His mind spins—brown cocoa delish skin
Kissed by the sun glow morenito de mi vida
Baby says he's got a sun tan, that his color isn't really his
Really?! Baby, they called me Prieta and to the homies La Morena
I love my brown skin . . . and I nourished you with words of
Xicanx self-love, pride . . . and yet moments lost in a classroom
you forget.

Forget that you are the product of love in the barrio—
You are the reason I am not lost,
A statistic.

You are the reason I am pursuing this degree—
The reason I fight.

I love you more than the coyote loves the moon,
More than salmon love the river,
More than the butterflies love the boarder.
I love you to a dysfunction,
Like the way my dad told my mom not to love us.

You are a radical thought,
An act of freedom- my base of everything . . .

How can you question the history in your bones?
Lost in the classroom where you search for evidence of your DNA
In history book provided by the conqueror
Do not be conquered.

No mi morenito chulo de los cósmicos

An alien only because your mother comes from the moon
Your eyes like the stars
Twinkle in a delight when you talk about your father in prison-
You hoping to connect to a Central American pipeline-
To pull him out and embrace you . . .
All this you struggle with y mas . . .

I am sorry I could not be all the influences in your life.
Don't believe that you are an outsider, too brown, alone.
Resist the energy that wants to strip you of that love.
Your ancestral blood connects you to your magic, li'l man.

Be the sun,
Be the brown, complex, cartoon loving, jazz loving, empanada-eating,
artist, musician, and inventor you are.

Translate yourself back to English if you must.
Resist the idea that you are any less of the greatness you truly are, mi papacito.