My grandmothers and grandfathers came to Ellis Island before the door slammed shut -to all Italians and Eastern European Jews -due to the Immigration Act of 1926.
My grandmother, 12 years of age, survived the Triangle Shirt Waste Factory Fire because she jumped through smashed windows, landing on her sisters’ bodies who jumped before her. Women and children from teeming shores.
I am the granddaughter of a woman who worked in sweat shops, sewed till her fingers bled so her children could dream the dream of America.
I am the daughter of first generation Americans, Union organizers who taught there is no justice without compassion.
I am an Italian-American working class kid from the Bronx. Where elders words-Italian staccato -mixed with opera, Dylan, Leonard Bernstein, and the score from Fiddler.
I am thevdaughter
of a feminist
mother
who
never went to college
Yet,
devoured
books
made
music
believed
in justice
gave
me
strength
To be
A nasty woman
When nasty women are needed.
They are me.
Known and
unknown
ancestors
Italian
Spanish
Lebanese
Syrian
Iranian
Irish
I am
Your
Catholic
Sephardic
Jew
Agnostic
We are
the brave,
courageous,
Seeker
indentured
shackled
Minions
crossed oceans,
left
with memories
of home
from the other side
We are here
because
of them.
We fight
on
because
of them.
We
are
because
of them.
Our
door
open
always.
there
are no
strangers
here.
-February 4 2017
bronxpoet 