Letter to the Editor: Voice of a Dreamer

I was the wrong color — what would people think? You said I’d compete with your other children and lower their wages. I didn’t fit in with your culture. I wasn’t part of the plan. It would have been best if I’d waited for a better time to come (but the time was now), and you killed me before I had a chance to speak for myself. Where was my asylum? Where was my guarantee of protection? Who was my sponsor? I was vulnerable. Who spoke for me? When did you march for me? Did you hold up a poster in my name? Did you have strong, angry words in support of me at the post office? Did you support my mother as she carried me? I would have been a hard worker in your country. I could have joined you in your human struggle but there was no choice for me.

I was the female for whom there was no feminism, but I didn’t look the way you wanted me to look. My eyes didn’t look right you said - they were too far apart and slanted and my neck was too short. I could have been an American. I was a poor huddled mass yearning to breathe, but you made me wretched refuse and you threw me away. I was terrorized. I was poured out as a sacrifice to your selfishness into a glass baking dish, and a lamp was lifted, but only so they could be sure I was all accounted for — limbs, torso, fingers, toes, head. No one took my picture as I waited at the fence and I was buried in an unmarked grave.

Where is my dad? Where is my mom? Where are your tears?

Mark Lutz

The Dalles