so they can build luxury hotels for others to rest their heads. The bananas & yucca & sugarcane farmed & harvested, exported, while kids thank God for every little scrap. The developed world wastes gas, raises carbon emissions & water levels that threaten to disappear us in a single gulp. Even the women, girls like me, our mothers & tías, our bodies are branded jungle gyms.

The patron saint of the ocean is known for containing many parts of herself: she is a nurturer, but she is also a ferocious defender. & so I remember that to walk this world you must be kind but also fierce.