Growing Up Chicano with Emily Dickinson Talent

Because I would not bow down for them
they kindly beat me up
and sent me off to jail,

the paddy wagon
held but just myself
and every Chicano in Aztlan.

We passed the schools
where whites could learn,
we passed the fields where only Chicanos worked.

We passed the Aztec sun
and tried to make our way up
as they kindly beat us down,

but somehow we surmised
the white man was a horse’s rear
towards immorality,

and we continue
to fight the good fight
that you shouldn’t have to fight in America.