Growing Up Chicano Brady In The 1950’s

I was the Chicano Brady
Alice fed me beans and tortillas
back in the kitchen,

I took the bus to the all black
and Chicano school
in the abandoned white neighborhood.

If I played basketball
in the driveway
and hit Marsha on the nose

it would not start a gang war
and though I didn’t have my own room
I was one of the Chicano Bradys

and though you don’t see my picture
on the opening credits
I was there and I am here

so you can’t wipe me away from history.
I was the misunderstood Chicano Brady
speaking Spanish to an English-speaking world.