The Hands You Need
The hands that pick your food each day
The hands that rock your children to sleep
The hands that trim the grass on your yards
Are hands that you choose not to keep.
You want hands that can do the work
The jobs that no one else wants to do
But when those hands sit with you at your table
You say you don’t want them near you
Our fathers crossed the distant seas
With dreams their children could be free
They came with hope and pride
To build a life on the other side
They gave their sweat,
They gave their years
They suffered from hunger, pain, and fears
They built their homes where others live
And ask for little in return to give
You want us to work in your land
But not near where you stand
You need our hands in your kitchen
But close doors when we come in
One day, perhaps, we’ll understand
We are all people, hand in hand
The hands you need, the hands you choose to fear
Are human hands, and we are here.
Larimar Araya ‘30
We live in a very divisive world and with this poem I tried to remind people that Hispanics came here for the same dreams as others, we work to support each other, and we are humans like everybody else. I believe Hispanics are taken advantage of because of our hard work. It is very sad when people want to minimize our accomplishments because all we want equality.
Arrest and Detention
Stand before me,
With that fistful of stardust,
And heed my calls
For you must have no doubts
In the fatal intensity of your being.
So set to live,
As such,
To die.
And to return beyond
The other side of everything.
To a sanctioned paradise
Where light may shine
Through the eyes of the dead,
In tandem with the dances of
Earth and Sun. A pale garden,
Living and breathing, warm but
Empty, on the periphery of all that
Has been extracted from the two banks
Of time.
A land without dust nor
Troubles. Composed
From our dreams,
The song of
The collective
Consciousness,
The voice of our
People. Maintained
With will, in the faith
Of the masses, the heirs
To the station of the prophets.
For we of paradise are a boundless
Nation
You must
Remain sure of the presence of
God in your every breath, and you may
Bargain these silent prayers for absolution,
Take the olive branch, and
Accept the warm hand
Of divine mercy.
For otherwise,
We shall not spare you
By any measure.
Pearce Boylan ‘28
I had a dream where something came back into my life, it had intruded into my home, violently so, but it wasn't seeking violence anymore. It wanted to convert me. It kept reminding me of my faith, of how we were both Catholics, it spoke of these things with a soft malice in its voice. It threatened me. It told me I was being a bad Christian, it told me I could be better. It told me only I could save myself from it. It told me to surrender to God or it wouldn't let me go.