As we grapple with the state-sanctioned violence towards immigrants and citizens in our country, we offer a midweek meditation: the words of Isa Lopez from the Twin Cities. Isa is the 27-year-old child of Mexican immigrants and an indigenous poet, advocate, and organizer who shares that her life and art have been reshaped in the wake of being arrested by Federal agents last year and as she awaits trial in three months.
Meditation written and delivered by Isa Lopez. Click to watch Isa share the poem on Instagram. (You don’t need an account to watch it.) Below is the full text:
I walk outside and I see ICE staring back at me.
Its cold presence stirs an earthquake in my body.
Do I freeze or do I run?
I ask myself this question.
Did my parents have time to ask themselves this
when they left the motherland?
If I run, I might slip into its brute arms
and be catched by its cages.
If I freeze, will it drown out the warmth
my parents taught me to be.
Will the cuffing freeze the southern sun in my blood veins
just to be as numb as them?
The order of their ignorance can thrive in an unconscious, vulnerable pride.
I never thought their hands could be just as brown as mine.
The cold thrives in control.
The wrong ice is melting
and the warmth of black and brown bodies is freezing.
Can I walk back into the pattern of survival
my lineage taught me flourishes out of love?